Item: Not a reliable body. That was terrifying. He had maybe a few hours of consciousness at a time now. After one of these episodes he wouldn’t wake up. It felt like that was coming soon.

Item: No unit, either. He’d made the choice to leave, and he didn’t regret it; he owed them that safety. No allies at all. That was fine, though; Surit had always ultimately relied on himself. He closed his eyes and tried to shut out the nagging memory that for three short weeks he’d had Tennal—Tennal, a lit fuse, a hydrogen fire that had inexplicably decided to be on Surit’s side—and been closer to him than anyone he’d ever known.

He had no way to contact Cavalry or his legitimate chain of command. As a prisoner in a coup, Surit had a duty to escape. But he had no way to contact them for orders.

And then, a stray thought: Do I even want to?

It was Retrieval Two who had gotten him off Archer station. It was Tennal who had plunged himself into the sync to protect Surit from brainwashing. All Cavalry Division had done—all his last commander had done—was order him to sync Tennal so Surit could be sacrificed. They must have been so certain that nobody in Cavalry Division would ask questions. And why would they? This was the army.

Surit might not blame Tennal for that, but he was starting to realize, like the slow shifting of continental plates, that didn’t mean he wasn’t angry.

Surit hadn’t finished his list, so he turned his attention to that. Last item: He had receive-only comms. And that was it—no, wait, not quite. Did he have his architect powers? He poked at them experimentally and found that, yes, they still felt like a seeping wound, but while he was conscious, he could use them.

He wanted to laugh. After all this, after all the trouble his powers had gotten him into before they’d failed him—after everything, he was still an architect.

A distant explosion rocked the breeze-block walls of the room.

Surit was on his feet before he’d even fully processed the sound. His overstretched nerves twitched as he crossed to the tiny window and peered out.

Yesterday, this street had been deserted except for the politicians. Today, it was not. Smoke rose a few streets over from the Codifier Halls. A pair of soldiers ran across the road to disappear into a side alley, low and purposeful. The tabs on their shoulders were Cavalry red. A handful of civilians stood and muttered in front of a shop. They melted away rapidly when an Archer patrol came through.

Surit turned on the basic comms his wristband was still allowed.