1. Light

Pro / Monday

Hero’s beacon shone for Leander, and Leander drowned.

Follow the calling light at your peril——a lesson imparted before he

could read, so deeply ingrained he can’t remember not knowing it, as

if innate, biological. And yet never once has it deterred him. Maybe

he could do what Leander couldn’t, a thought has always whispered.

Maybe this light is a different kind, and that light, and that one.

Pro crouches, leveling his shoulders with the high grass line. He

observes, evaluates.

Ten yards ahead, a crumpled drone stamps the grass, one arm

splayed, and beams of morning sunlight drift across its glossy shell as

the branches above sway with the breeze, shooting light in all directions

like a lighthouse signal in a squall. Like a beacon.

Follow the calling light at your peril. He could turn around and

go home, report what he found, avoid trouble.

He should. This light isn’t like the others. The law is as clear as

the parable’s warning; the only decision is to heed it or break it. The

Tribunal will know he was here, and will demand good reason were

he not to report it.

If Kisho did this, Pro would rather get to him first. That’s good

enough reason.

He holds a breath and creeps forward between the wet blades,

toward the calling light.

When he reaches the drone, he shudders and his breath escapes.

There’s a giant, jagged rip across the shell——three feet wide, nearly edge

to edge. And the other arm is gone, torn off at the shoulder, nothing

left but a thicket of mangled fibers. Kisho couldn’t have done this.

Pro can’t fathom what could have … aside from——no, it’s impossible.

Now growing frantic, he leverages all of his weight against the

drone to roll it over, but his shoes slip and kick up mud, and it doesn’t

budge an inch. It’s an ET-class——emergency-tactical, for response and

rescue——six feet tall but half its height in thick steel leg blocks. Even

heavier than it looks, and bigger than he remembers. He was a kid

last he saw one. It looked smaller then, sympathetic.

The memory makes him nauseous.

Then a realization strikes him: maybe this is a test——a trial, like the

old myths, like Heracles’ Labours. He braved danger for redemption,

and saved Hesione along the way.

He grabs the edge of the shell and looks underneath it, then recoils.

The head is missing, cleaved off in hacks that left deep clefts in

the top of the shell.

He backs away, takes two deep breaths, and stands and scans the

area. Heracles braved the danger.

Pro cups his hands around his mouth and shouts for Kisho. And

again. And again.

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