Page 19 of The Atom Between Us

Kang lingers in the plaza, eyes scanning for loose ends. His head pivots, just slightly, in my direction. I don’t know if he recognizes me, or just the signature of the pendant, but he makes no move to approach. Instead, he signals the team, then starts toward the west gate at a steady, unhurried pace.

I watch him go. Even retreating, he radiates control. The tattoos, the stance, the absolute certainty in each step—he’s both icon and enigma, and the rest of the world just orbits.

When the soldiers are gone, the market exhales. Maven shakes out their hands, then fishes a flask from under the counter and takes a long, slow pull.

“Drink?” they offer.

I nod, and Maven passes the flask. The liquid burns—a fusion of ethanol and some plant extract I can’t place.

“What did you make of the Captain?” Maven asks.

I wipe my lips and pass back the flask. “He doesn’t enjoy this.” At least I dont think he does.

“Bullshit,” Maven says, but there’s less heat in the words than before.

I shrug. “Maybe not enjoy, but there’s nothing personal about it. He’s just a mechanism.”

Maven studies me for a moment, then nods, as if conceding a point in a debate that’s been running for years.

“He’s new,” they say. “Wasn’t here six months ago. Now, they say he runs half the grid. Never makes mistakes, never breaks the rules. Most Authority brass just want to survive until their next posting. But Kang—he believes in order. That makes him dangerous.”

I remember the flash of his eyes, the way he scanned me and then dismissed it. “He’ll come back,” I say.

Maven grins. “They always do.”

A child’s wail rises in the distance, then subsides. The market resumes, slower, but not broken. I sit at Maven’s table, mind spinning simulations, wondering how much time is left before the Authority decides that science, too, is a threat worth eradicating.

It takes less than an hour for the market to return to its normal, cutthroat rhythm. The void left by the confiscated Spheres is filled with rumor: the soldiers are tracking someone; the Captain is targeting black-market tech; the next sweep will burn the settlement to its foundations. Maven pours another shot of the harsh stuff into my cup and lets me marinate in the new pecking order.

I watch the child whose sphere was taken. She sits cross-legged at the edge of the basin, thumb hooked into the empty loop where the orb used to hang. She’s not crying now—just tracing figure eights in the dust, staring through the water at the boots of the passing traders. The market has already written her off, assigned her to the ranks of the disposable.

I can’t watch that. I rise from Maven’s table, shoulders squared, and drift toward the girl. I kneel, keeping my hands visible. The RadShield at my neck is cool again, a small comfort.

“You lost something important,” I say, voice pitched soft.

She shrugs, not looking up. “They always do. My mom says they take what keeps us safe, so we don’t go looking for something better.”

I process that. “Does it work?”

She chews her lip. “We’re alive. That’s more than most.”

I nod, and offer her the only currency I have: honesty. “If you find another Sphere, hide it in a Faraday pouch. Wrap it in metal mesh, even old chewing gum wrappers. They can’t track it then.”

For the first time, she meets my eyes. “Are you a scientist?” I want to laugh. “Sometimes I think so.” She considers, then nods back. “Me too. Or I will be.” I stand, leave her with that. Maven waits at the edge of the plaza, one eyebrow cocked.

“You’re going to get noticed,” they say, voice pitched for my ears only.

“Already happened,” I reply. “Just waiting to see what they do with it.”

We walk the market’s perimeter, past the reanimated haggling, the scavengers sifting through left-behind refuse for micrograms of value. Maven steers us to a half-ruined shade awning, where the local engineers take their lunch. They greet Maven with wary respect, eyes flicking to me, then back to their food.

“You’re not like them,” Maven says, meaning the Authority, meaning Kang, meaning everyone I just watched enact the old world’s worst habits.

“That’s a lie,” I say, and mean it. “I’m exactly like them. The only difference is I still remember how to lose.”

Maven laughs, a real sound this time. “They say the Captain’s the same. Never smiles, never lets up, but knows a survivor when he sees one.”

I want to ask what that means, but the memory of his stare, the pause, the way he scanned me and then looked away—my skin prickles in the echo of it.