Teorin fiddled with the amplifier connected to his comm band, waiting for the signal to catch. He nudged some of the fallen leaves with his foot as he waited in the middle of his small camp, just a tent and his meticulously organized workstation, really. Finally, a flickering green light. He set it to send the coordinates and expedition updates first, then held his breath, hoping the screen wouldn’t flicker out.

  This was his last comm band. If he lost this one… well, then he’d be completely off the grid. He’d lost his other one a week ago to an EMP burst while talking to his mother. The silence since had been painful. He used to tell himself he liked the quiet. Lately, he was realizing that was a lie.

  Messages began rolling in now that he had signal. He scanned the ones from his brothers: Raph checking when he’d be home, a ridiculous list of sarcastic requests from Delar with dancing cats and everything, a picture of Jake’s new girlfriend. Little things, but little things he missed.

  And then the work backlog. A full week of it. He huffed. Didn’t they know he was out in the middle of nowhere?

  Then the comm band started flashing. Not normal flashing. Priority. The last time Teorin got a priority call, someone had died. His stomach dropped. The name scrolled across his screen: Jeron.

  Bursts! Was something wrong? His breathing sped up. Jeron wasn’t even his supervisor right now. Sometimes he called to chat, but never with a priority tag.

  Teorin swiped across the band, and a voice floated up: “Teorin?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Jeron.”

  “Is everything alright? Mom?”

  “Calm down, Teorin. This is work. Not family. Everyone is fine as far as I know.”

  “Sorry.” Teorin’s breathing steadied as he leaned back against a tree. “Just… been off the grid for a while,” Teorin finally said when his heart had settled.

  “I know,” Jeron said. “I’ve been trying to get you on the line for hours. I’m assuming you haven’t checked your messages yet?”

  “No. I was just getting to that. What’s so important?”

  “We haven’t been able to get a lock on your location for the last few days. Are you still out in the southeastern forest?”

  “Yeah, well, a burst fried my comm band,” Teorin said. “I’m on my backup now, so I’ve been avoiding any nonessential communication. I was just wrapping up a lead near one of the scan anomalies. Thought it was a dead end until I hit something metal underground yesterday.”

  “Interesting,” Jeron said. “We’ll have to send a team. You’ve just got the backup band now? No outposts close enough for a replacement?”

  Teorin exhaled. “No. I’m pretty much out in the middle of nowhere.” Life would be so much easier if EMP bursts didn’t fry everything, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.

  “That’s unfortunate,” Jeron said. “This would go smoother with steady communication, but it is what it is.” He paused. “There’s been a development with the Trevor situation.”

  Oh.

  The last Teorin had heard of Trevor he’d been out of communication for almost a week. He’d paid attention to that bit of gossip. Not that he and Trevor were close, but Trevor had known Dad. They’d worked together closely one summer.

  Teorin had only been seven, but he remembered the summer barbecues. Trevor had been there—quiet, a little strange, but kind. He was still strange. High enough ranking that he could pick the interesting assignments, but somehow always stationed at some isolated, boring outpost. And even with the boring assignments, sometimes it took him two weeks to fix his communication equipment after it was knocked out by a burst.

  “Did you finally hear from him?” Teorin asked quietly.

  Jeron sighed on the other end. “No. Korrin, who's stationed down there, went to the outpost, but he’s gone. She said it looks like he hasn’t been there in a couple of weeks.”

  “And we have no idea what happened to him?” Teorin had an itching suspicion that he wasn’t going to be headed home tomorrow.

  “None. For now, he’s missing in action.”

  Teorin’s stomach clenched. Missing in action. The words hit like a cold wind, threading through old wounds. Just like his father. Gone without a trace. He’d spent years trying to make sense of that silence. He still had no answers.

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  He forced himself to take a steady breath. This wasn’t the same. It wasn’t.

  Keep it together, Teorin.

  “And I’m guessing this means you need something from me?” Teorin asked.

  “We need to know what he was working on when he disappeared, so you're going down there to find out.”

  Teorin held back a sigh. Two months in the field, exploring and cataloging possible excavation sites. He was supposed to be heading home, not chasing ghosts in the forest. “Can’t you just send… ah, what’s her name? The one down there? She’s obviously closer.”

  “Korrin?” Jeron supplied. “We would, but Trevor wasn’t just working with Novem, he’s one of the Novar. What he was doing is either sensitive or classified. Korrin’s with our artifact division.”

  Well, that explained a lot. Was Teorin even qualified for this mission? Novem, the company he worked for, had two branches. One handled archaeology and artifact collection. The other, the Novar, was more secretive. Novem found things. The Novar decided what they meant—and who had the right to know.

  His father had been one of the Novar.

  Teorin had been training as a candidate for two years, ever since Jeron pulled him from the standard Novem ranks at twenty. But he was still in training, still under evaluation.

  “You know I’m not official yet, right?” Teorin asked.

  “You’re close enough, and you’re the only person we have that far south right now.” Jeron said. “I talked it over with the council. Consider this mission your final evaluation.”

  Great. No pressure. This wasn’t just a recovery mission anymore. It was a verdict.

  He let out a long breath. “Alright. What do you need me to do?”

  “First, you need a key. It’s with Korrin in Jarangua. I’ll send the file. The outpost has a burstdoor inside. By our records, the hand scanner should be up to date.”

  Novem buildings often had two sections: one that required a physical key and a burstproof section protected by a burstdoor that required a hand scan or an override code.

  “And if it’s not?” Teorin asked.

  “Then you’ll have to message us. Don’t send a request unless you have to, net override’s risky.”

  “Fine. What am I looking for when I get to the outpost?”

  “Any documents relating to his research. Take pictures. You have a burstproof drive, right?”

  “Yeah. I’ll throw it in the burst case for extra protection.” That would be just his luck to go through all this trouble, then lose everything to a burst.

  “Good. Scan what you can. There should also be a computer terminal in the room, no net connection. Get what you can. After that, there should be a locked closet. The code for that one is 15696. Write it down—15696.”

  Teorin scribbled down the number on a notepad he kept in his pocket.

  “Got it?”

  “Yes,” Teorin said. “What’s in the closet?”

  “Files, and whatever else Trevor wanted safe, but your real goal is a memory drive. It’s red and has the image of an eagle engraved on the side. Trevor said to find it if he ever went missing.”

  If he ever went missing… “Did he expect to go missing?”

  Silence. Then, finally, “The answer to that question is complicated.”

  “Complicated?” Teorin knew Jeron was holding something back. “How complicated?”

  “Complicated enough that I don’t want you to lose another comm band. Later, Teorin. I promise.”

  He was definitely hiding something.

  Teorin let out a huff. “Fine.”

  “That drive… it’s not exactly Novem property, but Trevor wanted us to have it, wanted it safe.”

  “So, what is on it?”

  Jeron was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. All I know is he sent me as message right before he went off the grid. He wanted us to see it if he disappeared. It’s apparently been in the family for a long time.”

  It definitely sounded like Trevor expected to go missing. What was Teorin getting himself into? “Okay. Drive is important. I’ll get it. Anything else?”

  “Be careful. We had to alert his family that he’s gone missing, but we have—let’s just say—a complicated relationship with them. They might try and stop you.”

  “Didn’t you just say he wanted us to have it?”

  More silence. Finally, “That doesn’t mean his family will agree with the decision.”

  “Trevor’s a Rafinin. When you say ‘his family’… you don’t mean Isi, do you? Trevor’s her uncle, right?”

  The only sound was wind shifting through the trees.

  “Marcus is still with her,” Teorin said quietly. “You know that.”

  More silence. Teorin glanced at the comm band, half-expecting for a burst to have cut the call. Finally, Jeron said, “I don’t think it makes sense for Marcus to be there, but it’s always a possibility. I know you have strong feelings about what he did, which is why I hoped I could find someone else for this, but you're our best option, Teorin.”

  Pressure rippled out of him before he could stop it, leaves skittering across the ground as the air slammed into them.

  Bursts. What was he doing? He wasn’t some child who couldn’t control his pulsing. He let out a long breath, but it didn’t erase what he was feeling.

  Because a normal brother didn’t disappear. A normal brother didn’t show up only when he wanted something. Teorin would know. He had four of them, and while Raph worried, Delar joked, and Jake shared? Marcus just left. Abandoned them all for a girl.

  Was it depressing or funny that he was more likely to find Marcus out here in the middle of nowhere than at a family gathering? Probably both.

  “It would be just my luck for him to be there. You know that, right?”

  Jeron sighed. “Yes, but like I said, you’re the closest. Besides, in some ways you’re the best prepared to deal with Marcus. You know him.”

  Teorin snorted. He’d barely even seen Marcus since he’d walked out—weeks after their father died. No goodbye. No explanation. Did knowing someone thirteen years ago even count? When you were nine? And your brother was sixteen?

  “Hopefully it won’t be an issue,” Jeron said. “Fly to Jarangua at first light and try to lay low. We don’t want to draw unwanted attention. You’ve got a map of the surrounding area, right?”

  “Not much of a map, but I’ll survive.”

  “Good. Be careful, and good luck,” Jeron said, and then the ring on the comm band turned red.

  Teorin just stood there for a few seconds. Trevor Rafinin. Missing. Bursts, that was bad, but truthfully, what worried him most was possibly running into Marcus. He wasn’t sure he could ever forgive him.

  But that was unlikely, right? Yeah. Probably nothing to worry about at all.