Crimson Dawn

The coordinates led him to a plateau at the eastern edge of the LowerCity. From there, he gazed at the Cordwell River, the only natural river cutting through the megalopolis. As he pulled his sweaty hands off the railing and turned around, he saw her standing in the cool evening breeze. People passed by her, and it was as if a glow radiated from her—something only he could see—that made her stand out from the unknown faces in the crowd, like a bright star in a hopelessly dark night.

He took a hesitant step toward her, but suddenly she vanished behind the flow of busy citizens, and he feared losing her again. He searched for her, stopping in front of the people who seemed to form a wall. He felt an urge to call out her name, and just as he was about to, the crowd thinned, like a passing storm revealing its heart, and there she was—radiant. The wind swept through her hair, with strands catching in her eyelashes. She looked at him, her smile tinged with sadness. When he stood before her, she slowly opened her arms, but at first, he didn’t understand what she meant, what he was supposed to do. Then she stepped toward him, resting her head gently on his chest. There was no joy—it was comfort she sought from him.

He held her tightly, his eyes drifting to the great river, where Kronos and Chiron reflected in its waters. Against the crimson red evening sky, the surrounding skyscrapers loomed like dark giants over the busy plateau, where everything moved and pulsed with life, except for the two young people standing at the heart of the crowd, as if time had stopped just for them.

In the cool evening air, the boy felt a sense of foreboding, like the wind carried a message meant only for him. It whispered that the inexplicable sadness that clung to the girl would linger until the end of their time together. Relationships began the way they ended, and theirs held much sorrow for them both. He pulled her even closer, unwilling to let go.

******

What might the temperatures on Cetos V be like in the regions where they were wandering now, if Vega Prime were to simply vanish off the face of the planet, taking with it the megacity and all its inhabitants, who made the LowerCity feel like a boiling ocean? They were caught in the middle of the crowd, searching for the right alleyway. Armed patrols regularly emerged from the masses, their wet rain capes reflecting the neon lights bouncing off the buildings. They wore vests emblazoned with the Thandros Corporation logo, and carried assault rifles with barrels pointed downward.

A drone buzzed just above Lex's head, sweeping beams of light over the crowd, scanning people's faces. Without any wind, the rain fell straight down like vertical streaks, and the skyscrapers loomed over the citizens, their countless bright windows glowing like stars, towering like giant sentinels that blocked any view of the sky.

Veela and Lex leaned against the window of a bar, his feet crossed as he took small sips of a bittersweet drink. It wasn’t long before he felt a slight dizziness set in, a sensation of weightlessness, as the sea of lights around him began to shimmer, and even the falling raindrops seemed to glow. He peered down to the far end of the street, where the vapor rising from the LowerCity hung as neon-lit fog, drifting through the narrow canyons between buildings and gathering like storm clouds high above, perhaps even becoming part of the city’s ecosystem—a world built by humans and only for humans. The weather, the water, the air, the steel, the concrete—everything seemed to belong to them.

The girl pulled him by the hand, leading him through grimy alleys and dazzling shopping districts. But he hardly noticed any of it, his eyes fixed only on her. The girl who, like magic, dissolved all his thoughts and made the people and buildings around him disappear. His eyes stayed wide, staring in wonder, because now there was only her—and his heart, beating in an unfamiliar rhythm inside his chest.

******

The street they found themselves in was a bustling shopping avenue. Billboards lit up the facades of the skyscrapers above the stores, and video screens displayed the latest news. The farther they strolled down the promenade, the more crowded it became. Overhead, a police drone buzzed by, and mercenary troops randomly checked the IDs of passing pedestrians.

"What’s going on here?" the boy asked.

"You don’t know? They’re about to execute the rebels," the girl said.

The news suddenly came back to him, and he couldn’t help but think of Lieutenant Major Franley, how kind and nonjudgmental he had been when they first met at the moon base on Limbo. "I don’t wanna see this," he muttered, but the girl was already pulling him through the throng toward the stage in the marketplace.

They got as close as ten or fifteen meters away. While two executioners, clad in heavy body armor, made the final preparations for the execution, a group of mercenaries led the captured rebels up to the stage, arranging them in a line with their faces toward the crowd. All of them had been shaved bald, just like the prisoners on Limbo. Their hands were bound behind their backs. Among them was a woman Lex had never seen before. But not all the crew from the ST SAMSON were there, he thought, and suddenly he blurted out, "Tardino’s missing," making the girl look at him with wide eyes. He saw no point in holding back any longer. "I was there, Veela. I was on that ship. I know there’s one more of them. But they didn’t catch him." His voice sounded unusually lively, even excited, which surprised him.

"What are you talking about, Lex? Why on earth would you have been on that freighter?"

But he didn’t answer. He stood there, mouth open, staring ahead; he couldn’t shake the feeling that Lieutenant Major Franley had been watching him the whole time. He even thought he saw the man give him a small nod, and Lex nodded back just as seriously. As if trying to give the major strength for what was about to happen, or to tell him he was dying for the right cause—even though Lex wasn’t sure if that was true.

The executioners motioned for the Lieutenant Major, who was first in line, to step forward and kneel. He refused, so they forced him down with the butt of a rifle.

The crowd roared in approval.

Many of the onlookers had their cameras ready, straining their necks and standing on tiptoes to get a better view. Camera drones from First News buzzed around the square, broadcasting live footage to the nearby video screens, and even the airships high up in the canyons between skyscrapers were streaming the execution live.

"For freedom!" Franley shouted as the armed executioner pressed the barrel of his rifle to the lieutenant’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

The mercenaries flipped his body over. The boy stood frozen in horror, staring at a nearby video screen mounted above a fast-food stand on the glass facade of a city tower. The drone zoomed in on the dead man's face. His mouth twitched, and his head lolled to the side. The crowd gasped in shock. It was probably just a reflex, a muscle spasm, but the executioner wasn’t taking any chances. He fired a second shot.

Lex breathed heavily, fists clenched tight. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Veela discreetly wipe away a tear. Without saying a word, his gaze fixed on the stage, he quietly took her hand and pulled it close.

One by one, they fell.

Chef Flint, Pilot Tangaroa Tessar, the woman Lex didn’t know. The armored executioners grabbed the bodies by their hands and feet, hoisting them up and tossing them like sacks onto a transport vehicle below the stage.

"It’s over," Lex said, shaking his head. "They’re all dead."

"We’ve seen everything we needed to see," Veela replied.

"Needed? What part of this was necessary? Or are you actually siding with the corporate goons?"

"Keep your voice down, Lex. Of course not. But we did need to see it. For us," she said.

"For us?"

"Just be quiet," she whispered. "Let’s get out of here. If the police drones catch me crying, they’ll think I’m one of them."

******

They walked in silence for quite a while.

"How are we supposed to turn this night around now?" Lex asked.

Veela suddenly stopped. Her eyes were wet with grief and anger, but beneath that, there was a fire burning—a passion that he’d never seen in anyone else before. It was piercing.

She said, "If we let the TC intimidate us, we’ll lose our freedom. The freedom to live our lives the way we want. Should we let them?"

"No," he said defensively.

"Good," she replied. "Then let’s choose to be happy tonight."

Later, at a café, Lex broke his silence. He violated the agreement he’d made with the TC and confessed to Veela that he was from one of the prison moons. He showed her the scar behind his ear where the tracking implant had been, and he told her the story of his exile and of his friends, Tayus and Mori, who had joined the FLD. She didn’t seem surprised. She said she had sensed all along that he wasn’t from this world. But she had thought it was just one of those feelings you get for someone you think is special. After a while, she asked him if he’d ever heard the prophecy about the girl from the city and the boy from the moon.

"You're joking," he said.

"No," she replied.

"That can’t be real."

"Oh, it's very real," Veela said. "The rebel organization, the Crimson Dawn, was founded on this prophecy. It speaks of a boy from the moon who will fall in love with a girl from the city, when, at the darkest hour, a red nova blazes across the sky."

He looked at her, silent. Listening. He stopped breathing, stopped thinking; all he wanted was to hear her voice again as he lost himself in her eyes—those emerald green depths, wild and impenetrable, yet he had ventured too far to ever find his way out.

"It's one of the rarest events in the cosmos," she whispered. "When two stars dance around each other, they’ll eventually come so close that they merge. They'll burn out all their energy in a massive red flame, lighting up the eternal darkness, sending their light beyond the boundaries of space and time—a beacon of hope, maybe the salvation of all things. The eternal red light. The red nova."

The boy thought for a moment. Suddenly, his eyes widened. "I saw a red light like that when I was on the observation deck of the SAMSON," he said.

"Yes," Veela nodded, looking deeply into his eyes, as if encouraging him. Then he said it—he voiced what he had been thinking: "And those two stars..."

"...are us, Lex. Two stars dancing together. The prophecy says that in a distant, dark future, humanity will fight its final war against itself. Amid all the darkness and hatred that sweeps across the world, a boy from the moon will meet the girl in the city. Their love is the last light that keeps humanity going. Their light. The Crimson Dawn."

He stared at her in wonder, though doubt flickered in his gaze. "What happens next?" he asked. "Do they manage to save the world?"

"It's a prophecy," Veela said seriously. "How it ends, or what happens next, is up to us."

Lex gazed into her eyes, as if trying to figure out if she was playing a game with him, but all he could do was speculate. "I still think you're making it up. A prophecy about a girl from the city and a boy from the moon meeting... and now we’re sitting here? That’s just too much of a coincidence. You’re messing with me," he said, leaning back, to which she responded with a soft smile. "Coincidence, Lex? After everything you’ve been through, do you still believe in coincidence?"

The boy didn’t reply.

After a moment, Veela leaned in close and whispered, "What are you willing to do to free your people from the prison moons?"

He hesitated. "How is that even possible?" he asked. "We’ve been up there for three hundred years. No one is coming to free us prisoners."

"But we will, Lex. You and I," the girl whispered. "I live for this prophecy. And today, more than ever, I believe in it. I know that you're the one with whom I will fulfill it."

"You live for this?" he asked, confused. "You really think—no, you really believe that we can free the people on the prison moons together?"

The girl laughed, covering her mouth. He caught a glimpse of her bright, white teeth. "That," she said, her expression turning serious again, "has been my dream all my life."