Evan gagged and his nostrils burned from the musky smell of whatever poor creature lay on his metal cafeteria tray. How the smell had seemed tempting from afar was beyond him. This misshapen meat might have been a rat, but to keep the contents of his stomach a secret, he decided it was best not to examine the dead thing any further. He nudged aside the food and watched the market around him. According to Daniel, they ate food from the marketplace twice a week in order to ration their MRE’s.

  The city was sluggish to wake. Lazy trails of smoke lifted above the shacks of Alpha base, the giant TV’s running on with their news broadcasts and ancient sports videos.

  Evan sat at a white plastic table by himself, while other rebels gathered around their own sections; an old woman with sagging skin, a man wrapped in thick blankets, and a child with a prosthetic limb were some of the more notable individuals. Not what Evan would consider soldiers, and they were only a few among hundreds in the market, and thousands in the base. Were they all Afflicted, or did they have other reasons for throwing their lives in with the Blood Red Army? What if the Federation found them? Would they kill them all the same?

  The rest of Phoenix One sat together at another table. Daniel, Nyla, Cranston, Blink, Twitch, and even Rowic laughed and ate together. It looked like fun, Evan thought. He caught a glimpse of Blink’s eye. She had been looking right at him. He dropped his head, but she got up from the group’s table and walked over to him while the others watched.

  “How’s it hanging, Evan?” Blink slid her tray of food next to him.

  “Uh, nothing,” he said, trying to salvage his awkward predicament by smiling. Of course, Blink’s smile far overpowered his own.

  Blink said, “You shouldn’t be eating alone! Come join us.”

  “It’s ok. I’m ok.”

  “Mmm, alright solitude, dude. Mind if I join you then?”

  “Uh, yeah. I mean, no.” He scooted over for her. One person isn’t bad, I’m not that hopeless at conversation.

  But then Blink’s twin followed over. Their combined smiles disarmed Evan for a moment.

  Ok, two people.

  A firm pressure gripped his shoulders. It was Cranston’s meaty arm as he sat next to him. In fact, all the team members relocated to Evan’s table.

  He shrunk; afraid they’d put all their attention on him. But instead, they returned to their previous conversation, and Evan found himself easing up.

  Eventually, Cranston did ask, “How’s sleep been working for you?”

  Evan shrugged. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

  Cranston chuckled. “I doubt that. I lived in Dogma Isle for well over a decade, just like you. Even the trashy places have class compared to a bunkroom in the middle of a sewer.”

  “You grew up in the capital?”

  “Yes sir,” Cranston nodded, “I was head of border security.”

  “Still are,” Nyla said.

  “Yeah, as far as the Feds know.”

  “You still work for the Feds?” Evan asked. “Don’t they wonder where you are when you’re with us?”

  The southerner shrugged. “There’s certain freedom’s that come with being a war hero.” He gave a somber grimace as if to say that the subject was off limits.

  Evan wondered what could drive a man to go from Federation hero to a rebel leader. Had Cranston been in the same situation as Joseph Krow or the soldiers who took Ken, given the choice of murdering a defenseless man or betraying the government? Regardless, Evan was glad he wasn’t the only Federation traitor amongst the Blood Red Army.

  One of the giant TV screens had text scrolling up, down, left, and right – depending on what language the information was written in. From what Evan could catch, they were statistics. One new ally this week. Ten allies killed this month. Active purifiers in the Eastern Sector: Ida Nelson P-06, Leon Melk P-10…

  …Joseph Krow P-05.

  Never had reading a name given Evan chills until seeing Krow’s scroll by. Hazard Station clawed into his mind again. He tightened his eyes, pushing the memories back, hiding the deaths, the cracking, the blood –

  “You, ok?” Blink asked.

  Evan shook his head. “Yeah, sorry.” He didn’t look at the lists anymore. He asked, “So, where’s your leader, Vihn? Doesn’t he eat with you?”

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  Nyla wrung her head. “Leader, he says.”

  “Isn’t he in charge of you guys?”

  Blink nudged Evan. “It’s not worth bringing up,” she whispered.

  Daniel said, “Yeah, he’s in charge of us, and we fly on his ship for sure. But he doesn’t really do that leading thing. Dig?”

  This surprised Evan. “The way you guys and Andrea talked, it seemed like you were a specialized unit.”

  Nyla whistled. “We aren’t enforcers. Vincent does his own thing; we just show up. If anything, Cranston’s our leader.”

  “Alright, that’s enough of that,” Cranston said while taking a sip from his bowl.

  “Ah, Cranston still can’t get past that Fed training, he has to do everything based on chain of command,” Daniel teased.

  “Shut it.”

  “What?”

  Cranston sighed and spoke to Evan. “Don’t listen to them. Especially not Daniel, he wasn’t there to see Vihn go toe-to-toe with Krow some years back. He’s the only one to win a solo fight with a purifier.”

  “Not much of a win when that thing is still a walking, talking, killing cyborg,” Nyla said.

  Daniel smirked. “Well, that one’s your fault, isn’t it?”

  She socked his shoulder.

  Cranston didn’t acknowledge their comments. “To answer your question, Evan, he eats his food the ship by himself.”

  Daniel leaned over his undisturbed food. “Say, what’s Vihn’s plan for you anyway? How’s he going to train you to take on purifiers, fight your dad, and dismantle the regime?”

  Evan bit his cheek. He had no real intention of fighting his dad or taking a purifier one-on-one like Vihn. But he had to go along with it if he was going to get the rebels to help him find Ken.

  “He didn’t tell me,” Evan answered.

  A loud blaring symphony pulled his attention to the giant television screens again. Federation News Broadcast.

  “Good morning, citizens of the Federation. Evangelos Hendricks Junior, purifier crack down, and Unification Day! We’ll cover it all, and more, now!”

  Before Evan could process that they’d just said his name, the screen flashed to a video call interview. The reporter was in a box in the right corner of the TV, and the rest of the screen dedicated to Evan, who was wearing a suit and tie

  “What the…” Evan mumbled, the real one, the one who was in a cafeteria deep in a hidden rebel base, buried beneath city ruins – most definitely not being interviewed and wearing a suit. The team looked back and forth between the screen and him, showing just as much confusion on their faces as he felt.

  The reporter opened with a generic greeting, and asked, “How has the North been this time of year?”

  “Very cold,” the imposter said, eliciting a chuckle from the reporter. “I’ve really enjoyed my chance to see how other parts of the Federation function. It’s been a great opportunity to see how well the Slovakians have been integrated into our culture…”

  Daniel asked, “When did you do this?”

  “I didn’t,” Evan said.

  “You’re right there, man.”

  “Deepfake,” Rowic said as he swiped through his tablet. “Techs been around forever, but it’s supposed to be illegal to use. Laws never stop a government, I guess. Anyway, they’re using a form of machine learning that’s copied Evan’s features from his other interviews and then mapped that on to an actor of similar proportions, or maybe a CG rendering. You can tell slightly by some feathering on his lips. It happens when they try to have him say something that the program doesn’t have footage of. There. Like when he said Slovakians again. You can tell the program is trying to adapt to the word, but they probably don’t have enough footage of him making those mouth formations.”

  It was evident how far the Federation was working to keep what had happened to Evan a secret. More so, he wondered how many other times they must have fabricated reports and footage. They could make him do or say whatever they wanted… But his voice. It sounded just like him, perfectly, not like a computer program trying to sound like him or his words being stitched together. It was his voice.

  “How’d they find an actor that sounds like me so fast?” Evan asked.

  Rowic shrugged. “There’s lots of possibilities.”

  Maybe, but I know someone who can sound exactly like me…

  While Evan processed everything, he noticed some other people in the cafeteria give him side glances as they passed by. He covered his face with his hands, remembering what Daniel had said about not being able to trust everyone.

  “People are starting to notice me, maybe we should go,” he said.

  Cranston nodded. “I think you’re right. Come on, chitlins, let’s head back-” His words broke as the broadcast changed.

  The video ran clips of a town being raided by enforcers, drones, gunships, and a purifier. Some gunfire and Afflicted powers flashed, but the video was spliced so that none of the presumable rebels were shown. The footage concluded with enforcers marching a line of captured suspects in vans, their hands bound, and heads covered.

  The old lady in the cafeteria wailed, followed by gasps and cries from others in the market. Cranston’s face tightened bright red and scowling.

  “What’s going on?” Evan whispered to Blink.

  She didn’t look at him, focusing on the screen. “That was New Avalon. A lot of our people live there… and it’s close.”

  Cranston pressed his ear, then acknowledged the team. “Vihn wants us to head to Addy.”

  The team made their way out of the marketplace, Evan towing behind. He didn’t know what to make of it. Was this his fight? Was this his war? What he did understand was their pain. The anger, crying, and determination he saw on the faces of each person he passed reminded him of himself. It reminded him of that night at Hazard Station, and the death he’d seen, how he had to do something. He couldn’t help but feel like this was all happening because of him.

  As they ascended the lift to the upper terraces, the screen changed once again.

  “A well reminder,” echoed the news reporter’s voice, “that Unification Day is just around the corner. Let us never forget the lives lost in the conflict between terrorists and Federation citizens. As we move to celebrate the end of the civil war and the anniversary of the Purifier Initiative, let us not forget that it was the drive of men like President Nero Caine who crafted the world we live in now, and it will be men and women like him who will see us into a world of peace.”

  Nyla shouted something at the reporter in her language.

  The lift stopped. All the lights and tech blacked out. Red lights popped on, spinning, and carpeting the city in crimson illumination. There was no sound, no alarms, or voices – just the woosh of the waterfall colliding with the sewer river, illuminated by the red. Like a fountain of blood.

  “What’s happening?” Evan asked.

  Cranston whispered, “They’re here.”

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