Three Years Ago

  One Day Before Launch of the Hermes Mission

  “Nah, you don’t want to put points in Intelligence if you’re going to pick Luminous as your Aspect,” Lore said. “Charisma is the stat that actually improves healing and buffing.”

  I lifted the Leap headset an inch to look sideways at my brother. We sat together on my ratty couch, and as much as I enjoyed playing games with my brother, I kept wanting to look at him. After today, he’d board that big habship. He’d be on it for three years before it got where it was going, and he’d be playing this game the whole time.

  “What if I want to do damage and heal people?” I asked, watching his face under his own headset. At only 13 years old, he still had a baby face, but I could tell he would have the good luck to resemble our mother in adulthood, albeit with a darker skin tone. Whereas I was a paler copy of our dad. Honestly, we didn’t even look related.

  My little brother chuckled. “Then you should have picked another class. Chanters are buffers.”

  “Huh. What should I have picked, then?”

  “Well, Paladin for damage, and Sentinel for tank. But you could always try being an Infernal Chanter, unless you’d rather have a pet do the damage for you, then you could go with Swayed magic. Or you could join the Arcanus faction later, and….”

  As he talked, I smiled. There it was again, that excited but serious tone in his voice. He always got that way when he knew a lot about a subject, and he loved nothing more than to sit and explain an entire encyclopedia’s worth of information to anyone who would listen.

  And he did know a lot about Seven Keys, especially for someone who’d only been playing a few months. He’d been given a headset when the USN had accepted him onto the Hermes project, and even though they were running him ragged with training, he’d somehow found the time to become a Seven Keys expert.

  The Leap headset I was wearing was his going-away gift to me. We won’t be able to play together, because of the comms delay, he’d explained. But I want you to have something to do besides dig. Otherwise, you’ll go crazy out here.

  He wasn’t wrong. The thought that I’d live my whole life and die in this place… it sucked. But it would be so much better now, because Lore would be somewhere safe. A leech camp was no place for a kid.

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  Lore’s diatribe petered out, and he turned his head, lifting his headset off to find me grinning at him. He scowled.

  “You got me going on purpose, didn’t you?”

  I gave him a light punch to the shoulder. “What can I say? It’s so easy.”

  He tried to pout for a second, then laughed. I laughed too.

  Then the laughing stopped.

  “I’m going to miss you, kid,” I said.

  He dropped his helmet back on over his blue-gray eyes, but I could tell from the set of his jaw that he was trying not to cry. I’d seen that same expression enough times in the Detroit Iso, back when he was younger. Back when all we had was each other.

  Now, he had citizenship. A job. An adventure to go on, out in space. And he had no choice but to leave me behind.

  “Let’s just get your character made,” he said, his voice cracking, and not just from puberty. “I want to set you up good while I’m gone.”

  I dropped the headset back on, and just like that, we were back in the Gem Baths, the area outside the first town in Seven Keys. This was where players chose what magic Aspect they would use for the rest of the game. It was a beautiful cliff side hot spring, its seven glowing pools connected by zigzagging mountain paths while Old Tibetan prayer flags rustled above us. Each pool glowed with one color of the rainbow, marking whatever Aspect it would grant the player. There was color everywhere—the exact opposite of the desert.

  “Let’s go with Luminous,” I said. “I’ll go all-in on being a healer-buffer. That way, other players will always want me around. A nice change from the real world.”

  He snorted. “You mean a nice change from who you used to be.”

  I smiled despite myself, but didn’t respond. He knew I didn’t like to talk about that time. I’d given up that life. I wanted to be a citizen, now. To be stable and fed, meek and unassuming. I’d lost too much for being the opposite.

  “If I got out of here, you can, too,” Lore said softly. “If I do good enough work, maybe they’ll take that into account.”

  “It sure can’t hurt,” I said, even though I didn’t believe it. Lore had skills. I’d made sure of it. I’d spent every moment of his childhood making sure he had what he needed to chase his passion for computers, and it had turned him into a programming prodigy.

  That skill had brought him out of this dump. That skill would take him all the way to Mercury, where humanity would make its next great leap.

  Laurence North would be a part of history. And his big brother would still be a leech.

  Lore sniffed. “Talon… there’s still time.”

  I stiffened. “No.”

  “Visiting hours aren’t over yet. You can still see her.”

  “We’re not talking about this,” I said, my voice harder than I meant it to be.

  “But—”

  “Lore. Let it go. It’s done.”

  I could hear him swallow. He wanted to say more, but there was nothing he could say to change my mind about that.

  Before the whole thing could feel too sad, I slung an arm around his shoulders. Maybe it would be best if we spent our last hours playing games. We could always talk later.

  On a delay, though. And never in person.

  “So, which Gem Bath will make me Luminous? It better have a hot woman in it,” I said.

  He burst out laughing. “Oh, it does! She wears a literal bikini. You’ll love it.”

  I listened to his laugh. I tried to memorize it, to memorize the warm, solid feel of him.

  My little brother. My only family.

  After today, I’d never touch him again.