Year 2508, Eos, Phaeton's Fall

"Over the past ten months, we have worked hard to bring to you... a revolution."

The velvety female voice resounded through the streets. Public and private transport vessels had stopped in their tracks, on the ground or in mid-air. The people of Eos had interrupted whatever they had been doing, and stood frozen in place, their faces lifted up and their gazes transfixed on the screens. All over Alba, the screens had turned black. Even the usually erratically flickering lights on the buildings now basked the streets in a consistent, muted glow. Thousands of breaths were held in anticipation.

For once, time in the timeless city truly seemed to stand still.

"We have dedicated our lives to making this change - for you. Reshaping what is possible... redefining your existences... reconfiguring your values... forever. Because we believe that the people deserve better. Because we know that you have been waiting for this. Not just for the past ten months, but all... your... lives..."

The screens began to glow, and the audience gasped.

"This is the future you have been waiting for. Join us, on our quest for a better tomorrow. What are you waiting for? It is all within your grasp."

At the center of each of the hundreds of screens, the light condensed and a woman appeared. She was dressed in a white pantsuit, with her hair tied into a tight, grey bun on top of her head. Her face looked too young for the rest of her body.

"We here at Xovo are proud and excited to introduce to you our newest product line. The long-awaited revolution for the hardware market. Faster, stronger, better: The new XO-3000 series!"

The crowd erupted in incoherent yelling and cheering at the woman's words.

"My name is Miranda Bell, founder and CEO of Xovo, and I have the great pleasure to showcase this fantastic product to you today," the grey-haired woman said with a shark-like smile. "I will not reveal much in advance, but I can already tell you, you will be amazed, you will be stunned, you will be awed by the display of what our newest interface hardware can do. Designed to last longer, perform better, and integrate up to six times more fluidly with the neuronal periphery, this is the revolution you have been waiting for. I know what you're thinking – what am I waiting for? Allow me to show you what our new product is capable of."

The image of the woman disappeared, and the screens turned dark.

The crowd fell silent in breathless anticipation, and in the quiet, a quiet sound began to chime through the streets. The first few notes sounded distorted and glitched, more like static noise than actual music. It became a faint and distant melody that gradually grew louder and was soon joined by electronically distorted vocals.

And then, the screens came to life again. Only what they displayed was not the kind of interfacing the CEO of Xovo had probably referred to.

To the cheerful House tunes of an old but still popular twenty-first century track, the screens displayed high-definition footage of a variety people being harder, better, faster and stronger – but definitely not at accessing cyberspace through interface augments. There was augment hardware involved, but it was the kind built for entertainment of a more carnal nature.

The audience gasped in shock. Some covered the eyes of their children. Some winced at the images, some averted their gazes and blushed. Others continued to stare at the screens, perhaps in utter disbelief, perhaps in sheer fascination with the extent of flexibility and acrobatic talent displayed by some of the protagonists of the video.

And just like that, the annual high-profile product presentation of the most prestigious hardware developer in known space, watched by thousands all over the city of Eos and millions of others who had tuned in to watch the broadcast live, had turned into a fucking joke.

Literally.

It took two and a half minutes to interrupt the broadcast, and get the advertisement boards to display something less explicit again. The only naked skin in the streets now again belonged to scantily clad, but at least clothed, supermodels advertising various products.

It took the crowd much longer to disperse and return to their regular business.

In Alba's central plaza, most of the people had followed the broadcast on the largest of the screens, on the face of the tall skyscraper that was Xovo's headquarters. While the other screens came back to life, this one remained black.

At the edge of the plaza, a scraggy teenage boy looked up at it from underneath the hood of his jacket. He gave the tower a long, hard stare, as if he waited for the screen to flicker to life again suddenly. When it didn't, he turned away.

With a smirk on his lips, he drew his hood deeper over his face, and vanished into the crowd.

~ ~ ~

"So how was your weekend?"

Theo's head perked up from the tablet his gaze had been glued to for the past minutes. He looked at Erika for a few moments, as she sat on the cooling unit on the rooftop of their school building, dangling her legs. He tried to process what she had said, but he hadn't paid enough attention.

"Ehh....What?"

"Your weekend? Also known as the days between Friday and Monday?" she reiterated.

"Monday, Friday, day, night, does it really matter on this disco ball planet?" he grumbled and rolled his eyes, "The sky is dark, the city lights are bright, and every day is exactly the same."

She rolled her eyes at his cynicism, but the corners of her mouth pulled up in a smile.

"Except for the days when there's no school," she said, "...so what have you been up to?"

He met her curious gaze with the best poker face he could muster. "Just... the usual."

It wasn't a lie, technically. She just had no real clue what his 'usual' really meant. Over the past years of their friendship, he had never kept a lot of secrets from her. Theo knew that he could trust her with anything, but he also knew that the things he had been doing for the past months were reckless, and, admittedly, probably very stupid. He also knew that if he ever got caught, he would be in big trouble, so the fewer people got involved in his endeavors, the better.

"I heard something happened during that Xevo broadcast," Erika began, just as he had returned his attention to his tablet.

His fingers froze over the device, and his whole body stiffened. As he looked up at her, her bright eyes practically bored into his as she looked at him expectantly. She swung her legs back and forth, at a pace that matched the accelerated, nervous beating of his heart, and he could only stare back at her, trying to guess her next words. Could she know, somehow...?

"Did you -"

"Hey," a voice behind him called out, interrupting her.

Theo turned around to see a group of three students approaching. They didn't share many classes, but he knew them well enough to know that they most likely meant trouble – if only because the only real reason anybody snuck onto the rooftop of the school was to stay out of sight of the teachers. The leader of the little schoolyard gang who joined them now was called Hobbes, which sounded as cute as the chubby cherubic face of the guy might have been, if he didn't wear a perpetual scowl on it. He was nicknamed after an incident a few years back when he had beaten up a couple of kids so badly that all they could do was hobble for a few days after. His two sidekicks were a tall boy nicknamed Slenderman and a stout girl named Billy.

"Andersson," Hobbes addressed Erika as she slipped from the cooling unit and walked up to stand by Theo's side, "Why does someone like you still hang out with this four-eyed loser over there?"

He nodded in Theo's direction, who pretended to ignore him and continued to stare down at his tablet. But he couldn't help but notice how Hobbes eyed Erika up and down in a not exactly subtle way. There was no doubt about what he was thinking in that moment, and what he was looking to do to her if given half a chance. Theo shuddered with revulsion at the idea of his grubby hands all over his friend, but Erika seemed unperturbed. She flung back her long blonde hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms in front her chest, staring back at Hobbes with an utterly unimpressed look on her face.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I count six eyes belonging to three losers right in front of me," she said haughtily.

Theo snickered. He kept his head down and continued to pretend to ignore their conversation by staring at his tablet again. But he stole a glance at Hobbes, whose lips had thinned to a line. Blood rushed to his round cheeks, and his nostrils flared.

Next to him, Slenderman shot daggers at Erika with his eyes. The boy had earned his nickname through his looks. Rumor had it he had grown up on a low gravity space station, which would certainly have explained his appearance. He was tall, with spindly limbs and a face that looked like he was exclusively feeding on the crude and poorly nourishing gruel of Amarillo's soup kitchens, and the misery of others.

"You need some math tutoring, Blondie," Billy snarled. She was about half of Slenderman's size, and about as broad as she was tall, thanks to years of bitball training. Billy was not her real name of course. She just liked to beat up people with the heavy clubs involved in the sport.

"I bet I could teach you a thing or two. By beating it into you-"

Hobbes raised his hand and she shut up again.

"We're not here to pick a fight," he said, shooting a glare over his shoulder at Billy, before he turned back to Erika, "I actually wanted to ask you..."

He hesitated for a moment, until Slenderman nudged him from behind.

To Theo's surprise, Hobbes' cheeks now flushed with blood. He cast a sideward glance at Erika, who seemed equally surprised at his odd behavior. Hobbes was known for bashing, not for being bashful.

"...you know. There's homecoming next weekend, and I-"

Erika snorted with disdain before he could even finish his sentence.

"For real, Hobbes? And you thought trash talking my friend is a good start? Smooth move, Ace," she noted sarcastically.

"Friend?" Hobbes repeated, his voice laced with disgust, "Everyone knows that four-eyes here picks up anything that ain't bolted to the floor. Why the fuck do you even hang out with this creep."

Theo lowered his tablet, unable to feign ignorance of their conversation any longer, and cast Hobbes a haughty glance over the rims of his glasses.

"Insult me all you want, Hobbes," he noted calmly, "At the end of the day, we all know I get more than any of you twits ever will."

"At least we don't have to whore ourselves out to support our families," Slenderman remarked in an icy voice. "Or what's left of them, as the case may be."

At his words, Theo could feel anger well up inside of him. It rose from the depths of his gut, covering his tongue with a taste of bile, trying to pry his tightly clenched teeth apart to make him spit out a response. But his mind reacted slower to the insult than his mood. It was wiped blank with white, hot rage, and he couldn't think of anything to say.

In the wake of his anger followed a surge of guilt, and a feeling of disgust at himself. He didn't want to feel these things, not anymore. He wanted to forget and move on, he didn't want the memory of his father to have such power over him.

But he was deluding himself. Of course he wasn't over what had happened. Even if he wouldn't admit it freely, there was a reason he had targeted Xovo with his little stunt, why he had wanted to publicly humiliate them, and not any of the other hundreds of companies that had their headquarters in this city.

He could feel Erika's hand on his clenched fist, and the touch brought him back to his senses.

"...not worth it," she muttered under her breath.

The tension in his body didn't wane, though. All his senses told him that this situation was about to turn into a fight. Slenderman had rolled back his shoulders and stretched to his full height. Billy's face was split in a menacing grin, and Hobbes had clenched his teeth so tightly that the muscles on his face twitched.

"You know, it's kinda fitting that the son of a mole would be blind like one," Slenderman noted, and took a step forward. He reached out to grab Theo's glasses from his face with his spindly long fingers, but Theo backed away reflexively.

It was like a déjà-vu. These things had happened before, but he was no longer seven years old, no longer a child, terrified of going to a new school and the prospect of having to live on a planet of eternal night. He was fifteen, and there were few things he was afraid of any longer, especially after the things he had seen and done in the past months. And Hobbes and his gang were definitely not among the things that scared him. He had learned to stand up for himself, the hard way, on more occasion than one. His hand shot up and he grabbed Slenderman's wrist, twisting it away from his face and causing the taller boy to yowl in pain.

"Hey!" Billy exclaimed and moved past Hobbes, but Erika quickly stepped in her way.

"Don't tempt me, bitch. I'll snap you in half," she snarled as she turned to face her.

"I'd like to see you try."

Erika's voice had dropped to a surprisingly low growl, and Billy faltered, staring back at her. Erika was not particularly tall or muscular, but the way she now moved one foot back into a defensive stance made it clear that she knew what she was doing. Hobbes seemed to think the same, because he put a hand on Billy's shoulder and yanked her back as she tried to take another step.

"Not what we're here for," Hobbes muttered. "If you wanna fuck someone up, try four-eyes over there."

His glare darted to the side and met Theo's, but before anybody else could make a move, somebody nearby cleared their throat audibly, and the sound caused all five of them to freeze.

"What did you just say?"

Behind the trio, Bjorn Andersson had appeared, and now moved forward to stand next to his sister Erika. As he stole a sideward glance at the siblings, Theo realized how lucky he was to count these two among his friends, and not his enemies.

Towering a head above his sister, and over everyone else but Slenderman, but with shoulders as broad as Billy's, Bjorn was an intimidating sight. Tall and muscular, with almost white blonde hair and eyes like ice, his stare was enough to make most people back off. To the few who wouldn't submit to his physical appearance, the silver badge on the collar of his jacket would remind them that he was the president of the student council.

Most people feared Erika's older brother, except for those few who really knew him, as the soft-spoken and kind-hearted person he really was. Even now, his voice was calm and quiet. But he knew how to use his fists in an argument when necessary. It took a lot to piss him off, and usually nobody wanted to stick around and prod him long enough to get to that point.

Erika, on the other hand, was his polar opposite. Although quite tall for her age, she didn't look intimidating in the least, not even as her pretty face was contorted with anger now. But where people misjudged Bjorn as dangerous due to his stature and strength, they also misjudged her as sweet and innocent. Of course she could be sweet like sugar, but only if she wanted to. And most of the time, she really didn't want to. Especially not with people like Hobbs and his little gang.

Bjorn didn't even need to say anything else now, or move a muscle. He just fixed Hobbes with an utterly impassive stare, and that was enough to make Hobbes break into a nervous sweat.

"Man, let's get outta here," Slenderman, who was clearly the smartest of the three, whispered.

"But I just-" Hobbes cast a longing look at Erika, but his two friends took his arms and dragged him away.

"Better luck next time, Romeo," Theo waved at him, a gleefully satisfied smirk plastered on his face.

He turned to face Bjorn. "You know how to make an entrance, dude."

Theo had been prepared to fight and even to earn himself a bruise or too, but he hadn't been keen on it, so this resolution of the situation had been very welcome.

His anger over their insults had abated, but the sensation of experiencing a déjà-vu intensified. He was reminded of the day when he had first met Erika and Bjorn, several years ago, just after his family had moved to Eos. Back then, he didn't have his glasses yet, but the children had found other reasons to pick on him. He was the new guy, after all. Only Erika had stood up for him. And as they began to target her, too, Bjorn had swooped in to kick all of their asses. It had been the one and only time in all their years of friendship that Theo had seen Bjorn seriously physically harm somebody, and not just intimidate them.

All three of them had gotten into trouble for what happened that day, and over these events, and the resulting afternoons spent in detention, they had become friends. Even though Bjorn was a year and a half older and not in any classes with Erika and him, they hung out together most of the time.

"We should probably leave too," Bjorn remarked, watching the trio of delinquents walk away now, "You know the rooftop is off limits..."

"Aww, but it's such a good spot for stargazing," Theo commented sarcastically.

Technically, the sky over Eos would have been dark enough, even though it was the middle of the day. But even in a district like Midori the lights were too bright to allow for it.

With a sigh, Theo sat down on the floor, leaning against the cooling unit behind him. He reached into a pocket of his jacket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, plucking one out with his lips. The encounter with Hobbes had been unpleasant, and his hands were shaking from the remainders of the adrenaline coursing through him. Or perhaps it was the fact that he hadn't slept a lot in the past nights. Especially not last night, after the incident at the Xovo presentation. He continued to steal glances at his tablet as he fumbled with his lighter.

"You're not serious," Bjorn commented his actions incredulously. "Where the hell did you even get those?"

"My sources shall remain a secret, Bear," Theo replied nonchalantly, "But I can get you some if you like."

"Are you fucking kidding?" Bjorn's voice hitched and he looked at his sister in disbelief. "He is fucking kidding, right? Erika?"

Erika squatted down before Theo and gave him a hard stare that made him freeze in his motion to light the cigarette. She reached out, plucked it from his lips, and snapped it in half with one hand. Theo opened his mouth to say something, but the deadly serious expression on her face made him snap his mouth shut again.

"Bad. Very bad," she pointed her finger at him and spoke to him as if he was a dog, and he growled like one in response.

With a sigh, she plopped down on the floor cross-legged before him. Meanwhile, Bjorn had sat down next to him and pried the lighter from his hands.

"And why the fuck do you two care so much?" Theo grumbled.

"Because we care about you," Bjorn said quietly.

"You only care because I'm breaking campus rules, and you're on the student council," Theo countered, squinting at Bjorn.

"That's not true," he replied, clearly offended.

"Also, if your mom knew, she'd kill you," Erika noted.

"Yeah, well, she's too busy to notice much these days," Theo replied with a shrug.

His mother had enough issues of her own to deal with. He tried not to bother her too much with his problems. Or his existence in general. Of course, he would never smoke at home, but he had hoped that at least up here on the abandoned rooftop of the school, he could get his fix for the day. But not in the presence of these two, apparently.

"If our mom knew, she'd kill you too. And she will notice," Bjorn added.

"Will, not would?" Theo asked, raising an eyebrow.

"She asked if you want to come to dinner tonight," Bjorn explained "You and your mom."

Silence descended between them for a few moments, and the siblings exchanged a look that Theo couldn't quite read. They were doing that weird sibling thing where they seemed to read each other's minds, despite not having any comm augments.

Theo considered the invitation. The prospect of getting an actual, warm dinner was tempting, although he had already made plans for tonight. He stole another glance at the tablet beside him. He had been monitoring the news about the attack on Xovo the whole day. Already people were speculating who had breached their intricate network security, and more importantly, how. He had planned to reveal exactly that tonight. He didn't care whether or not Xovo would plug that particular hole in their cybersecurity measures. He had already found half a dozen others to exploit. He was only going to do it to get the proper credit.

"So will you come?" Erika asked. His gaze snapped back at her, and he found her looking at him expectantly.

"I'll ask her," Theo said, "But I can't guarantee anything. She's in a bad shape lately. Not sure if she could even make it across the street, much less all the way to your house."

His voice had dropped into a low whisper, without his intention. He didn't like to think about his mother and her condition, because it reminded him of the fact that he couldn't do anything about it, and that reminded him of the fact that the only person who could do something about it had abandoned them.

"I... I'm sorry, Theo," Bjorn said next to him.

"It's okay," he said and shrugged.

"But you will come?" Erika asked.

She looked at him with that peculiar, half-worried, half-encouraging expression of hers, that had her lips curled up in a smile but her brows slightly knit. He both hated and loved that about her – that she worried about him, but also knew that he didn't like it, so she tried to hide it. And somehow, her look now also made him wonder if she knew that his alternative plans would have comprised of something stupid that she would most definitely not approve of.

He sighed in defeat.

"Sure," Theo replied, "Why wouldn't I?"

~ ~ ~

That night, Theo ended up thinking about at least a dozen reasons why he shouldn't have accepted their invitation.

He had come alone, because his mother had been too tired and weak. And perhaps it was better that she wasn't there to witness the events that unfolded that night. He already had a bad feeling when he rang the bell at the front gate at the Anderssons', and nobody greeted him over the intercom, he was just let in.

As he walked along the driveway across the front yard, the posh and modern house loomed ominously in front of him, despite its brightly illuminated glass-and-steel front. This part of Midori district consisted of a series of layered terraces, with each new level being built on the buildings of the previous one. The design provided many houses and apartment complexes with spacious gardens. One would have been able to see the sky from here, even if it was nothing but a uniformly black canopy. But tonight, the sky was covered in rain clouds, and the reflection of the light coming from the distant Alba district bathed the clouds in an eerie glow. They probably shone in a color, he realized, most likely orange. He remembered that sight from a few years back, when his eyes had been better.

Normally, he liked this part of town – the outskirts of Midori were exclusively residential, and the street lights and advertisements were slightly less obnoxious than in the rest of Eos. But now, the rain had drenched the world around him and covered it with its wet sheen, and the lights reflected and distorted all around him, bleeding into his field of view even as he pulled his hood deep over his face and lowered his gaze to the floor. It all only added to his feeling of unease.

Right as he raised his hand to knock on the front door, Erika pulled it open. Her face was pale as paper and the look on it about as cheerful as the weather.

"What's wrong?" he asked her, without a greeting.

She lowered her gaze and just shook her head as she stepped to the side to let him in. But he didn't need an explanation, because in the hallway, he could hear an unexpected voice coming from somewhere within the house - a deep and rumbling baritone.

"Your dad is here?" Theo hissed incredulously as she took his wet jacket from his hands to hang it up. "And you didn't tell me?!"

"I didn't know," she whispered back. "Mom apparently thought it would be a nice surprise."

Well, it certainly is a surprise... he thought.

As she led him through the hallway, he noticed that Erika had changed her clothes. She wore a skirt and a blouse, and had tied her long blond hair into a high ponytail. He looked down at his own clothes as he walked. His sneakers were well-worn and dirty, and wet from the rain outside. His jeans had seen better days and were torn at the knees. At least he had thought of putting on a fresh shirt before coming over, and now he thanked his past self for the wise decision of picking one without any provocative or snarky print. He pulled back the wet hood of his sweater and combed through his messy hair nervously, while his glasses began to fog from the warm air inside the house.

His hands were shaking again, and he wondered if he still smelled of the cigarette he had smoked on the way here. He could only hope the rain would have washed the scent away. Their mother might only figuratively kill him if she found out, but their father, on the other hand...

Erika stopped abruptly in the shadow of the hallway, causing him to almost bump into her. She turned around and faced him with a worried frown.

"I'm sorry...I tried to text you a warning, but they wouldn't let me out of their sight," she whispered as she tugged at his hoodie, flattening a fold.

"Don't worry."

He wasn't quite sure if he said that to reassure her or himself, as they stepped into the living room. The three people sitting there all turned their heads and directed their gazes at them. Two of them had the same pale, icy eye color to them, but only one had the glaring intensity of a laser beam to it.

Theo had only ever met Sven Andersson on a couple of occasions in the past, since he spent most of the year off-world on military assignments. As the man stood up and rose to his full height, Theo couldn't help but note that every time he met him, he was still exactly as scary as the very first time he had seen him at the age of seven.

Sven Andersson was broad shouldered, six foot five tall with flaxen hair, and a face with features as hard and cold as stone. Two sets of military-grade transdermal augments carved their paths into his skin, running zig-zagged from his hairline across his temples to the corner of his eyes,continued downward and along his cheek bones, until they dipped down to draw two vertical lines next to the corners of his mouth. The augments added to the impression of a perpetual frown on his face.

Theo didn't quite know what to make of the fact that Sven chose to wear his grey uniform even during his shore leave, in the privacy of his own home. He wondered if the man would also have a separate set of his uniform to wear as pajamas at night. The thought was silly enough to momentarily ease at least some of his tension under the man's stern glare.

"Theodor," Sven greeted him, causing him to simultaneously stiffen and cringe, due to the threatening rumbling of the man's voice, and his habit of using his full name.

"Welcome back, Mister Andersson," Theo replied, forcing a polite smile and hurrying to shake the man's outstretched hand.

Sven wrinkled his nose, but even if he noticed the smell of cigarettes clinging to Theo, he didn't remark on it.

"I'm so glad you came," Bjorn and Erika's mother chimed in.

She sounded honestly relieved, as if he was a lifeguard coming to save her from drowning, rather than her children's ragtag friend coming to stain her carpet with his muddy shoes.

"Thank you for the invitation, An- Misses Andersson," he quickly corrected himself, as he noted the boring glare of her husband.

Anne Andersson was like an aunt to Theo, and he had been on a first name basis with her from the age of seven. But the presence of her husband always changed things in this house.

Some were obvious, like the way in which Erika had dressed like she was about to have her first day at elementary school. Bjorn, too, had put on a shirt and a dark tie. He looked like he was about to attend his own funeral. They both were even paler than usual, and while Erika's gaze darted back and forth between Theo and her father nervously, Bjorn stared off into the distance somewhere.

Even Anne was stiff around her own husband, as she sat on the sofa with her hands clenched in her lap and her back straightened. She wore her hair in a tight up-do, and was dressed in an elegant, light pantsuit. Theo had come to know her as the kind of woman who would kick her heels into a corner of the room as soon as she came home from work. But in the presence of her husband, that was different, too. He couldn't help but notice the dark shadows under her eyes, despite a layer of make-up that tried to conceal them. Anne was a tall woman, but as Sven moved back to her side and sat down on the sofa next to her again, she seemed to shrink in his shadow.

Some changes to the Andersson household were subtler. Like the fact that the room was so spotlessly clean that it looked like it had never been inhabited by human beings. A fifth chair had been added at the head of the dinner table, which had been set with old-fashioned and ornate silverware instead of the day-to-day cutlery they normally used. At the far end of the room, a piece of modern art that had hung behind the piano for the past months had disappeared.

As he let his gaze wander through the room, Theo remembered the days of his childhood spent in this house. Often, when his parents were both working long hours, he had come here after school with Erika and Bjorn rather than stay alone at home.

Their favorite game had been 'space exploration'. First, the entire living room had to be turned into the treacherous landscape of a distant planet, by upturning the chairs and the coffee table, spanning blankets across their legs to create mountain ranges and caves, and rearranging the potted plants into a wild and dangerous jungle. That whole endeavor alone often lasted the entire afternoon, and they didn't get to the actual exploration until Anne came home from work. But she always let them play until Theo had to go home. Sometimes, she would even join in their games, kicking her heels to the side and crawling through blanket-caves or climbing over sofa-mountains along with them. And she even allowed them to leave her living room turned upside down, until Theo could visit again, and the children could finish their very important missions on exotic and unexplored planets.

Sometimes, Anne would tell stories instead – of her travels to distant planets for her job as a sales rep, before she had married and settled down. Of course, as they grew older, Bjorn, Erika and Theo had eventually stopped playing pretend. Sometimes, when Theo visited now, it seemed to him like Anne was sad that they had outgrown their games and her stories. But he still cherished these memories, and through them, he had come to associate this house with familiarity, but also the fascination of the unknown. In a way, he had always felt at home here.

But now, the room held an atmosphere of cold sterility and imposed order. Everything was polished to a sheen, much like the boots of the man who had conquered the remnants of the wild and unexplored pretend-planets of his childhood, and tamed them by subjecting them to his iron rule. This house was like a second home to him, yet it felt very alien, now that it had become the home of Sven Andersson again.

"So your mother will not be joining us?" Anne asked, causing his thoughts to snap back to the present.

Theo sat down on the sofa between Erika and Bjorn, opposite to their parents, and shook his head in response. "She sends her regards."

"How is she doing?" Sven asked.

"She... she is.... fine," Theo said quietly.

In truth, she was bedridden nine out of ten days, and the tenth she spent drowning herself in work, in an attempt to make up for the other nine that she had missed. But he saw no reason to provide any further details.

"So she finally had surgery?" Sven dug deeper.

"No," Theo replied curtly.

Sven clearly didn't catch the hint that he didn't particularly enjoy talking about his mother's state. But Theo always felt like there were no words to properly express what he felt and thought. There wasn't even a proper name for the condition that affected her. It usually only befell people working in the factories in Amarillo, and defied proper causal relation to any single causative agent, much like the symptoms could vary. Generally, it was probably the noxious fumes that many of the factories blew into the air completely unfiltered, which caused many to fall gravely ill with a variety of respiratory problems.

Theo's mother was no factory worker, but a journalist. Caroline Lee had worked on a documentary about the labor conditions in Amarillo when she had fallen ill with the very disease she had sought to bring attention to. If there was such a thing as destiny, it certainly seemed to have a crude sense of humor when it came to the Lee family.

And just like there was no single cause for the damage to the lungs, there was no cure, other than extensive surgery and life support augments to repair or replace the corroded parts of the lungs. But the only kind of treatment they could effort was palliative care to ease her pain.

Sven would have known that, given the fact that their families had been close ever since they moved to Eos, and his mother was friends with Anne. Nonetheless, the man looked at Theo expectantly, apparently waiting for him to continue.

Theo met his intense stare over the rims of his glasses. It made it easier to not allow those icy eyes to bore into him when all he saw of the man's face was a blurry, bright spot. But even with his vision impaired like this, he could tell that Sven's augments suddenly came to life, as the lines on his face began to glow. Moments later, the citizen ID microchip in his arm seemed to warm up slightly, as Sven proceeded to scan him.

"And what about yourself?" the man asked, "I see you are still wearing those... glasses."

Wow. And you needed the scanner to tell you that? Theo thought, but bit back his remark.

He couldn't help but feel offended at Sven using his augments on him like that, as if he meant to pry at his insides, both figuratively and literally. Clearly, this conversation was no longer about his mother or him, and had left the boundaries of casual smalltalk altogether. He raised his head again and straightened his shoulders, just to show the man that he wasn't going to flinch under his threatening demeanor. Next to him, Erika put a hand on his for a moment, but she quickly drew back as her father's gaze flicked over to her, and scooted away from him.

"Shouldn't you be old enough to get augments by now?" Sven asked, in a tone as if he was a parent chiding a disobedient child that should have known better.

"I am." Theo surprised himself with the calmness in his voice, despite the anger that welled up within him.

"And yet..."

"Yet we can't afford new eyes for me any more than new lungs for my mother," he explained, and forced a smile upon his lips. Keeping his teeth clenched was currently the best way he could think of to keep himself from adding anything that he might come to regret.

"I see..." Sven only said.

He crossed his arms, and the lights on his face died down again. But he continued to stare Theo down like a prosecutor trying to pry a confession from a criminal.

"I would have thought your father's connections might have helped you with this... situation," the man continued.

Theo wondered if his wife and children could hear the acid dripping from Sven's voice, or if it was only him. He hesitated with his answer. Perhaps he was taking this too personally. Perhaps he was being too emotional about the topic, again. He took a deep breath before he spoke again.

"That might have helped us a year ago," he replied stiffly, "But not any longer. As you can surely understand."

"Ah, yes, of course." Sven leaned back, "I can see how they would be reluctant to support the family of an industrial spy."

Sven's words felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured out over him. Next to him, Erika gasped. Anne had been about to take a sip from her drink and froze in her motion, the glass halfway to her lips. And Bjorn just stared at his father wide-eyed.

The shock of the blatant accusation drowned out anything else for a moment. And then the realization settled in. It was a provocation. Nothing but an attempt to goad him into saying something stupid, or offensive. But he would not give Sven the pleasure of manipulating him like that. The mere thought that this grown ass man, a Commander in the Neo-Tokyan navy, had nothing better to do than pick on him, a fifteen year old kid who was, for all intents and purposes, half-orphaned - it was nothing shy of ridiculous. He would not give him a reason to kick him out of this house. He pressed his lips together tightly – better not to say nothing, than any of the things that came to his mind right then.

Anne was the first to speak again. "Honey, I don't think-"

"You know, as a member of the Neo-Tokyan navy, I have connections to top neuro-cyberneticists," Sven cut her off.

So we can become guinea pigs to these madmen, like the other poor suckers in Amarillo who can't afford proper treatment and sign up for all kinds of shit out of sheer desperation? Theo thought.

"In the navy, we use nothing but top-modern state of the art hardware," Sven continued, as if he had read his thoughts, "Fixing something like your eyes would be a matter of an afternoon."

Theo narrowed his eyes at Sven, trying to read his stone-faced expression. Suddenly, the conversation sounded like an attempt to recruit him for the navy. But no way in hell would he sell his soul to these people. He didn't have much left in life, and he certainly wasn't going to give that meager rest to the government of Neo-Tokyo.

"That's right – didn't you just receive some new augments before you went on your last mission?" Erika now chimed in.

Theo exhaled an overdue breath, grateful about the diversion to a different topic.

"Prototype combat systems," Sven confirmed. "Xovo manufactured them for us."

He looked back at Theo as if he expected him to say something to that.

"Neat," he just commented.

The tension in the room was palpable at that point. Theo stole a glance at Anne, who stared down at the glass she held clenched in her hands and was moving her mouth as if to say something. He understood now why she had invited his mother and him to come tonight. She had probably hoped that two people outside of their family could help to grease the wheels of conversation.

Part of him wished his mom could be here - she had a talent at diffusing difficult and awkward situations with words, and getting people to talk. It was part of her job. But another part was relieved that she wasn't here, and didn't have to serve as a human buffer to the passive-aggressiveness that Sven Andersson seemed to exude with every breath.

Anne looked up from her glass and met his gaze. Her expression held an unspoken apology for the situation, but underneath it, something else was barely hidden, just like her makeup could barely conceal the dark shadows under her eyes. It was then that he realized that Anne wasn't just awkward around her husband. She was genuinely frightened.

With that thought in mind, dinner turned into an excruciatingly slow and awkward experience.

Sven sat at the head of the table, his wife to one side and Erika to the other. Theo sat next to Erika, and Bjorn next to his mother. Just like the three of them, Theo had now reflexively adapted a stiff posture with a straight back. His hands were still trembling as he reached for the cutlery and began to eat. As much as he usually enjoyed Anne's cooking, it seemed to him like every bite increased in volume as he chewed on it, until he could barely force it down his throat.

"So, Erika, how are your piano lessons progressing?" Sven asked after they had eaten in torturous silence for a while.

Theo's gaze fell on Erika's hands, as she clenched the cutlery so tight her knuckles turned white. She met her father's look with a deadpan stare, and didn't answer.

"Why... why don't you play for us after dinner?" Anne suggested. Her voice had an underlying tone of urgency to it.

"I might as well go gargle with broken glass and sing Alonian Opera, that'll probably sound better," Erika mumbled under her breath, and Theo suppressed a chuckle only with great effort.

"What was that?" Sven asked sternly.

"Nothing, father," she chirped.

Theo tried to force back his grin at the thought of Erika playing the piano. She hated it with a passion, but had been more or less forced to take lessons since early childhood. 'More or less' in this case meaning that whenever she could sneak away, she did. Her teacher wasn't keen on tutoring an unwilling student, so he didn't really care. And to keep up the ruse, she had often employed Bjorn to take the lessons in her stead, so that when their mother would pass by the closed doors of the living room, she'd still hear the sound of the piano and be satisfied with that.

Theo watched Erika and Bjorn exchange a nervous glance. Between the siblings, Bjorn had quite evidently inherited all musical talent, leaving nothing for his younger sister. They were probably both thinking now that if Erika were to play for an audience now after dinner, their mother would realize that it had definitely not been her playing behind closed doors all these times. And their father would notice that neither of his children was following his wishes.

"We... could play a duet?" Bjorn suggested in a quiet voice, "Like back in the day when we-"

Anne's eyes widened in shock at her son's words, and she shook her head almost imperceptibly. But it was too late. Sven lowered his cutlery and stared at his son across the table, and Bjorn's words died under that glare.

"What did I tell you about that?" Sven asked.

His voice had taken on a surprisingly calm tone, and he was talking to his seventeen-year-old son like he was lecturing a small child. But there was hint of a threat in his words that caused Theo to shudder.

"It is not worth my time..." Bjorn said quietly.

"And what should you rather spend your time on?"

"Learning to protect... the things that are important in life..."

Sven interlaced his fingers and looked at his son with his laser glare, while Bjorn stared at the half-filled plate before him on the table.

"Such as?"

"Family," Bjorn replied meekly. "Family... honor."

"It is important to protect that which we love," Anne chimed in from the side with a soft voice.

It was a feeble attempt to provide some deeper reasoning behind the stone cold attitude of her husband towards his own children, and his archaic ideas about what girls and boys were supposed and not supposed to do.

"But... what if..."

Bjorn lifted his gaze and looked up to meet his father's. His face displayed his dismay, but he did not seem to have the bravery to commit to saying what he wanted to. In his stead, Erika spoke up.

"Well, what if what he loves is playing the piano?"

Everyone at the table snapped their heads around to look at her. There was an unmistakable spark of defiance in her eyes as she met her father's glare. For a moment, Sven just blinked at her in disbelief.

"What did you just say?"

"You heard me right," she said calmly. She lowered her cutlery and crossed her arms before her chest. "I hate it, and he loves it. So why won't you let him play the goddamn piano and leave each of us be?"

Theo felt a knot form in his gut. He hadn't thought it possible that someone could have as much dark and burning anger in such bright and pale eyes as Sven Andersson, but somehow, Erika's glare was a match to her father's. They stared at each other in silence for a few heartbeats, and the air between them seemed to cackle with latent electricity that made the hairs on the back of Theo's neck stand up.

Slowly, Sven Andersson rose to his feet to tower over his daughter, but she jumped up as well, in an effort to meet him on eye level. It was futile, of course. The man was a giant. And Erika was a fifteen year old girl, no matter how much she stretched her neck and straightened her shoulders. And yet, there was something about her – an aura of nonconformity and defiance that was strong enough to match the sense of strict, deterministic order that her father seemed to radiate with his uniformed presence.

"Erika," Anne whispered, almost inaudible as she covered her mouth with her hand in shock, "Please-"

"No, mom, I've had enough of this. Seriously, I'm sick of pretending to be someone I'm not, just to humor you," she raised her voice and gestured at her father again, who clenched his jaw so hard that his augments carved furrows into the muscles on his face.

Theo shot a glance at Anne and Bjorn at the other end of the table. They both sat paralyzed with fear and stared wide-eyed at the disaster that was clearly about to unfold. He looked back to Erika at his left, standing tall and with straightened shoulders and her fists clenched at her side. The fact that out of the three, she had been the first to talk back at Sven tonight surprised him only mildly. She was prone to bite off more than she could chew and pick fights she couldn't win. But what genuinely baffled him was that Bjorn, who would always have his sister's back and come to her defense, no matter if against peers or teachers or random strangers who pissed her off on the street, didn't even speak up to support her now.

The air in the room was positively volatile now, and since neither Anne nor Bjorn seemed capable of defusing the situation, Theo figured that he didn't really have a choice.

"Erika," he whispered and put a hand on her clenched fist, "Calm down."

"Take your hands off my daughter right this instant!" Sven barked at him, causing him to jolt in surprise and do as ordered.

"He is a guest in our house!" Erika snapped back at him ""How can you talk to him like that?"

"This is my house, and I will-"

"This is not your fucking house, you're not even here most of the time! You're more of a guest around here than Theo!"

Her angrily shouted words seem to hang between the two for a moment, in which Sven stared at his daughter in disbelief.

"I'm so sick of catering to your silly whims," she hissed, "I'm done playing pretend. I'm done pretending to be the perfect daughter. What's the use of being the perfect daughter when you're nothing but a sad excuse for a father?"

Anne gasped audibly at her words.

"Erika, you better shut your mouth right now, and only open it again to apologize," her father threatened, his voice dropping to a low growl. "Or-"

But Erika clearly had no intention to back down now. She crossed her arms before her chest and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Or what?"

The answer to her question came as promptly as she had spoken it.

"NO!" Anne had found her voice again and cried out, but nothing could have stopped her husband now.

Sven smacked his daughter across the face with the back of his hand with enough force to knock her back. Reflexively, Theo jumped to his feet and managed to catch her before she fell over. Adrenaline flooded his body as he held on to her and looked up at her father. The man's augments had flared to life again, a pulsating glow traveled down along the lines on his face like a stream of tears. But the look on his face was without so much as a shred of guilt or concern as he stared down at his daughter as she huddled into Theo's arms.

In disbelief, Theo stared back at the man, who raised his hand again.

"I told you to keep your hands off-"

"ENOUGH!" Anne shouted.

Her voice was surprisingly firm and she had risen to her feet, fixing her husband with a dark and furious expression. Apparently, there was a lot she was willing to put up with - but watching Sven hurt Erika had breached her limit, and so she had found her courage again. This seemed to surprise Sven more than it antagonized him, because he looked back at her in startled disbelief.

Anne shot a sideward glance at Theo.

"Children, get out," she ordered them in a low voice.

She didn't need to repeat herself. Theo kept his arm around Erika's shoulder, and led her out of the room, and out of the house. The heavy pounding of his heartbeat drowned out the shouting that erupted behind them.

He didn't turn back around to see if Bjorn was following them.

Theo couldn't understand why Bjorn hadn't stepped in and defended his sister. He had seen him stand up against bullies at school. At the age of ten, he had already protected Theo and Erika from kids twice his own mass. And not just that, he would swoop in to stop bullying and mediate conflicts between pretty much anyone. He would always stand up for the weak, and always protect those who can't protect themselves.

Yet, against his own father, he hadn't said a word.

Outside, the night air was cold after the previous rain. It helped to calm Theo's nerves and clear his head, but the clammy cold seemed to seep into his bones faster than the front door shut behind them.

Erika sat down on the porch, and buried her face in her hands. She was shaking, but not crying. Theo had never seen Erika cry, but he had also never seen her so close to it. He sat down next to her and rubbed her back, but she shook her head, and he reluctantly backed away again.

"What a shitshow," he commented, breaking the silence between them.

"Well, welcome to our life for the next four weeks," Erika remarked glumly.

She raised her head slightly, and he could see that a dark bruise was already beginning to form at the side of her face, and the skin had split over her cheek bone. A trickle of blood ran across her cheek like a stream of red tears, and dripped down on her white blouse.

"We have to go back," Theo noted. "You need a band aid or something, and an ice pack."

She snorted. "I'm not going back in there now."

"We shouldn't have left your mom alone with him. He seemed very... agitated."

"He... he wasn't always like that," Bjorn whispered meekly.

At his words, something inside of Theo simply snapped. He had spent the entire evening waiting for his friend to say something, to stand up, for himself, his sister, his mother. Perhaps deep inside he had also hoped that he would stand up for him, when Sven had taunted him over that discussion about augments, and when he had insulted his father like that. Yet when Bjorn had finally found it in himself to speak, the one he was defending was Sven.

"Bear," Theo addressed him by his nickname, but Bjorn didn't react. Stupefied, he stared at an empty spot in the distance.

"Look at me. Look at me for fuck's sake!"

He jumped to his feet and grabbed Bjorn's arms to shake him, until the taller boy finally looked down to meet his gaze.

"Get your shit together! Whatever the hell that man used to do and be doesn't matter. Right now, he is the man who fucking hit your sister. That's who he is right now."

Bjorn stared at him in silence for a moment.

"Would you say that about your own father too, if he was around?" he asked quietly.

There was no anger in his voice, no offense or hostility. It wasn't intended to insult him or hurt him, it was a genuine question. And probably, it was justified. And yet it hurt.

Theo let go of his friend's arms and backed away from him.

"That's different," he said through gritted teeth. "My dad isn't... he wasn't..."

"But you want to remember him the way he was. The way he was to you. During happier days. Don't you?"

"Whatever. This is not about me," Theo grumbled, "It's about the fact that you will have to go back into that house and be around that psychotic-"

"He is not psychotic!" Bjorn cut him off. "He is just..."

"Prone to outbursts of anger and violence?" Theo supplied in a dry tone.

"For fuck's sake, just shut up, both of you," Erika groaned from the side.

Silence descended between them. Through the closed door, they could still hear Sven and Anne fight inside the house.

Theo heaved a deep sigh, and nervously combed a hand through his hair while thinking. He had no idea what to do, and that feeling of helplessness, of being powerless, drove him absolutely crazy. Never before had he craved to smoke as much as right in this moment.

"Listen guys," Theo finally broke the silence again, "What you said this afternoon - that you care about me? Well the same is true for me. You are my friends. We promised to always be there for each other. I know there isn't much I can do. But for now, you can crash at my place, if you like."

"He might get even madder if we disappear for the night," Bjorn remarked.

"I don't care," Erika said firmly and got to her feet. "If he... if he does anything like this again, I'll report him."

"To the police?" Theo asked.

"Police, his superiors at the navy, whoever the fuck will listen," she said firmly. "And I'll let him know about that tomorrow. For tonight... I just really don't wanna go back in there."

"And.... what about mom?" Bjorn asked her.

Theo wrinkled his brow, but he didn't say anything. But he couldn't help but wonder - why was he asking her? Why did Bjorn seem to expect his younger sister to have the answers?

She looked up at her brother, with a strange expression on her face. For a moment, she seemed infinitely older, and much more mature than him. Bjorn, on the other hand, seemed helpless, like a lost child turning to an adult for guidance. But Erika wasn't an adult. Neither of the three of them was, and neither knew what to do in this situation. And within a heartbeat, her composure began to waver, and the strength in her look faltered as she averted her gaze from her brother.

That was the moment that something between all three of them irreparably shattered. This wasn't how it was supposed to be - they had promised to have each other's backs, always. But a promise made when they had been children turned out to be worthless in a world which demanded they become adults within just a single, rainy night. Instead, they were turned into children again – all three of them lost and helpless.

"She will manage," Erika just said, her voice barely more than a whisper as she turned away from Theo and Bjorn, "And so will I."

______

A.N.
Dedicated to @cosmogyral-delirium and @Red_Leasia
This chapter was giving me intense headaches over the past weeks, but thanks to the two of them I was finally able to get it into (hopefully) post-worthy shape. Thanks for your help, guys <3