KEREN

Happy sweet sixteen? What a joke. They've never been happy... but at least he stopped getting me stupid presents... but he's always too busy to finish off the rest of my model ships with me...

He spent most of his days training in self-defense with Ethan and how to use their families special weapon — chain blasters. His aim improved with slighter accuracy, but the dread in his stomach kept him in constant company. He learned routes the Malakai's used for smuggling, and the borders of their territory with the Azaika's, learning more than he ever wanted to know until it came time to put them into practice. Every technique to survive the planetary underworld.

To succeed and have strength as Ethan had — the one in control.

Keren fiddled with his model scout Ethan built with him while he tapped settings on the stove. Food sizzled and popped on the burners. One rare instance where Ethan found time to cook them both breakfast. Ethan was right... cookbots take out the taste. Dull, like the maelstrom of terror in his stomach.

Clouds puffed out and blocked the sun. Keren lifted his head from his examination of his broken childhood when Ethan swiped a capsule out of the cabinets and shook it at him. "Want some, Ker?"

"Want some what?"

Ethan placed the capsule in front of him with a wry smile. "Remember this?" He tapped the top. "I haven't forgiven you for dumping mine out, you know."

Tersilian coffee beans, an import of Eteran's, with their family wresting control of any goods coming from Tersilia — Ethan's birth planet. Due to its rare popularity, it was another avenue of control and power. I don't know why people love coffee so much... "I hate the taste of it, Ethan."

"Oh? I don't remember you having tried it." Ethan pushed it into the mixer and pushed his finger into the swirl of the interface. He traced the eye and chose other settings at the menu which popped up, then leaned on the counter while it brewed. "When did you try it?"

"You don't remember?" Keren frowned at Ethan's slip of memory. Exhausted and overworked, but he no longer tried to convince Ethan otherwise. "You were there. Chalen had me try some before your shift in the pit."

"That explains it." Ethan nudged the humming cleaning bot with his foot. "He puts a ridiculous amount of cream and sugar into his." He moved the food-full pots into the serving area, and the stove turned off. "See, I do my coffee the proper way. It's definitely nothing you've ever tasted before."

Keren folded his arms against his chest. "And how do you take yours?"

"Black."

Keren stuck his tongue out in disgust. "Blech. No, thank you." He took his breakfast plate from Ethan when he handed it to him and dug in to drown the unease. Ethan sat in his regular chair with his mug in one hand and holozine in the other. Noise built up in his ears at the continuous projection of the I-Screen, twisted white noise. Bones cracked underneath jaws.

Keren turned to check on his back, but sighed at the lack of anything ready to stab him in it, but he jumped when Ethan whispered, "Are you nervous today?"

"Uh..." Keren brushed his hair back from his brow. "A little, Chalen said I'd be moving something today?" Ethan nodded and downed the rest of his coffee, so he continued with a question on the edge of his tongue. "You're not coming with me, are you?"

His mug clicked against the glass of the table when he set it down. White noise gave way into silence, and he drove his fingers into the fleeting edge of life and tried not to throw up Ethan's carefully prepared breakfast. Ethan tented his fingers and stared down at his reflection through the glass. "I can come with you to the entrance of the tunnel, but yes... You'll be doing this on your own. I tried to talk to Father about it, but you know how the old man gets." He slid into the back of his chair and rubbed his cheek with his palm, and a wave of nausea threatened to betray his throat. "You can do this, Keren."

"But what if something goes wrong?" Keren pressed and pushed his empty plate from him. "What if I lose the package? What if I get lost? What if I run into other people—"

Ethan waved his hands with a soft laugh. "That is a lot of what if's in your head, Ker." He sipped at his coffee, and his smile warmed. "I had a look at what you're meant to deliver... it's about as easy as a smuggle you're going to get." He hesitated, then grinned. "You know, probably for the best you don't drink coffee."

"What..." Keren sank into his shoulders. "What am I supposed to deliver?"

Ethan sighed. "Need to know, Keren."

Celestials... that doesn't make me feel better.

As if his older brother could read minds, he added, "It's safer this way. Less complications arise from only knowing what will get the job done on your end."

"So I've been told a thousand times." Keren grabbed their plates to slide into the washer.

Ethan checked his wristpad, then whistled. "Speaking of, we need to get to work."

Keren jumped. "What? I didn't think I'd be doing it this early!"

Ethan held his hands out, a motion of comfort. "I'm just going to show you some ropes, Keren. I don't know what Chalen showed you when he first ran you around Roxton, but I'm going to point you in the right direction on where to meet me if you get lost and its safe to contact me. I can pick you up instead of you wandering around the city what with the Azaika's getting more emboldened"

Keren nodded and bit down on his fear. Terror crushed and drained the oxygen out of his solar fire. There was no escape. He was another weapon. Weapons never cried, wept, or felt. They do. They acted. For the family. Family came first. To betray or go against the family... has fatal consequences.

Hands shaking, Keren shoved them between his legs and swallowed the black hole of his defectiveness. "Okay." I won't let you down. You won't get hurt or killed because of me. "Okay, I'm ready."

Ethan raised an eyebrow, but Keren nodded and chewed on his fear and recreated his resolve. Resolve to survive.

"Stick to your convictions and your story."

Against the tremble in his knees, he forced himself to stand in front of Ethan. "Show me your ropes." Shoulders straight to parrot his confidence and strength, Keren longed for his older brother's unfathomable resolve. I have to be strong. For the family. For him, most of all. "It's been a long time since I really got out into the city."

I mostly just stayed in Chalen's car... I haven't been out in Roxton since... Miama died.

"Keren—" Ethan reached his hand out to him, but Keren ducked out of it.

"I'm..." Keren huffed. "I won't be nervous for long." Inside the solar, a small garden grew in a bubble of pots. Showers of mist sprayed across the fresh-cut lawns of greenery, to look anywhere but Ethan's eyes. Someone who believed and picked up on Thompson's deceit and the confidence he lacked.

Keren froze when his shadow engulfed him, and no matter how much he grew, Ethan stood over him.

"You're a terrible liar, Sellzora," Ethan stated and tapped his brow with his knuckle, and Keren forced himself to look him in the eyes. Windows to another's universe. Vulnerable and bare, Keren shrank further, when his expression never broke and his imposing stature was all that protected him. Unable to read his thoughts from the smallest micro-expressions, he tried. It's the one thing I could never get... but for Ethan it's... so innate. As natural as breathing to him. He can take one look at a person and immediately... get their measure. And everyone reads me like a stupid book.

"I guess it's a good thing I don't play cards," Keren forced out a joke.

Ethan smiled, and tousled his hair. "Just try to stay relaxed and believe what you're saying."

Keren nodded. "Where are we going?"

"It's better to show and explain." Ethan led him out of the house and out of the hands of tension which threatened to crush his throat and turn him into nothing but paste. Into the sleek garage where Father long since left with Jozten, his right hand — never alone out in the city. Ethan whistled into his prismkey, and the doors of his Cobra raised upwards and click into place.

"You know what's the good thing of having you as my only brother?" Ethan tossed himself into the driver's seat. Energy pulsed through the dashboard and clicked open the GPS.

"Erm." Keren settled himself beside Ethan. "What?"

"I don't have to deal with arguing on who gets shotgun." Ethan slid his hand across the panel and both doors slid closed.

Warm pulses of air came from the car's temperature regulator, and Keren buckled up. In one seamless movement, Ethan drove out into the open world, beautiful and hiding an underbelly as vicious as the life he lived.

Ethan wasted no time pointing out his own safespots along the city routes, nearby any entrance in use or not. They passed underneath several holoboards which stretched from building to building. Hovercars rumbled past. In every alley, he searched for odd movements, but some of them led nowhere but the back entrances of storefronts. One employee came out from the door to throw trash into the compactor off to the side. Recyclers sat in stasis beside them until alerted by the usage of the compactor. Ethan rolled to a stop, and pushed a finger into his face to point him in the direction of a dead-end alley.

"Use this one," Ethan whispered. "This entrance is out of the way, and close enough to where you're supposed to drop off the package. Come right back to his place once you're done." He returned his hands to the wheel, and Keren sighed and committed it to his memory and they drove through the packed city.

So different compared to the nightlife.

Keren propped his elbow on the window, but frowned when Ethan raised his hand to his compearl. "Jesti? What's up?" After a few moments, his brow creased.

Keren kept his mouth shut and listened.

Ethan's mouth twitched into a thoughtful scowl. "I see — Jesti, no, I need you to relax. You didn't fuck up anything — Jesti—" Ethan slapped his palm against his brow. "Where are you?"

Silence.

Ethan narrowed his eyes. "Did you get the stuff from Mr. Guon?"

Further quiet.

"I can go handle it then," Ethan said, then waved his hand with a frustrated scowl. "Jesti, I told you to cool it. You didn't fuck up anything, stop saying that," he repeated. "I don't know if you noticed since the last time, but he is a stubborn jackass. Just get back to the casino and wind down. I'll meet you there and give you his payments, which you then can hand over — no, you don't have to mention that I did it. I don't give a shit as long as it got done without—... Mr. Guon is both of our issues, your shitty luck just had you handle him on the day he decides he wants to inflate himself again." Ethan frowned. "Lockdown? What are you talking about?"

"Ethan?" Keren found his voice. "What's going on?"

He snapped his hand across his mouth and listened into his compearl. "Right. I'll try and get some info about it from the older guys and if its something we need to worry about when it comes to the Sanctum." He leaned against his window, then nodded. "I'm near the store, Jesti, I will be right there and you can stop driving yourself up a wall. Just meet me at the casino." He clicked off the compearl and gave Jesti no chance to respond, and shook his head.

"What's going on? Is Jesti okay?" Keren pushed for Ethan's friend. "Does he need help?"

"He's fine, Ker, but we're going to have to take a brief side-trip. I am going to finish up what he was supposed to do."