"The ground has given way to instability
So long, solid foundation and hello, dear anarchy
Impossible to control, impossible to see
So we heed the call into the fall
One and all, embracing entropy" - "Embracing Entropy" - Circle of Dust

The distant shouts and yells from the other inmates grew further away as Red led his little party further into what they had always called "The Wall."

They'd never been inside. The gray-painted walls were shabby, paint flicking off in places. Whatever the prison was on the inside, clearly the guards were not living the life of luxury.

He took one more look at the inside of the prison, one last glance at the dead man on the floor. Then he turned away. Inhaling as he did so, he didn't look back.

He winced every time he heard a shot, the inmates had the other 8 guns but the guards would have had more.

There were knocked-over tables and chairs. They moved slowly through, stepping around the debris.

He was torn. Those other inmates were out there risking their lives because of their plan. But he didn't want to risk those he had with him by following after the group. On the other hand, they'd all been a mob a few minutes ago bent on tearing apart the woman safely slung over his shoulder. If he would have stopped to think about it, he would have realized he was more than ready to risk his life for Ember, but all he could do was shove the anger aside that rose up when he thought about her dying that way.

In the end, he let them go. They could find their own way, they had chosen, it's not like they'd waited even for their leader, Karik who lay dead behind them.

Dag spoke his own thoughts out loud. "We can't save them all today, Red."

Red nodded. Dag was pragmatic, he was also the most caring person Red had the fortune to know. His stiff posture told Red all he needed to know about whether or not Dag liked what they were about to do.

He focused his attention on those with him. Ember he held against his shoulder, clinging to her tightly. The image of her coughing up blood on that table frightened him more than anything. He didn't want to lose her, not now. The two young boys who'd managed to help them, Red nodded to both. He hoped he wasn't leading them to their deaths. Most of all he wanted to get T somewhere he'd get real care, not just left to die because he was considered unfit. Anger roiled through his gut. He would get out of here...

What he would do then, he wasn't sure.

Two Clicks East. It really wasn't that far, but getting out? He tried to remember the rudimentary "tour" he'd been given of the place. Red had been slightly sedated at the time as he was considered dangerous. He'd also been a high-profile prisoner. His death would not have gone unnoticed.

There were undoubtedly others still back there, others imprisoned in mind as well as the body.

I'll come back for you, he promised silently. He didn't want to let the deaths that he knew were occurring be in vain. If these people were still out there, he would come back and level this place to the ground I will wipe this place from history. Nothing would give him more pleasure than reducing the prison complex to rubble.

They'd been left behind. It seemed wrong to speak. He scanned the area again, lighting up the room in neon blue but his scanners picked up nothing. No warm bodies, no heat signatures anywhere near them. Adjusting Ember on his shoulder and the one gun he had he started forward.

Dag's hand landed on his other shoulder, stopping him.

"Red," Dag whispered. "Let me carry Ember."

"I got her," Red whispered back. His hand reflexively tightened around the girl hanging limply over his shoulder.

"Ok," Dag said, "Let's do it this way. I'm stronger and bigger than you. But you've been trained for this and I haven't. I can carry her with my regular arm and still crush the lights out of people with my augment. But I know you can outshoot most of the guys here, so I want you on point. Unencumbered."

Red paused. For some reason, thinking of Ember as an encumberment struck a nerve, but he knew Dag was only pointing out facts. Red wasn't nearly as tall as Dag, and Dag probably wouldn't even break a sweat carrying her.

"Fine," he shifted her off his shoulder and moved her as gently as he could over to Dag's. Dag stood and straightened. The two silent boys were still behind him and Red almost laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of it all. T's eyes were wide with fear and poor Alt, whose eyes were hidden behind his augments clutched at his arm.

What they were after was impossible.

He reached down and felt the familiar bulge in his pocket. His razor had managed to make it this far with him. He paused considering it... He was almost out... It was a tool, nothing more...

He shifted his focus in front of him and brought the gun once again he scanned for any sign of danger. The halls branched out to either side, long corridors that contained no living soul, but plenty of cooling bodies. Heat signatures that were rapidly dying...

It had been a long time since he'd actually used some of these augments. The scanners sent him information and he was slow to process it. Once it had been as simple as breathing. After a moment, his mind adjusted to the intel it was now being fed. It was like exercising a muscle that he'd neglected for ages.

It hurt.

His eyes narrowed as he concentrated on pushing the scanners out as far as they would go.

The main group was far ahead, oddly enough, the place seemed understaffed. There wasn't much between them and the outside world as far as manpower went. At least until backup showed up. He was under no false impressions here. There would be assistance rendered but he didn't want to be here when that happened.

He had the irrational urge to search for a wall terminal and link to the net just to see what all he had missed but there would not be one here. From his early days, he recalled how the guards took shifts in three-month segments. Some didn't even last that long...

He pushed out for a signal of some kind, missing his connection to the Aphelion, and the ability to call out across the known galaxy but he couldn't do that here... Only Ember could have produced and received a signal from this distance and she was in no shape to do anything at the moment.

He wondered how bored the guards must have been. Their rotations were short, three months maximum. Just how long did you stay away from your source of entertainment? There were some ancient terminals in the walls here as they moved, but he didn't have to touch them to know they were dead. No power connected them. He moved on.

He remembered his first disconnect from the web when he was brought here. The silence almost drove him mad. There was no distraction from anything. They called it going dark. But after a while he'd noticed things he'd not taken the time to look at; the feel of a breeze in his hair, the simple feel of grass under his feet, and then what it looked like when he crushed it beneath his boots. He had imaginary conversations with Lars about it.

His philosophy had taken on a new context after his anger had passed, some wonder at the universe that he barely noticed. He thought at first that he'd gone mad. The wear had taken its toll on him...

And then he was simply crushed like the grass he walked on.

Unlike most people, he had experienced going dark from time to time as the military called it. If he could connect to the web he could be tracked. Everything left a signature. He'd had to learn to move without it. Coming from an age when you were in front of a screen almost as soon as you could walk it was more difficult than it sounded.

He moved forward now seeing what his scanners had told him was there. The gray hallways were littered with the bodies and blood of both guards and inmates in a curious mixture of gray and brown. Red wondered who was leading them out or if it was just a bunch of inmates moving in a mob.

One thing was certain, the guards were shooting to kill. Red stopped, leaned down and checked for signs of life but found none.

He understood on another level this was their last chance to escape. After this, the guards would be doubled, the prison checked. Executions might even be carried out if they were deemed too much of a threat to hold onto.

And now Ember's identity as a Vesper was known there was no going back for her.

He guilty for thinking it, but he hoped the inmates did the work for them. He'd bring them all to the ship if they just plowed a way through. He glanced back at Ember again as the silence bore down on them.

"Why didn't you leave her?" Dag whispered behind him.

"What?" Red turned his head and stared at Dag, surprised. "Why would I do that?"

"Because a few days ago, you didn't care if she lived or died." Came the reply. Dag adjusted Ember over his massive shoulder as he moved forward. His silver arm gleamed in the low light as they followed, stepping over bodies in the hallway.

Red didn't answer. Had he really believed that? He remembered what he'd said. Was it really only a few days ago since she'd arrived? When he glanced back at Dag; the big man was giving him a knowing smile. Alt and T simply glanced at each other and shrugged. Red pushed his eyes forward again.

Whatever Dag.

"She put herself on the line for us," he finally answered walking forward glancing down yet another hallway. God, why are there no windows in this stupid place? "I promised her I wouldn't leave her behind to die slowly," I promise myself I'd give her a decent burial if she died.

Red heard him shift behind him noticing that Dag did not push him any further, he didn't need to.

Silence, not the best indication of what lay ahead was all that greeted them. But here at least was a window at last. Red looked out of it from as many angles as he could. He pressed his fingers against the glass and stared out.

There was a wasteland ahead of them. Old tech, just strewn about. He'd heard about it happening, sometimes entire vessels dumped and buried in places like this. But it seemed unreal seeing the wasted potential in front of them.

Not wasteful for us. Fucking fanatics.

There had been scavengers at one time, so now they had the blockade of Helion 7. He knew about that too, he'd just never planned on ending up inside. that...but it was only two clicks, not far, and they could walk that if they hurried. Preferring to be on the ship before dark and the real cold set in. He and Dag might survive a night outside but he doubted the boys would.

The silence was unnerving but Red figured the window was their best option. He motioned to Dag who handed Ember to him. Red took her gingerly stepping away as Dag stepped in and grabbed the frame with his silver arm. In one swift movement, he jerked the entire frame away from the wall showering them with dust. The glass was thick, probably bulletproof, and didn't even shatter as Dag tossed it behind them.

The loud clatter caused all of them to jump. Red tried covering Ember's face by turning her towards his chest. She was still breathing, however shallow it was...

"Just make it to the ship," he whispered over here head before turning to the gaping hole in the wall Dag had created. Was it really that easy?

He stood blinking in the light for a moment as the sun seared in through the hole. It was hot... Too hot. The boys coughed behind him but no one moved.

All of them hesitated. It had been seven years since he'd set foot outside. He almost reached over and pinched himself to make sure he was awake. If he'd awoken to find this all a dream Red was sure that he really would go back to his razor. This would have been maddening.

He didn't share this thought with Dag.

But now...

He took a deep breath, smelling the iron scented air, mixed with heavy dust and who knew what else they'd just stirred up. He stepped into the light outside, pausing to let his eyes adjust.

Dag came up behind him taking Ember and moving her back to his shoulder. No one spoke, there was barely a sound. Just a gentle breeze caressing faces like a mother who hadn't seen her child in years. Red could have wept over the simple sight of the wasteland, with its garbage heap appearance, yet life was pushing up through it. Trees dotted here and there between piles of metal. Whole ships lay on their sides, thousands of feet long, rendered useless.

This is what they gave up? Red moved forward, his gun up and ready. He froze when he heard the familiar spatter of gunfire. Part of him stiffened, they needed to hurry and get out of sight. He checked the sun and turned east.

The gunfire moved closer to them. "Shit," Red muttered. Dag took off at a jog, Red dropped his gun, letting it hang from his shoulder on the strap, and grabbed the boys hands. "Run."

"Did they see us?" T managed. It was the first word he'd uttered since leaving.

"No." Red pulled them both faster than they could go. It was all they could do to keep upright. "But there is a blockade and by nightfall this place will be crawling with soldiers looking for us."

He heard a familiar sound. The loud roaring of a space-faring vessel breaking into the atmosphere. It triggered a memory before he could stop it.

"I wonder why we've been recalled so early, Captain?"

Red stared at his former second for a moment before shrugging. "I think the crew needs this, but it is definitely early."

"I've heard rumors..."

"Rumors don't come down the chain of Command, Lars."

"It's just odd, Sir."

"I know."

Once again his emotions threatened to overwhelm him. But then his senses kicked in and he pushed that aside.

"Down!" He yelled pushing T and Alt to the ground in front of him. They had made it to the treeline, but that wouldn't matter if the scanners from the ships picked them up. The ships flew overhead and made for the other side of the prison. Red yanked the boys up and looked over at Dag.

"Keep moving!"

A sharp pain erupted on the back of his head, and then...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lars moved his gray body to stand next to Red. His voice had an extra metallic ring to it that Red had taken some time to adjust to. Red gaped at the AI droid for a moment.

Lars was dead. Had been for several years.

He glanced down at his own uniform. The pressed service attire was a far cry from the brown prison garb he was used to wearing. "What the..." Confusion surfaced. Where am I?

He wasn't supposed to be here. His gaze flew frantically around the room in a desperate search for Ember, Dag, T, and Alt.

The ship was calm, the viewing ports open to the black of space dotted with stars. A view that never got old for Red. Given the option, he would have pushed the ships to their limits just to explore and see what was out there.

He glanced back over at his second in command. Maybe the last seven years had been a dream. He was never imprisoned, the purge never happened. Lars had never died. But even as he studied his second in command, the droid kept talking.

"I'm not saying there isn't a higher power out there, but honestly Captain you must admit if you are just organic matter and electronic impulses and I'm just electronic impulses and non-organic matter, there really isn't much difference between us."

"Only that you were made by a human." He heard his own voice as if he were a visitor.

"And humans are self-replicating." The droid lifted its arms and waved them in a gesture that Red had come to associate with "whatever." The droid did not have a face to make expressions, nor did he have shoulders to shrug with. Just a small semi-circle light on top of his thorax. To Red, he resembled a beheaded insect, minus a few legs.

Oddly enough Lars owned a pet at home, a feline named Amity that he was overly fond of discussing. "But consciousness isn't something humans invented after all and it's still not overly understood."

"You're talking about the Mendelson Complex." Red sighed. It was an old discussion between him and Lars. It was the equal of a human asking another human if they believed in God. Many humans still did even as they pushed out into space. Red hadn't thought about it for a long time. But Lars for some reason would drone on about it constantly. Sentience hadn't brought about the much-feared apocalypse that many feared.

If anything, those AI were born wondering the same questions that had plagued humanity for generations. Why am I here? Who made me? Why do we exist? What is the point of it all? It was ironic, Red had mused in the old story God regretted creating humans and wiped them off the face of the earth, and then, in turn, humans created AI's and did the same. But there were a few survivors. Life even the artificial kind apparently found a way.

His confusion did nothing to halt the state of the dream. It rushed forward carrying him along despite him trying to change what had already occurred.

"Well yes," Lars carried on. "Look, Captain Sc—" "Red!"

Red's head whipped around to stare at the droid. "What did you call me?" Even his name was out of place.

The droid went on without a beat as if Red hadn't spoken. "Scientists still aren't sure of the boundary in consciousness that makes a being organic, AI, or otherwise suddenly start to question its existence and so Captain—" "Red!" The voice was familiar but completely out of place here tugging him away from his own name again.

And then Lars did something that Red did not remember happening then. He faced Red completely. "It's time to wake up now--" "Red!"

"Lars, seriously my name is not Red, it's-"

"Red! Come on!"

The dream melted away.

Dag?

Red blinked suddenly feeling hot and heavy, a dull throb at his temple. Where the hell am I? He blinked as the harsh light of day seared his vision. His eyes adjusted and there was an enormous dark shape in front of him blocking the light. He couldn't make out the fuzzy shape in front of him just yet.

"Red, wake up! Don't do this to me, I can't carry both of you." Dag's voice pushed into his ears forcing Red fully into consciousness.

Red turned over on his side, closing his eyes and groaning, feeling nausea rise up like a tidal wave. Before he could succumb to retching he felt his own systems responding to push back. Systems designed to keep him healthy and in check. The Nausea sank down although the pain in his temple did not go completely away. He must have taken a bad hit.

Dag suddenly came sharply into focus, in amazing clarity. His dark skin piqued with sweat, eyes full of worry, the daylight bouncing off of his silver arm was blinding. The two boys were standing behind him Red pulled himself up into a sitting position and gasped as his headache flared. He put a hand over his eyes shielding them from the bright light.

The ground vibrated beneath him.

"Dag? What happened?" He moved to stand aware that everything hurt managing to get to a crouching position. His augments were working overtime to dull any pain.

"Bombs," Dag shrugged. "I'm guessing they're bombing the prison."

Bombing the prison. Red could not have felt more guilt over anything. He closed his eyes, allowing a moment of grief. They would have killed Ember, and you, he thought.

The ships flying overhead. Red briefly remembered them running after they'd passed. And then the ground shaking...and then...

Red winced as the ground shook again.

"Can you stand?" Dag grabbed Red's arm without waiting for an answer and pulled him to his feet. Red's systems were fully functioning now as they pulled back the sudden dizziness. He stared blinking for a moment dazed.

"So, who is Lars?" Dag asked.

"What?" Red responded, the dream still fuzzy at the edge of his waking memory.

"Lars?"

"He was... my Second." Red took an experimental step forward. A few moments ago, he was on his ship, completely at ease with his place in the universe. And now he was back in the present Lars was long dead, along with all of his questions about God, and his cat Amity.

What a time to remember them. Time to wake up, Captain. He shook his head again. He was losing it...

He was here trying to get off this rock with a Vesper... "Shit, Ember!" He glanced wildly around. How could have forgotten her that fast?

"Easy Red," Dag put a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Unlike the rest of us, you took a hit to the head." He motioned to Ember who lay on her side under some cover.

"Is she...?" Red left the question unspoken.

"Not yet." Dag moved over to pick her up again. "But we need to get moving. Boys..." Alt and T jumped up and each of them took one of Red's hands again. They wouldn't be able to stop him if he fell but they could at least keep him in the right direction. Dag had Red's gun slung over his shoulder. He made the rifle look like a toy. "I think this will be more useful on me right now." He glanced over at Red again. "There's some blood, I'm going to try and give you a few minutes."

Red nodded. There's was only so much his systems could do.

He crawled over to where Ember was laying. In a few minutes he'd be up on his feet again. He lay down next to her and faced her, her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly hanging open. He put a hand near it and sighed in relief when he felt a faint breath.

He cupped her cheek with his hand for a moment, her skin had bruised terribly and was swollen. But as bad as it looked it was a sign that she was alive. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I couldn't do it." He wasn't going to be able to keep any promises to her about killing her, not anymore than he could leave her behind.

"I trained for years with Lars, my second in command, to fight machines, to be as effective in battle as they are. To think like they do," he hesitated and then shrugged. She was unconscious. What would she think anyway? "But in the end, I'm pretty much just a man, and a pitiful one at that. You were right about me..." He stopped.

The bulge in his pocket was still there. Oddly enough he didn't feel the need to use it, the overwhelming urge to lay his skin open and watch the blood flow until there was nothing left. He wanted to keep fighting, keep running. But the thought of her not making it right now. That made him angry.

He was about to speak again, when Dag appeared with T and Alt next to him. "You ready?"

"Yeah," he pulled himself to his feet.

Dag came up next to him and gently scooped up Ember and laid her over his shoulder. "They made a pass over us and then went away, so definitely not using scanners just yet. No way they could have missed five people if they had been...

"You think that a ship is really there?"

"Only about one click to go and then we find something. I hope."

"Your enthusiasm is working wonders, Dag." Red followed moving steadily. Dust kicked up in the air around them as they moved through the debris field of old ships and new life. Plants and trees grew between the metallic shards. Seven years or so and life was making a comeback. Red stared at them for a moment, the green seemed out of place among the grey metal, and yet here it was, determined as ever.

He shook his head again. Lars's voice was rattling around in his head.

Time to wake up, Captain.

He couldn't get the feeling that there was more to it. I am awake, Lars.

They pushed on as Red tried to remember exactly what a Vesper's ship looked like.

Vaguely oval, they were sleek, could turn on a dime, normally crewed by only 2 people, they could hold 20 in an emergency situation. Emergency meant they also wouldn't be on the ship that long, he hoped.

Ember could view the ship internally and externally if she wanted to. She controlled everything within and without. Once plugged in it would be an extension of her body and it would power her in return.

He hoped.

The ground was still periodically shaking. Red tried to imagine if they were getting closer and gave up. They were more likely to be crushed if one of the piles of ships fell over top of them from the shaking than they were from the actual bombs themselves.

Red tried to remember exactly how big they were and then heard Dag gasp in front of him. He moved around Dag and felt his own surprise jar him.

It was there...