“You killed them!” Jasper shouts at Kiren.

  The girl sets down the sword. “Rex, I hit 'em with the blunt end. See? Besides, why do you care? Isn’t he Republic?”

  Jasper stands to examine the thin, uncannily pale body. “Well, they’re still breathing, whoever they are. But they definitely don’t look Republic.”

  “Huh, so I guess chasing them around back at the prison was all for nothing?”

  Jasper shrugs, “Maybe not. We saw that symbiotic ship leave and the Bioship after that. They might know what that was about.”

  “So they might be able to finally get us a ship so we can get off this fucking wastend?”

  Jasper doesn’t want Kiren to get her hopes up too much. They’ve both been rotting here for at least a week, or more; it's difficult to tell. The pair have searched far and wide for a spaceport or unattended ship. However, what they found destroyed those ambitions.

  “We already know where the ships are,” Jasper huffs.

  Kiren frowns at the reminder.

  They’ve determined that the only ships on the pnet are located at the same pce where they were processed as prisoners. A pce crawling with Republic soldiers and a pce that they have been unable to find again in the maze that is the dead forest.

  Jasper and Kiren have now simply started trying to survive and perhaps find a way to break everyone out of the prison. That was Kiren’s idea, though.

  Jasper doubted that anything would happen to the prison unless Adamus unleashed that creature again, and much to his dismay, that seems to have been what happened yesterday. Or today? Is it past Midnight yet? It’s too dark to tell, Jasper wonders as he looks to the night sky and then down at the unconscious pale archer.

  When he saw the fire with Kiren, he rushed over to the prison with her to see what was going on and hopefully reunite with Leo and Marqus. Yet by the time they made it over there, everyone was either gone or dead. Kiren then pointed out the pale figure, and at her insistence, Jasper took aim with the bow he had found left behind by a Republic soldier a few days ago.

  Then more Republic troopers appeared.

  That’s more evidence that this person isn’t Republic, Jasper considers. It looked like they were looking for something in the rubble. Hunting almost. They fought against those Republic troops, too. Why are they here, though? Did that Bioship drop them off?

  Jasper kneels. The makeshift brace strains with the movement of his fractured leg, which still stings with pain. He grunts as he rests the archer’s limp body up against a tree. The near-bald head slumps as Jasper steps away.

  Clutching his aching leg and adjusting the brace, he turns to Kiren. “You gonna tie them up?”

  “We don’t have anything to tie him up with, dummy.”

  Jasper scratches his head, “We could still make something work. Besides, I don’t think that they’re a ‘he.”

  Kiren scoffs, “Well, they're definitely too ugly to be a girl, that’s for sure.”

  Jasper shakes his head. He limps toward his fallen bow. As he picks it up, Kiren asks him in clear disapproval, “You aren’t really thinking of waking them up, are you? I only just knocked them out!”

  Jasper nocks an arrow. “Well, I don’t know what else to do. I just—” He spots something in the dirt, beside the fire. The fmes are reflected in its luster. The metal arrow gleams in the night.

  Jasper scrambles to smack the archer in the head.

  Smith awakes to press their scarred, bandana-wrapped hand against the bruise Jasper’s bow left on their forehead.

  Kiren rushes to raise her sword as Jasper keeps the arrow aimed between Smith’s eyes.

  “Who are you?” The words scratch Smith’s ringing ears, becoming scattered and jumbled within their pounding head. Their vision flickers with splotches of light that they attempt to rapidly blink away. The reminder that they are in a human body settles over them alongside the painfully human disorientation.

  I really need to stop letting people knock me unconscious, is their first clear thought, that and Ow, that hurt.

  “Who are you?” Those words again.

  Smith hears them this time. “Who are you?” They mumble.

  “Yes, that was the question,” Kiren says, with her bde pointed at Smith.

  They lower their hand from the bruise on their head. They recognize the archer, and the girl must have been the one who hit them on the head. The two don’t look like much. What is it that this pair want with them?

  Unsure of how else to answer, Smith gives their name, pin and simple, “I’m Smith.”

  “Just Smith?” Jasper’s fingers twitch on the arrow.

  “That’s a fake name,” Kiren cims, holding the sword further out to the point where it’s close enough to pierce Smith’s breast.

  “Why would it be a fake name?” They say in disbelief, narrowing their eyes on the bde.

  “I don’t know, you might be a Republic spy or something.”

  “Kiren…”

  She lowers her sword to defend her actions, “What? I’m just saying that they could be.” Jasper lowers his bow, expining that, “You probably aren’t going to get someone to tell you that they’re a spy by asking them if they’re a spy, and you basically just told them that we’re enemies of the Republic!”

  “Why are you guys enemies of the Republic?”

  The pair turns to Smith at the question. For a moment, all is silent. Then Jasper scolds Kiren, “See what you’ve done?”

  “What I’ve done?” She gawks, “You’re the one who outright decred it! What are you going to tell them next? That my Dad and your boyfriend got thrown in jail along with some asshole who thinks he’s Adamus Atheneum?”

  Smith’s eyes go wide at the name. A shock works its way up their neck and pulses into their jaw, clenching it. Their fists tighten. All thought of their injuries leaves them as they stand.

  “You know where Adamus Atheneum is?”

  “Well…” Jasper sighs, “We know where he was at least.”

  “They aren’t dead,” Kiren states. Jasper nods, carefully holding up a hand, “I never said that. I’m sure that your Father and everyone else are alive, but they aren’t at the prison anymore. That much we know.”

  “And nothing else?” Smith asks, desperate.

  “Nothing else,” Jasper confirms, unable to help but wonder, “Why do you want to know about Adamus?”

  Before Smith can answer the question, the sound of a twig snapping under a man’s boot rings out in the night.

  All goes silent once more.

  Kiren and Jasper trade gnces. Jasper snatches a bottle of muddy water and pours it over the campfire. Looking into it, he spots the charred Qrow. Not much of a loss. I was getting sick of eating bird anyway, he thinks as he clumsily slips into the shadows with his bow at the ready.

  Kiren makes simir preparations for battle, but much faster than Jasper. She gathers an assortment of stones and darts off into the night with her sword.

  Smith snatches up their own bow as the pair separate.

  Crouching by an overturned log, Smith hears a faint mummering in the distance. They see the reflection of crimson on white next.

  Blood still drips from the stomach of the Republic trooper Smith stabbed. One of his comrades holds him by the shoulders, the other holds his bow at the ready. The smooth stone of the arrowhead is pointed toward the extinguished campfire.

  The troopers probably saw it, and they definitely heard us as well, Smith thinks, twitching their nky fingers along their bowstring. It's now just a question of if they’ll come this way or not.

  They wrest their fingers from the bow and pce their scarred palm on the log, pressing against it and hoping that the darkness is enough to hide them. Smith is so low to the ground that they almost don’t hear the Republic archer curse when a stone falls onto his head. But, they do hear him yell as more stones fall from the tree above.

  Kiren falls next. Dropping onto the archer’s shoulders and plunging the bde into his neck. The other two troopers look on in terror as she pulls out the sharp, bloodied stone by the hilt.

  Jasper slips out from behind his tree and fires his bow. The arrow flies poorly. Twisting in the air, the blunt shaft smacks into the wounded man, rather than the sharp head.

  The strike is not enough to harm him, but it does draw his attention away from Kiren, which gives her time to attack.

  She swings her bde at the trooper’s back, scarring him. The man stumbles, his arm leaves his wounded friend to pull out a knife, which he sshes at Kiren. She blocks the bde with her stone sword.

  The knife seems as small as a hill compared to the mountain that is the sword. Yet the man is rger than the girl, and he swiftly kicks her.

  Kiren’s sword slips from her hands as she plummets to the dirt. The trooper holds the knife over his head, ready to stab it down.

  Smith’s heart drops at the sight. Another bde and another time fshes in their mind. “No!” they shout, leaping out from behind the log.

  The man with the knife turns to them as Jasper slits his throat with the metal arrowhead.

  Smith freezes as Jasper tosses the dead man aside.

  That’s my arrow, Smith realizes at the iron’s bright reflection. He used my arrow to kill that man. He used my metal.

  With his hands dripping red, Jasper helps Kiren to her feet. The girl herself is stained in the archer’s blood. She grips her sword and holds it out to the injured man that Smith previously stabbed in the stomach.

  “Wait!” They cry, much to the trooper’s shock and to Jasper and Kiren’s confusion.

  “Are you insane or something? Didn’t he try to kill you?” Kiren’s grip tightens on the hilt of her sword.

  Smith slowly creeps forward, “He… did.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?” Jasper calmly asks, still clutching Smith’s metal arrow.

  What am I waiting for? Smith questions themself. This should be an easy decision. I already stabbed him back at the prison. It’s not like I haven’t hurt people before, but…

  “D— d— do I get a say in this?” The man stutters.

  “No,” Jasper states as Kiren bites her tongue and lowers her sword, “You’re Republic. Men like you killed my sister in Rome. I have no mercy for you Reds.”

  Smith hurries to correct Jasper, “The Republic didn’t destroy Rome.”

  “Adamus told me the same lie,” he holds out the steel arrow, “what else are you lying about, Smith? That is your name, right? Or was that a lie, too?”

  Kiren raises her sword once more, “They’re a spy. I told you it’s obvious.”

  The man presses his hands against his bleeding wound as he looks up at Smith to ask, “Is that a metal arrow he’s holding?”

  Smith nods, “It is.”

  Kiren turns her head to the arrow. She rests her sword over her shoulder as she tries to get a closer, wide-eyed look at the iron. “I’ve never even seen metal before… I mean, probably when I was a baby, but not…”

  Jasper yanks it behind his back. He stares down Smith as he absent-mindedly tucks the iron into his belt, “How’d you get it?”

  “I…”

  “Out with it,” Jasper demands before taking Kiren’s sword from her and giving an ultimatum. “Out with it, or I kill your little friend.”

  “Don’t!” Smith blurts.

  How else am I supposed to get answers, Jasper thinks with the sword over the man’s head. This person appears out of nowhere right after the prison burns down, has a particur interest in Adamus, and now defends a Republic soldier. I gave them the benefit of the doubt before, but now I’m forced to take drastic measures. “Tell us then, who are you really? Who sent you?”

  Smith doesn’t know what to say. They don’t even know why they’re defending this man who tried to harm them and who they harmed themself. “No one sent me.” The half-truth slips out on instinct and accident.

  “What about the ship that took off after you left? Who was on it?”

  Smith shakes their head at the question, “They only brought me here. I hardly know them.”

  Jasper clutches the bde tighter over the man. “Why did they bring you here then? Did you pay them?”

  “Yes,” just not with coin. They leave that part out.

  “Why did you come here?”’

  Smith knows that both their survival and the man’s will depend on whatever lie they think up. Careful now, Smith tells themself as a cold sweat runs down their neck. I can’t tell him I want to kill Adamus, and I can’t tell him I’m a Machinist who’s had their consciousness transferred. Saying either of those things will get me killed. I need another reason. A good reason. One that makes sense why I’d be after Adamus and why I’d want to defend a Republic soldier.

  “Because…” They start. “Because, I’m…”

  Jasper raises the sword.

  The man closes his eyes.

  Kiren watches on.

  Smith chokes, “Because I’m a Messenger!”

  Jasper limps away from the man. He holds the sword at Smith now, “What kind of Messenger?”

  Smith bites their lip.

  They let out a sigh that they know they’ll come to regret.

  “The Division kind.”