He found himself in the ruined section of Stack 5 without quite deciding to go there. Old habit. When things went wrong, his feet carried him to the places that felt safe. The junkyard. The scrape yard. Garbage dump. Wesley needed a moment to think.
The Edisun spheres down here were ancient. Half of them dead, the rest flickering at maybe thirty percent output. The Partisant didn’t waste resources maintaining lights in sections nobody was supposed to use. Wesley had always found it easier to think in this dimness. Less pressure behind his eyes, fewer headaches.
He crouched behind a collapsed air handler, watching the grating above for movement. The lockdown alert still pulsed on his wrist. No change.
A noise made him freeze. Raised voices. An argument.
Wesley peered through a gap in the wreckage.
Glendin and Riven stood on a walkway twenty meters away. Glendin’s wild curls were damp with sweat. Riven’s jaw was set, her posture rigid.
What was Glendin doing on Stack 5 again? Cross-Stack movement required written consent. Glendin gets away with everything. The drones should have flagged him immediately. Especially during a lockdown.
Unless he knew something about the lockdown that Wesley didn’t.
“—fruit of what?” Glendin was saying. “Fruit doesn’t grow on Stack—”
“You’re not listening.” Riven cut him off. “Return to your Stack before we’re caught.”
“Oh, we’re way past caught.” Glendin’s grin was sharp. “The whole sector’s locked down because of him.”
Wesley’s stomach dropped.
“You don’t know that,” Riven said.
“I know the drones showed up right after Farrow ran home with something in his bag. I know he’s got a little hideout somewhere in Sector 5. I know—” Glendin stopped. His eyes found Wesley through the gap in the debris. “Well. Speak of the little rat.”
Wesley stood slowly. No point hiding now.
“What do you want, Glendin?”
“Answers.” Glendin spread his hands. “The whole Stack’s on lockdown. Drones everywhere. And you’re skulking around the ruins like you’ve got something to hide.” He tilted his head. “What are you hiding, Farrow?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.” But Glendin’s grin widened. “Doesn’t matter. I didn’t come to turn you in. Let me see your pockets Wes. Let’s see what I can find. I know you got something.”
“I d-don’t have anything.”
“You do.” Glendin jerked his chin toward the walkway below. “Oh wait what is that. Is it? It’s not a drone. It’s not a Partisant member. Look down there. Tell me what you see.”
Wesley hesitated. This was a trap. It had to be a trap.
But Riven’s expression had changed. She wasn’t angry anymore. She looked... afraid.
He moved to the railing and looked down.
A dark patch clung to the underside of the metal grating. It shifted as Glendin stepped forward, stretching like something alive.
Wesley’s brain stuttered.
Equipment malfunction? No. The shape was too precise.
Projection glitch? The Edisun system didn’t project. It only illuminated.
Optical illusion? He moved his head. The patch moved with Glendin, not his line of sight.
“I don’t...”
“He doesn’t know.” Glendin laughed. “Look at his face, Riven. He doesn’t know.”
The dark patch rippled. Wesley tracked its shape to the railing, to the solid metal blocking the single functioning Edisun sphere overhead, to the place where light couldn’t reach because there was only ONE source now, not the usual omnidirectional array.
His mother’s stories surfaced: Before, when the sun moved across the sky, everything had a twin made of darkness.
Shadow.
The word surfaced from somewhere forbidden.
“There it is,” Glendin said. “The great revelation. When the lights fail, the truth shows through. The Edisun system only works when EVERY sphere is functioning.” He gestured at the dead spheres around them. “Down here, in the places they’ve forgotten? The old rules still apply.”
Wesley’s throat closed. Seventeen years. Seventeen years of staring at walls and floors and ceilings, and he’d missed the most obvious thing in the world.
What else had he missed?
“What Stack you gonna end up on? Stack 1, 2, 3, certainly not stack 200?” Glendin continued. “That’s where you want to end up, right? The top?” He laughed. “Nobody comes back from Stack 200 the same. But you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
Wesley’s mind was still reeling. Shadows existed. The Edisun Lights weren’t absolute. Everything he’d been taught was—
“That’s enough.” Riven stepped between them. “He gets it. You’ve made your point.”
“Have I?” Glendin’s eyes glittered. “Or is there more he doesn’t know? More secrets in your pocket Wesley? More secrets you’ve been keeping from your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my—”
“Twenty-five days, Riven.” Glendin’s voice dropped. “Twenty-five days until the alignment. You really think he’s ready for what’s coming?”
The alignment. His aunt had been counting down to it. Twenty-six days, she’d said. Now twenty-five.
“What alignment?” Wesley demanded. “What are you talking about?”
Glendin just smiled. “Ask your robot.”
Wesley went cold.
“Oh yes.” Glendin’s grin sharpened. “You think I don’t know about your little project? The one you’ve been building in that maintenance shaft?” He tapped his temple. “I’ve been crawling through these tunnels for years, looking for answers about my brother. Found your little hideout by accident three months ago. Power tap spliced into the main conduit. Pulling what, forty watts? Enough to keep the drones from noticing, not enough to keep you from a beating if they ever do. Very clever.” He leaned closer. “I’ve known for months, Farrow. I just didn’t care. But the drones might. Especially today.”
“If you turn me in—”
“I’m not turning you in. I’m giving you a choice.” Glendin stepped back, but something flickered in his eyes. Something that wasn’t mockery. “The alignment is coming. Things are about to change. You can keep hiding in the dark like a rat, or you can give me what you are hiding.”
“Why do you even care?” Wesley demanded. “You’ve hated me since we were kids. Why?”
Glendin’s jaw tightened. For a moment, the cruelty slipped, and beneath it was something raw.
“My brother was a Spinner,” Glendin said quietly. “Stack 200. Four years before your mother disappeared.” His voice hardened. “They told us he was ‘transferred to essential operations.’ Same thing they told you about Helena. Same lies.” He stepped forward. “Your mother knew something, Farrow. She was building something. And when the alignment comes, I’m going to find out what happened to my brother, even if I have to take apart everything your family built to do it.”
[ENCRYPTED:Transferred to essential operations.]
“Click, click, click, click”
A drone just flew into view. All three panicked.
Glendin seized a hook, snapped a lever, and hoisted himself up through the grating. Gone.
Wesley stood frozen. Riven grabbed Wesley and pulled him into an abandoned mechanical box. Before Wesley could realize where she’d taken him the door sealed with a wet thump. Racks. Stacked bowls. It was a soup cooler. He was hiding in a soup cooler. The smell was beef-adjacent.
Wesley’s mind wasn’t on the drones though. Glendin knew about Roz. Glendin had known for months.
“Wesley.” Riven’s hand found his arm. “Breathe.”
“He knows. He—” Wesley’s voice cracked. “If he tells anyone—”
“He won’t.” Riven’s grip tightened. “Glendin’s a lot of things, but he’s not stupid. Turning you in means admitting he knew about contraband and didn’t report it. He’d go down too.”
“Then why tell me?”
Riven was quiet for a moment as a drone passed their location. “Because the alignment is coming. Everything changes at the alignment.” She glanced at the drone still pooling above the soup container. “The alignment. I’ve heard whispers in training. The moons are shifting. The Cradle’s membrane is weakening. And people like Glendin...” She shook her head. “They’re choosing sides.”
“Sides of what?”
“I don’t know yet.” She met his eyes. “Wesley are we on the lockdown because of you?”
Wesley looked up at the grating where the drones still hovered, their blue scanners cutting through the air. Two hundred meters.
He couldn’t answer Riven. He couldn’t reach Roz. Not yet. Not safely.
I am concerned for you, she’d said. Is that a normal function?
“It’s not me,” Wesley said. “They can’t be after me.”
Riven nodded. “The lockdown will lift before the test. They always do.” She paused. “Tomorrow changes everything, Wesley. Whatever you’re hiding, whatever you’ve built... make sure it’s worth it.”
After a moment the drones were nearly out of sight. Riven opened the hatch and climbed out. “Count to four hundred,” she said, and left him alone with the soup bowls.