07: Into the Droid

Three words walked him out of a burned town. They did not say where they were taking him. Jonah goes north through the timber on faith and wet socks — and walks into a light that flashes like a signal, a wire strung at shin height, and three strangers who were hunting droids and caught a boy instead. He wakes roped to a cot in the workshop of a courteous man named Albert, who was once a military technologist for Sangara, who is building something out here in the dark, and who has one question: "Have you ever fought?" The last volunteer was called Thomas. Even if Jonah lives, he's told, he will never be the man Thomas was. Meanwhile Guthrie does the only sum that matters — if the boy is walking, he's walking to her — and turns the car for Sangara. And days up the north road, Mary wakes before dawn to a sound the end of the world hasn't made yet: machines, marching, in step, wearing a city's colors. Some armor you wear. This is not that kind.