The aftermath of the attack on the fair came faster than Sam thought it would. He set his MekBac’s to numbing and repairing his fractured ribs, though full recovery would take weeks. After the fight his mental superspeed time was used up, so the rest of the day continued at a regular human pace.

  The infiltrators seemed to lose control and were quickly subdued once the warframe fell. When Sam thought about Ian’s last words, he considered whether they gave up. Only a few of them seemed to keep moving, but were swarmed and subdued without much difficulty by his grandfather and the men in suits.

  The surviving agents - who he learned were a mixture of NSA, FBI, and the CIA - interviewed him until he thought he was going to die of boredom. Juan and Loki were separated and put in other rooms, leading to the amusing thought of one of these serious men in black having to sternly ask a cat questions.

  “Is something funny, Mr. Wharton?” The FBI agent across from him asked. He hadn’t bothered to learn his name, so internally he just called him Agent Agenkowski.

  “Just the absurdity of all of this. A few days ago I didn’t think I’d ever get to do something important.”

  Another agent came in, this one with dark sunglasses obscuring his eyes.

  “He’s clean. The room scan reads no implants. There are big abnormalities, but those are reading as well above our paygrade.”

  “Well, it looks like you’re free to go, Mr. Wharton.”

  “It’s about time.”

  “Consider yourself lucky your grandfather is pulling strings for you, kid. Most people in your situation stay for some very, very long tests to make sure they’re not compromised.” Agenkowski said.

  “We’re still American,” Sam replied. “All I did was beat up some brainwashed people. I saved lives.”

  “We’re not unfamiliar with the wounded gazelle gambit, kid. It wouldn’t be the first time the robot pulled it. Your parents, for example.”

  Sam went still. “You said I’m free to go, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then I’m leaving before I break your goddamn jaw.”

  He pushed his way past agent sunglasses to the hallway, seeing Juan and Loki already out there. The agents had somehow managed to remove his hair dye, leaving him a vibrant sky blue once again.

  “You two get any hassle in there?” Sam asked.

  “Mine tried, but I just pretended I couldn’t understand him,” Loki laughed. “It was funny!”

  “They were pretty nice to me,” Juan said.

  “Lucky you. They gave me the third degree.”

  Sam’s grandfather entered a moment later and his voice came in over the neural link. He looked over Sam.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “If I didn’t have all these years training my self control in the ring I would have beaten Agent Agenkowski to the brink of death.”

  “I’ll be having a little chat with his superiors. They shouldn’t have been allowed to talk to you at all. If it makes you feel any better they’ll all be getting memory blanks of that whole conversation.”

  “You’re gonna erase their memory?” Juan gasped.

  “Some things can’t get out. Plenty of the people on the field saw you all, so it’s too late to hide your existence. Sorry to say but your faces are getting blanked on the news broadcasts. No nationwide celebrity for you, though that won’t fool friends and family. The agents get a more thorough job because they asked questions. Nobody gets to know the details beyond us.”

  “Please, I still don’t know anything about how this works. How do you have this much authority?” Sam asked.

  “He’s a monster! They’re scared!” Loki shouted.

  King chuckled. “The cat isn’t that far off. Let’s just say that making a colony and classified tech gets you a lot of pull with the higher ups in government.”

  “So what now?” Juan asked.

  “Now we’re going to have to rush things. You get to go home for a few minutes and say goodbye, because if we don’t get you into space the Emperor is gonna start treating you like a target to get to me. He’s not dumb, he’ll know you’ve got similar enhancements by now, he just won’t think they’re strong enough to matter yet. New augs are a dime a dozen in the United States, so he won’t realize how powerful you are going to be yet. Juan, you’re going to your contract ship for now. It’s the best way for you to fly under the radar. Sam, I’m going to have you and Loki fly up to the Lost Star and then arrange for you to head straight to the Gem Star as soon as the first colony transport is ready.”

  “We’re getting separated?” Juan asked, distraught.

  “We’re leaving right now? I can’t just leave Grandma alone! You know how close she is to… to passing on. Who's going to care for her?”

  “She already knows. Talk with her. Now, I’m unlocking some new features in your aug. Review them on the way up, I’ve got to take a direct flight straight to the Gem Star before I get ambushed and killed on the way.”

  “Is this the end?” Juan asked. “Once the Emperor invades we’ll blow up the planet. Everyone is gonna… they’re gonna die. My family! I don’t want my family to die! I wanted to go to space but not like this!”

  “Not yet!” King shouted. “This is the beginning of the end. There’s still time to save people, including your family. That’s only if we live, though. It takes time for the Emperor to pull stuff like it did today. We have to go now. I’ve arranged transport for you. Go home, grab everything that can fit in a single suitcase and don’t waste time. You’ve got an hour, tops.”

  “Yay! Space!” Loki shouted.

  Sam wasn’t nearly so overjoyed.

  “So this is goodbye,” He said, turning to Juan.

  “For now. I mean, I was going to go on a contract ship anyway, this is just a lot faster than I thought it’d be. We’ll see each other again soon, right?”

  “Yeah.” Sam said.

  They hugged the sort of awkward hug only two teenagers could manage while Loki mimed vomiting.

  “It’s time,” King said.

  —

  Months earlier.

  Dara Wharton waited as Sam recovered in the infirmary. He hovered on the edge of death. Her estranged husband sat next to her, watching him slowly breathe in and out with the help of a ventilator.

  “Did you know this was going to happen?” She asked.

  “I’ve barely seen him since he was born, Dara.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “I thought it might.”

  She shed a tear, wiping it away with a shaky hand.

  “That’s as good as being sure for you! Why didn’t you stop it?”

  “The same reason you really let yourself get old. Sometimes losing is the only way to win.” He replied.

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  “You bastard. He’s almost dead! Is he still going to be himself after being augmented? Does he still have the same soul?”

  “When he comes out of it, he’ll be stronger than he ever was.”

  She stayed silent. She couldn’t deny it. Sam would be incomparable to who he used to be.

  “When the Emperor comes this country is screwed, Dara. Every single person here is going to be his pet. Every. Single. One. Sending him to church and praying for a miracle isn’t going to help him. The Aug will.”

  “At least he could live forever in heaven. You’re going to make him like you. Cursed like you.”

  “Better than me.”

  “Richard…”

  “It’s King now, remember? You’re the one that told me it’s more marketable. I’ve been going by King for the better part of a century.”

  “We quit making that augment for a reason, Dick.”

  “It was just a cybernetic implant in our day. It’s quite a bit more advanced.”

  “Semantics. Don’t get me started on this, Richard. You’re dodging the subject.”

  “It won’t be like what I’ve got Dara. I swear. I’ve worked it out, fixed the problems.”

  “You deserved those problems. No matter how far you go, you know I’ll never completely forgive you. Especially not when you do things like this. Allowing him to almost die so you could swoop in and save him is sick. God might have forgiveness for you, but I’m not him. Even if you did this to save him.”

  “Things are going to happen soon. Big things. Every bit of this is necessary. There’s an attack coming. I can already see his infiltrators moving. Once it hits things big this will be in motion and they won’t stop until this planet is dead.”

  “I don’t doubt you. Damn you, but I don’t doubt you.”

  “I’ll take him off the planet. You could always come too. Even if you hate me, I built a whole world for you. You’ll never have to see me there. I can spend forever in solitude if that’s what you want. Just… I love you. Please live.”

  She didn’t speak for a moment, watching the heart monitor beep. She already knew what the augment was doing to Sam inside. It was only really a small step from what they’d made originally. More organic. More adaptable. Decades of traumatic surgery had been replaced with months of growth, but she knew the principal was the same.

  “I’m going to live and die as a human being. The afterlife is where my children are. At this point maybe it’s where the real Sam is too. It’s the only place I’ll ever see them again.”

  “Then take this,” he said, holding an innocuous, ceramic looking disc out to her.

  “That’s a bomb, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Remote controlled. I won’t let it take you, even if I have to point one of those space guns at you myself. If you have that you won’t have to endure centuries of suffering at its hands.”

  She took it in her hands. “I won’t commit suicide, but if it comes down to it, I’ll die fighting. God won’t be mad about that. Your weapon will be a last resort. I’ll play happy family with you for a few months and help you get him somewhere safe, but after that I never want to see you again.”

  “If there really is an afterlife, tell our kids I love them, won’t you? You know I’m not going to the same place you are.”

  “It isn’t my place to make that judgement, but I’ll do that.”

  —

  Today:

  “Anyway,” Sam finished his story, “That’s why I need to go, Grandma.”

  “I understand. Grab your things. And Sam?”

  “Yeah grandma?”

  “I love you. I’ll miss you. More than you’ll ever know.” He hugged her closely.

  Dara ran her finger over the ceramic disc on the side of her chair, knowing this was the last time they’d ever see each other in person again.

  —

  Juan tried to throw up but found that his new augment wouldn’t let him.

  “Shots! Shots! Shots!”

  His brothers handed him another shotglass full of tequila and internally turned up his MekBac control system to reinforce his liver.

  “I shouldn’t even be drinking! I’m underage!”

  “This is the last time we’re gonna see you brother! We’re sending you off with a party!” His brother Mario shouted.

  Somehow everyone in the camp was already assembled and Mariachi music was blaring loud enough that it was causing the ground to vibrate. People were crying, shouting, celebrating as far as the eye could see.

  “I don’t care if they blurred his face! I just saw my son on TV! My boy beat the Emperor!” His mother screamed, bottle sloshing in her own hands.

  “I’m so proud! That’s my son! My son!” His father screamed with her.

  “Did you see the way he hit that skinhead with his car? Our boy has some huevos!”

  His six other brothers were laughing and imitating his stance with the gun, shooting out of the car.

  “Pow! Pow! Pow! Who taught this boy to shoot?”

  “Me!” one of his cousins yelled. “I knew you should have been in the watch!”

  “Liar,” Juan thought. “I’ve never touched a gun before today.”

  “That’s, uh-”

  “Shots! Shots! Shots!”

  “Not again!”

  A part of him wished he were in space already, but then he thought back to the conversation he had earlier. This was the beginning of the end. Instead, he slowed time for a fraction of a second - just enough to internally catch his breath and savor the moment - and come up with something to say.

  “Mi familia! Today I will spread our name to the stars!”

  The screams of jubilation went mad. Now he just had to figure out how to get away on time.

  —

  Sam looked over his barren room. He had a few boxing posters, some clothes, and his punching bag, but little else. Most of his possessions were digital, and he could take those with him. His collection of rock played by classical music style orchestras, his pirated movie collection, his Cirque du Humanity pod interactive game.

  It was a curiously empty life. For years his only goal was to do as good in school as he possibly could so that once he got augmented, he’d have the chance to earn a spot on a contract ship like Juan.

  That left very little time for a personal life. Now he was going to leave it all behind.

  He started pulling his dressers out to look for anything he might want beyond clothes and a toothbrush. Old school awards meant nothing to him, and wouldn’t be useful. Nobody cared about his special needs awards. “Good job doing so much despite being a stupid baseline! Here’s a plastic medal for it!”

  “What bullshit,” He thought to himself.

  Behind one of the dressers he found an old, discarded box. MuscleGro+.

  “Jeeze, this is a decade old already.” He said to himself, remembering.

  He’d come home with a box of off the shelf augs that he’d bought with pocket money, hoping he could enhance himself in secret.

  Once he’d taken the pills, he waited for the muscles, only for an auditory hallucination to start reading off terms and conditions to him. Once it somehow detected that he was underage it shut itself off. He’d wasted his allowance.

  It was just as well, the defective product was worth what he’d paid for it, which is to say almost nothing. Months later he heard that it was recalled because it was defective. He’d had to confess he’d taken it to his grandmother, which is when he learned what a spanking was.

  It had done no lasting harm to him, but it had done harm to other people that had taken it. Enough that they had to get other augs to make up for the weakened heart muscles it caused. Better biceps weren’t worth a heart attack.

  Now he had an aug that made that seem like a joke. One that he knew nothing about. As he crumpled up the old box and tossed it into the trash, he wondered what the cost would be.

  —

  Loki stood atop a dumpster in the alley. The same one his adoptive mother used to stand on when commanding everyone. He couldn’t talk out loud, but he talked into the void with his augment.

  “Everyone, I am a god. At least that’s what the old human lady named me after! A trickster!”

  He raised a paw to the empty spot they’d all assemble at.

  “I have read a book!” He said proudly. “A book on human religions. It said Loki was a god of tricks and change, that killed a pretty human god that couldn’t die.”

  “I read some of the old lady’s book, even though it was really boring, and she said you’re in a nice place called Heaven because you were good.”

  “We’re better than other cats. We always were. We can think! We’re smart! Now I’m the smartest. I even went to school! I can do math, shoot guns and steal cars, just like any human elementary school student! The old man gave me classes for middle school and high school too. I’ll do those while I go to space with Sam! Soon I’ll be smarter than all the humans! Even the old man!”

  He looked at the empty spot where faded bloodstains still lingered. Where Candice had died.

  “I read another religion called Buddhism believes that everyone that dies gets to come back and be born again. They get to have a new life.”

  He put his paw down.

  “I am a god. I am going to trick heaven and steal you back. I’m going to use all my smarts and let you live again. This time, you’ll never die. We’ll live forever like the humans do, and you can have heaven with me!”

  “I miss you.”

  He let out a long, deep, mournful yowl. A human yelled and shouted from one of the windows, but he didn’t care.

  He only stopped when he felt a hand touch his shoulder.

  “Hey buddy,” Sam said. “It’s time to go.”

  Loki took one last look at the alley where he grew up.

  “Goodbye isn’t forever. I’ll make sure of it.”

  They turned together to head towards the stars.