The plan is for Valentine to work on developing his own core and to give up the augmentations as a loss. It’s a risky move but it’s the best one he’s got. Morgan can’t give him an exact timeline but he says they should know fairly quickly if it’ll work or not. Morgan’s got a …
CHAPTER 9 | THE CORE PROBLEM
The wait is interminable. Valentine tries to not let it get to him but most days he feels like he’s vibrating out of his skin. He half expects Gee to say something, to ask him what’s wrong, but Gee is too caught up in his newfound enthusiasm for the program to notice. Finally Valentine gets …
CHAPTER 8 | METAMORPHOSIS
And just as all of Valentine’s hopes and plans are going up in flames Gee oddly enough, turns a corner. For the first time he seems to be looking forward to going to space. He still bitches about the endless propaganda, isn’t for one second swayed into thinking that he’s lucky or special or chosen. …
Chapter 7 | BARGAINING
Valentine does feel slightly guilty about being excited to go into space. He’s never really gone anywhere, seen anything, lived a life outside institutions. Space is this big unknown adventure that’s full of possibilities he can’t even begin to imagine. Gee, from what little he’s said, has only recently become orphaned so maybe his life …
CHAPTER 6 | RUNNING OUT OF TIME
They do get in trouble for sneaking out but their punishment is laughable. Confined to quarters for two weeks with the exception of classes and meals, regular check ins to make sure they’re where they are supposed to be. It’s not fun and it means that Valentine and Gee don’t see each other for a …
CHAPTER 5 | DREAMS
They don’t see each other much at first because Gee is a few years older than Valentine and several classes ahead. Valentine keeps an eye out though and whenever their paths do cross Gee always greets him with a smile and a wave. This confuses their classmates and earns Valentine a lot of speculative looks. …
CHAPTER 4 | GEE
The next time he wakes Valentine still doesn’t remember what happened. He most likely never will according to the doctor, who says he’s got a concussion and his brain is good and scrambled. He’s also cracked some ribs, broke his collarbone, torn ligaments in his shoulder, and scraped skin off half his face and palms. …
CHAPTER 3 | KARMA
Valentine doesn’t remember much else of his early days at DEXO. He remembers the ceiling of the medical wing, water stained panels with tiny holes like reverse stars. The rails of the hospital bed, cold to the touch. The weight of blankets and the hot itchy ache of healing incisions. He knows that most of …
CHAPTER 2 | DEXO
Valentine doesn’t remember his parents. As much as he tries, the farthest back he can remember is the orphanage. Those were the last days of Tellus and he was just one of many unwanted children, not entirely abandoned but with dwindling resources and a lack of people who were still willing to look out for others it was a miracle he had a home at all. The planet was dying, polluted and resources depleted from overpopulation which was sharply overcorrecting with an uptick in natural disasters. Its last defense was a desperate attempt to shrug them off and it was working.
CHAPTER 1 | GOODBYE
Valentine’s heart breaks the day Gee runs up to him bursting with excitement, his eyes glowing an unnatural gold, like sunlight through amber instead of their usual black-brown. Gee half tackles, half hugs him, crushing him to his chest as he picks Valentine up and jubilantly swings him around. If this was any other day or any other time, Valentine would be making half hearted protests by now, whacking him on the shoulders and trying to wriggle out of his grasp, demanding to be put back down.
The Stories We Told in The Dark 