He saw them with his mother, in fact. While riding in the car. And eating a cheeseburger.

It would not have been her choice—Grace Fender had long ago given up on red meat, something about the upkeep of grazing land and food shortages, not to mention the cruelty to the animals themselves—but he badgered her until she gave in, pulling into the Hamburger Hut, getting a double with fries for him and a small mocha milkshake for her. Leo licked his lips and surveyed his greasy bounty: whoever had scooped his fries had been feeling generous that day. His carton overfloweth.

He feasted in the car as they wound through campus on their way to pick up Leo’s father. Dr. Calvin Fender was delivering one of his many lectures to a packed auditorium—something about the role Earth might play as a member of the galactic community. Grace didn’t attend all of his talks. Not anymore. Just the ones where her husband was set to receive a plaque or a medal—the ones where she was expected to look proud and elegant in a strapless dress. And she was, always—proud, and elegant, even if she was no fan of high heels. Besides, she knew Cal Fender better than anyone. She once told Leo that there were students and other faculty who practically worshipped his father, but they didn’t have to see him trimming his nose hair. “We’re all human,” she liked to say. “The best and the worst of us.”

It was all fine with Leo—not having to sit through the lecture. He couldn’t understand most of what his father said anyway. He enjoyed driving through campus, though. The plots of emerald grass, kept watered at no small cost. The smell of the pine trees lining the quad. Seeing the students, adults-in-training, their packs slung over their shoulders, gliding by on their hoverboards or stretched out in the shade, smartglasses on, lost in their virtual worlds. The old, stately buildings with their giant white columns. The stone fountain burbling in the center of the field. It was peaceful.

Not today, though. Today the main thoroughfare was lined with students standing along the curb, chanting and carrying signs—old-fashioned ones, not digital projections, made of posterboard and marker or wood and paint. The signs were written in all caps, the letters in black or angry red. WHAT’S MINED IS NOT YOURS and “V” IS NOT FOR VICTORY and LEAVE THE EARTH OUT OF IT. The chants could be heard even through the rolled-up windows.

“What are they yelling about?”

“They’re protesters,” his mother said. “They’re speaking out against ventasium mining.”

Leo shoveled in a french fry, still staring out the window. The protesters lined the street for at least three blocks. Shouting. Spitting. Stomping. He didn’t understand. “I thought ventasium was a good thing?”

“It is a good thing. To hear your father talk about it, it’s the greatest thing in the entire universe—after us, of course. But not everybody feels the same.”

Grace Fender drove slowly, and Leo took in more signs. EXTRACTION = EXTINCTION. PLUNDER YOUR OWN PLANET. DRILLING IS KILLING. Despite the clever rhyme, that last one was disturbing, only because of the drawing beneath it, of the Earth being pierced by some kind of terrible machine, producing a fountain of bright red blood that gushed up in a gory geyser.