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Chapter Text

Kaden yelped and immediately dropped the device before shoving his fingers in his mouth and glaring at it.

“What did I just tell you?” Toen asked, frowning at him over the holo-monitor.

“I didn’t touch it,” he lied around his fingers.

To his credit, Toen didn’t roll his eyes. He did ask, “So what did it not just do to you?”

“Zap me. Like static electricity.”

“Get it checked out before you leave. I’m pretty sure this stuff is zoni or technaroid in origin, so it shouldn’t be dangerous, but you can never be too careful,” he said, and then flicked a hand. “Now go bother someone else. I have to finish cataloguing and you’re always a distraction.”

He drew himself up, removing his hand from his mouth to emphasise how important he could look. “I am a Guardian of the Avoidables, Toen, it’s my duty to make sure none of this is dangerous.”

“No, it’s your duty to guard things that have been proven dangerous,” he said. “None of which this has. Now get out of my lab.”

He scowled but did so, shaking his still-stinging fingers in the hope of removing the feeling.

He was standing by a dark window, staring out into the depths of space. He blinked at the darkness a few times, not entirely sure how he’d gotten there,  before a reflection on the glass made him realise he wasn’t alone.

There was a boy in the room behind him, disassembling a line of weapons that could easily match him in size. He was a skinny kid, with a waist Kaden was pretty sure he could wrap a hand around, but his coat was shiny and well-cared for. There was something strangely familiar about him too. Nothing he could specifically pinpoint, but there was something about his eyes and fur that just seemed… familiar.

What was more disturbing was the methodical familiarity with which the boy handled the weapons. He effortlessly unloaded and stripped each one like a trained guardsman. His gaze was focussed but not intense. It was clearly a chore he was familiar with, and understood the value in. The number of weapons, too, was a little strange. Nine guns. Three grenade launchers. Devices Kaden couldn’t recognise beyond knowing they were dangerous.

He couldn’t have been more than twenty cycles. He should have still been in school. Should have been chasing girls and trying to get his hovercar license. And here he was in front of Kaden’s eyes, cleaning killing machines with the easy grace of a trained mercenary.

Kaden woke up with a start, eyes snapping open only to stare blindly at his girlfriend’s back.

He wasn’t sure why the dream had freaked him out, but it did.

His eyes were shut tight when he slowly became aware of voices around him. Two voices – one male, one female, flirting shamelessly. He wondered if he’d left the television on and slowly opened his eyes.

Only to realise he didn’t recognise the plush living room he found himself lying in. He slowly sat up, searching for the voices and wondering how he’d gotten there.

A young cazar woman was leaning over a nearby table, her tail swinging lazily back and forth as she smirked at the boy from Kaden’s earlier dream. He seemed a little younger than before. Too young to be smirking so confidently under a woman’s attention.

“Everyone purrs,” the woman said, leaning a little closer. “Every felid in the universe.”

“Well, then, lombaxes must not be felid. Because we don’t purr,” the boy replied confidently.

“Ohh, I bet you do,” she said, her own voice lowering into a more figurative purr than the one they were talking about. “I bet I can make it happen.”

He grinned and slowly started moving around the table, fingers dragging lightly along the wood. “I’ll take that bet. And double it on the bet I can get better sounds out of you.”

Kaden raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t been that cocky until he was at least twenty-five, let alone however old this kid was! And what was the kid doing, talking like that to a cazar? What was she doing, flirting back? He’d heard of interspecies dating before, but it wasn’t exactly something he understood. He wasn’t even sure this was legal. She looked fully grown. The kid was clearly not. Kaden had multiple issues with what was playing out in front of him.

And yet, here he was, dreaming about a cazar girl reaching out to grab a young boy’s harness and drag him the last few steps into her personal space. They stopped there, just grinning at each other in silent challenge until she leaned down to murmur against his ear, “You’re on.”

He spasmed awake, all five limbs flailing before he realised he was back on his own couch in his own home, alone, with the television playing a harmless gameshow. He huffed out a breath and tried to forget the whole thing.

The sky was egg shell blue overhead. He stared at it quietly for a long time, only vaguely aware of the soft rustling of paper behind him.

Eventually, he tilted his head back to look for the source of the noise, and was only mildly surprised to see the boy again. He was properly dressed for once, with an orange space-shirt and combat boots, though he still wore those ridiculous gloves that dwarfed his arms. Today he was sitting under a tree, notebook on one knee and textbook on the other. He seemed older now, past school age, but still studying. A scientist, maybe?

“Ah, here you are,” a voice noted, and Kaden pushed himself up onto an elbow to look for the source. A small robot was walking across the field toward them. Not a model Kaden recognised, but that wasn’t saying much. He’d never been too deep into machines that talked back. It seemed to look at him curiously as it came closer, but soon turned its attention back to the boy. “How is it coming along?”

“Slowly,” the boy replied. “I don’t think this translates into Common.”

“That seems strange. It is unusual to use any other language. May I see?”

“Knock yourself out. I’m not getting anywhere,” he said, and the little robot stepped up to peer at the textbook. It tilted its head.

“I think you may be correct. That, or it is written in code. I wonder if the lombaxes kept up their ancestral language?”

“Wouldn’t that just be typical if they did,” the boy drawled, and then sighed before snapping the book shut. He collapsed back against the tree behind him, staring up at the sky. “Why am I doing this, Clank? Why do I keep doing this to myself?”

“I do not know,” it confessed. “But I think I understand, all the same.”

The boy smiled, just a little, but said nothing.

Kaden woke up slowly this time, feeling very, very alone.

Alister lowered his pen to focus properly on Kaden. “Weird dreams? What, you mean like waking up late on your first day of school even though you haven’t been to school in years?”

“No,” he said. “That would make some kind of sense. These are… I don’t know what these are.”

“Dreams are supposed to be your subconscious telling you something, right?” he pointed out. “That or too many biscuits before bed. What are they about?”

“A kid,” he explained slowly. “A really young kid, just… doing stuff. Like snippets of his life.”

“A kid? You’re a little young for the biological clock to be ticking, aren’t ya?” he teased, and Kaden glared at him, sitting back in his chair with his arms folded.

“Shut up. He’s not like a baby, he’s… I don’t know, high school aged?” he guessed.

“Well, what’s he look like? Maybe he’s an actor you’ve seen on the holo-vids and you’re projecting, or something.”

He rolled his eyes but thought back, trying to envision the kid in his mind’s eye. “Gold fur, brown stripes. Green eyes. Forward muzzle.”

“Definitely sounds like an actor,” Alister muttered. “Have you ever seen an actor without a forward muzzle? And blond with green eyes? Tch. Teen heartthrob, I bet.”

“You saying something about people with green eyes and gold fur, Alister?” he asked mildly, and Alister smirked right back.

“I would never,” he drawled, then shrugged with his pen. “Jokes aside, he kinda sounds like a better-looking version of you as a kid, right?”

“Wh- no!”

“Deny it all you like, dreams are your mind trying to tell you something. I bet he’s what you want your inner child to be. Pay attention to what he’s doing next time – maybe it’s what your subconscious wants you to be doing.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully before going back to his paperwork. “And by the way, if you start seeing a white-furred kid in your dreams, I don’t care what else is happening, you figure out how to lucid dream and leave me out of it, alright? You’re already too obsessed with me as it is.”

Kaden violently kicked his desk, earning a snigger from his friend.

He only had a second of staring out at the horizon before something blasted past his line of sight and his battle training kicked in. He ducked and rolled, coming up next to the closest solid object for cover. Then he stared around, finding himself in some kind of warehouse getting blasted to smithereens.

The boy was back, this time dressed in full armour, though it wasn’t lombax make. He was reloading a multi-rocket launcher and looking mildly annoyed by the shots still firing overhead and against their shelter.

“Just drop off this package for me, simple little errand, a thousand bolts for you if you do,” he was muttering. “A thousand bolts my—”

“Ratchet!” a tinny voice warned from somewhere behind the boy.

“—I’m just saying, this is not a thousand bolt job. I better get some kinda upgrade for this,” he snarled over his shoulder, and then lifted the rocket launcher into position.

He turned, revealing the robot from the last dream had folded in on itself and was hanging on the boy’s back like a backpack. Once again, it seemed to notice Kaden, and narrowed its eyes at him. He stared back, wondering if he could speak to it and get an answer, but wasn’t given time.

The boy rocked on the balls of his feet once, twice, and then, on the third time, threw himself out from behind the cover and started firing. Kaden twisted so he could poke his head out and watch, but almost wished he hadn’t.

There were at least ten creatures out there, all heavily armed and armoured, and Kaden knew his commander wouldn’t have sent him out there without at least two team mates. But the boy was alone, simply dancing back and forth to avoid the shots, letting his armour take the brunt when he couldn’t, and firing rockets back with expert precision. He ran out of ammo and flung the launcher back, snatching two smaller guns from his side and immediately using them to positively rain laserfire against his enemies. Less precise, but the sheer number of volleys was more than enough to make up for it.

But no sooner had he cleared out the initial ten did a jet fly in overhead, slowing just enough for another wave of armoured commandos to drop in. The boy growled lowly and reached behind himself, under the robot. He threw out a grenade, but while the commandos all jerked back, it didn’t explode on impact.

It burst out into a disco ball. And suddenly, all fifteen of the new wave of enemies began dancing. Fairly well, at that.

The boy didn’t even hesitate before switching out his gun again, this time for a rifle easily longer than he was tall. And, without any mercy or hesitation, he shot each of the dancing commandos in the head with almost perfect accuracy.

Then, when the battlefield was empty, he paused just long enough to ensure no one else was coming before dashing into the field, some kind of magnet pulling shining bolts out of his victims and into a pouch on his back pocket. He searched all of them for ammo with ruthless efficiency, reloaded his weapons, and ran off.

As he went, Kaden realised the robot was still watching him quietly, and he stared back until he had to blink.

And found himself staring at his bedroom ceiling, freezing cold beneath his blankets.

“You insignificant, worthless, arrogant space rat!” snapped Kaden away from the stars even before he’d realised what he was looking at. He swung around to find the boy staring down a ridiculously oversized robot. It took Kaden a moment to realise the insults were coming from a strange slug-like alien perched on the very top of it, half-hidden behind a control panel. “You should have given up years ago, and just gone to die among the fossils of your kind.”

The boy actually rolled his eyes, as if the whole speech was hackneyed and overdone. “Can we get on with it, please?”

“Hah! You’d like that! But I’m not going to make this quick, space rat!” the slug creature sneered. “I’m going to take you down, but I’ll keep you alive. Alive and helpless, so you can watch as I strip your little sidekick down for parts, and melt the rest of him for scrap!”

Almost too fast for Kaden to track, the boy snatched out a blaster and pointed it at the slug creature’s face. “You can try.”

And then, the battle was on. Kaden tried to stay back, but more than a few stray shots from both the robot and boy came too close for comfort. Nothing hit, thankfully, but he felt the heat from a few explosions and bullets ruffled his fur as they blasted by him. Still, he couldn’t look away.

He’d seen the boy in battle before, known from the first dream that he knew his way around weaponry, but this was… horrifying. He was fast and flexible, flipping and twisting like a champion gymnast as he danced around the robot, doing double-jumps that made the muscles in Kaden’s back and hips twinge in sympathetic protest, avoiding limbs the size of small trucks and explosions that could have flipped tanks. All the while, he shot volley after volley of what seemed to be a full arsenal of weapons. Guns, lasers, grenades, rockets… Crates around them splintered under the force of the battle, revealing bolts and ammo that the boy snatched up and loaded without even pausing to breathe. The little robot on his back transformed itself into a jet pack, but rarely did more than boost him into triple-jumps or slow his descents when he clambered too high to judge distance.

The little slug thing gloated, screamed, and tried to banter, but the boy didn’t say a word to respond. The robot occasionally warned for danger, or noted when a weapon was ready to fire at full power, but even then, the boy only said a short word or two of thanks or soldier-like acknowledgement before refocussing completely on the task at hand.

Eight minutes, the battle raged until, finally, the robot was unable to hold its weight under all the damage the boy had inflicted, and crumbled to the ground. Still, the boy didn’t hesitate, leaping up onto the robot’s arm to sprint all the way up to the slug’s platform, where he finally stopped, holding his gun to the creature’s head.

“Stay. Down,” he ordered, and the slug lifted its hands in surrender.

“Okay. Okay, you win.”

“Yeah,” he panted, finally letting some of his exhaustion show. “Yeah, I do. Clank?”

“I am sending word to the Galactic Rangers now,” the robot said. “However, we still need to disable the security system before they will be able to get into the hangar.”

“No, Clank, we don’t need to do that,” he said, pressing the gun a little closer to the slug creature’s head. “Slaggit here’s gonna do that for us.”

The slug opened its mouth to respond, but the boy leaned down before it could, out of Kaden’s sight. “And if he tries to press self-destruct or any of the turrets instead, I’m gonna blow his brains out.”

Kaden shoved himself up out of bed, startling the poor girl next to him awake. But he didn’t even acknowledge her, sprinting for the bathroom to throw up his dinner.

That kid was a one-man armada.

It was quiet, the next time he found himself staring at the horizon. The sky was mostly a deep purple, fading from a fiery sunset to a dark night, and he could see the twinkling of city lights in the distance. He, however, was standing on a rocky outcropping, a soft light coming from behind him.

Able to recognise the feeling of one of these dreams, he slowly turned, prepared for anything.

But all he found was the boy sitting on a bench, a markazian girl curled around him as they stared out at the sunset. The little robot was sitting nearby, flipping through a book with its eyes lighting up the pages.

The boy was older than the last time Kaden had been able to take a good look at him, but still not what you’d call an adult. He seemed to have stacked on a bit of weight—the good kind—moving him out of rake-thin to just slim. And if Kaden hadn’t watched him tear his way through a giant killer robot last night, he never would have believed such a cute kid could hurt so much as a fly.

“I have to go back to work soon,” the girl murmured. “Sasha needs an escort.”

The boy hummed but didn’t otherwise react, even when she snuggled a little closer to his side, nuzzling against his ear.

“Do you want to come? I’m sure the commander will okay it if you want to come back from leave early.”

He smirked. “Nah. I’ll let you girls talk about me behind my back for a few weeks.”

“Coward,” she teased, but then closed her eyes, relaxing into him. He smiled and shifted his head against her, nuzzling back, and Kaden turned away.

He rolled over in bed, glancing at the clock to confirm he didn’t need to be awake yet, and buried himself in more normal dreams.

Normally, Kaden could appreciate Sal’s professionalism. She believed in the integrity of the government’s confidentiality agreements, and that was something the entire Guard of Avoidables held in extremely high esteem. It was kind of their purpose for existing, after all.

Today, however, he just wanted information.

“There has to be something you can tell me,” he insisted. “I don’t need specifics, I just need confirmation. Are there any reports of a lombax in markazian territory?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, lieutenant,” she said wearily. “Markazian territory comes under subsection M-823, which requires Infiltration Level Security or higher.”

He sighed loudly, pressing his hands to his face and then back over his head to his ears. “But it’s about a lombax. Surely that grants an exception.”

“Not that I know of,” she said, and then folded her arms over the desk to frown at him. “Why are you so curious anyway, Kaden? You don’t usually care about anything outside the Guard.”

He stalled, not really sure how to explain it. On paper, his dreams sounded like something out a holo-vid. Some good looking kid single-handedly taking on entire battalions and world-destroying robots with an arsenal of weapons only to snuggle up to attractive female aliens as soon as the fighting stopped? He should go off-world and sell the creative rights – he’d never have to work again!

But something about the dreams just felt so real. And he’d never dreamed like this before. Never about the same unknown person, in different situations and scenarios. It didn’t make any sense.

And if it was real, then… the very thought made him sick to his stomach. A kid. Not even fully grown, but a well trained, deadly soldier. and he had no idea whose side the kid was on. The robot had mentioned Galactic Rangers, but Kaden had never heard of them before. They could be good or bad. Either way, the High Council needed to know about him. They needed to be prepared.

The ground underfoot was rocky, with sand everywhere. He lifted his boot and took an awkward step backward, unnerved by finding himself staring at dirt before anything else.

“Aw, come on, kitty! I thought you wanted to play!”

He looked up at the child’s voice, already scowling. ‘Kitty’ was a common insult for lombaxes – the idea of a child already using it was infuriating.

He didn’t recognise the species, but the group of children in front of him were all the same. Scaly green, without tails or hair, and bulbous heads. They were grinning up into the branches of a tree, and Kaden slowly looked up to find a tiny lombax child clinging to the trunk above.

Gold fur and green eyes. His stripes had started to come in, but they were indistinct, marking him around five. He smiled down at the others like an emperor surveying his subjects. “I am playing,” he said. “Just because you can’t catch me, that’s not my problem.”

“Ah, leave him. Stupid cat’s probably stuck up there anyway,” one of the children sneered.

“Yeah, hope you’re not hungry, kitty!” another one called. “No one’s gonna come get you!”

“Heh – let’s tell the teachers he ran into the city! He’ll get in so much trouble!”

Kaden watched the brats run off, then turned to look back up at the boy. He was watching them go with a quickly darkening expression, but said nothing. He just curled in closer to the trunk, and closed his eyes.

After a moment, Kaden followed suit.

The wall was made of iron, and covered in very simple schematics. Designs for ships, tools, even some kind of shirt that sent electric currents down the sleeves. He reached out, running his fingers over them as memories of his own youthful designs echoed. He’d leaned more toward weaponry in his youth, but he’d always been meant for the guard.

“Five hundred bolts? Where the heck am I supposed to get that kind of money?”

“What’s the matter, kid, too good to work for the things you want?”

Kaden turned to see his boy—maybe thirteen, this time, if the shape of his feet were any indication—glaring at an older, purple-scaled creature holding an omniwrench. It clearly wasn’t lombax make – it didn’t have the power cabling to make it a real weapon. But it was big enough and heavy enough to make do. The boy pressed a hand to his temple before flinging it out. “C’mon, Lavel! That wrench cost two-fifty when I saw it in your shop last week!”

“And now it’s five hundred. What d’you want from me?”

“A fair deal!”

“Call it inflation,” he sneered. “Besides, you managed to buy this place, didn’chya? I’m not buyin’ that you can’t come up with a few hundred bolts.”

“You know what I had to do to get here!” the boy snarled back. “I don’t have that kind of money!”

“Then you ain’t gettin’ the wrench. Unless you got some other way to pay me for it.”

The kid growled, fists clenching so hard they shook. “What do you want, Lavel?”

The creature smirked and pretended to inspect his nails. “Ohh, well, you know… the city just contracted me to clean out the sewers of a few glowmites… Thing is, I’m not much of one for tight spaces, or the refuse this city flushes down them. Scrawny kitten like you, though… I bet you’d fit in just right down there.”

The boy’s growl deepened, his eyes almost slits. “Wrench up front.”

“You got a deal. But I hear even one o’those glowmites escapes, you don’t get t’keep it, you understand me?”

The boy snatched the omniwrench out of the creature’s hands and stalked off.

Kaden just turned away from the deal, and pulled his sheets higher up over his head.

“Keep them off me, I need to repair the door!”

Kaden flinched, barely given time to realise he was dreaming before he needed to duck out of the way of a spinning razorblade aimed at his head. He vaulted for safety behind a massive silver robot before peeking out again, searching for the boy and taking in the mess he’d found himself in this time.

His boy was standing at a door panel, prying open the top panel only to immediately dive into the guts. Around him, a small army of bug-like machines were crawling out of the walls and floor, each one inexpertly picked off by a blast from the robot Kaden was hiding behind.

“Agh!”

Kaden flinched and looked back at his boy. It was crazy to realise, but he’d never heard the boy in pain before. But the robot wasn’t firing fast enough. The machines were swarming. And the boy only reared back, out of the way of the one to bite him, before leaning back in to his repair, kicking another machine away from his ankle.

Kaden’s hand flexed for his wrench. Or a blaster. Something. But he had nothing. He wasn’t here. He wasn’t even sure he could impact the world around him. All he could do was stare helplessly as the massive robot barely kept the little machines at bay, each shot rocking the boy where he stood, too close to the explosions for comfort.

“Okay, that’s it, let’s go!” the boy cried as a door slid open. He snatched his wrench out and swung the last of the robots away, then ran back, reaching out a hand. The massive robot stepped forward, shrinking as it went, until it became the tiny backpack Kaden could recognise it as. It grabbed the boy’s hand and swung easily up into place on his back, and only then did it seem to notice Kaden.

It narrowed its eyes again, but wasn’t given time to say a word as his boy sprinted out of the now open door.

“Veldin,” Kaden whispered, stepping back from the holo-monitor to just stare at the planet. It had taken weeks of searching in his off-time, combing through countless files on all the known species in the universe, until he finally found what he was looking for. Scaled creatures with big heads and no tails. Native to a desert planet in a nearby galaxy. “He grew up on Veldin.”

Alister stepped up beside him, frowning at the planet and then at his friend. “You’re sure you want to do this, Kaden? I mean… they’re just dreams.”

“I have to find him,” he murmured, just staring. “I have to know he’s real.”

He heard the panting before he became aware of the stars he was staring at. He hesitated, then turned to look, fists clenching at the sight behind him.

His boy was curled up under a nest of blankets, the markazian girl crouched in front of him with her hand to his forehead. The little robot stood to the side, watching worriedly.

“M-maybe we should call Dr Croid?” the girl asked. “I mean, s-sure, he’s crazy and d-doesn’t think Ratchet’s a person, b-but maybe he’ll know what’s wrong. Maybe he’ll know how to fix it?”

“I’m…” the boy pushed a hand out from under the blanket to wave at her vaguely. “I’m fine. It’s probably just… just like allergies. I just… I need some… some sleep.”

“You are not fine!” she cried desperately. “The doctor didn’t even have a clue what was wrong! I can’t – Clank, tell him!”

“I am certain Ratchet will be fine given some time and rest. He has simply been pushing himself too hard lately,” the robot said, and Kaden glanced around only to find it staring at him. It made sure he was paying attention before looking back at the girl and gesturing to the door. “I will go and fetch some more pain killers. You should stay here and ensure he does not attempt to assemble any nuclear weapons.”

“Feelin’ the… love there… buddy,” the boy mumbled.

“Again,” the robot added pointedly.

“It was a bath toy,” he grumbled, but it trailed off into a pleased mumble when the girl reached out to pet his ears.

The robot headed for the door, and after a moment, Kaden followed. The door shut behind him, and the robot fixed him with a surprisingly good death glare.

“His temperature is too high, but he feels freezing. He cannot hold food down, and even the blanket irritates his skin with a rash. Through fur. He is in constant pain. Nanotech only worsens the inflammation. You will tell me what is wrong with him.”

“You can see me,” Kaden realised quietly.

“That is beside the point,” it replied. “You are a lombax, are you not?”

“Of course.”

“Is this a lombax illness?”

“It…” He looked back at the door. “It sounds like gravel mumps. But he’s way too old for it – most kids catch it before they even start school, and you can’t get it twice.”

“What is it?”

“It’s an infection. A kind of fungus that gets into the nervous system,” he explained. “You should get him to Fastoon – I’m pretty sure lombax doctors are the only ones that have the treatment handy.”

“That is not surprising, given lombax secrecy,” the robot said coldly. “Will he recover without treatment?”

“What?” he demanded. “You can’t do that. Gravel mumps put most kids in tears for a week – with salves! Leaving him untreated is torture.”

“We do not have another option,” it snapped. “There are no lombax doctors. How do we manage his pain?”

“You – what do you mean, there are no lombax doctors?” he asked. “Where are you?”

“The better question is when. Now answer my question. How do I help Ratchet?”

“You – you can’t, it – Look, we’ve been using the same salves for generations, and there are pills. But mostly kids just have to suffer through it…” He rubbed his temple, unable to get past the ‘no lombax doctors’ concept. His own medical knowledge had stopped in high school classes, but he gave it a shot. “I heard it’s worse for adults, but that’s more about the consequences than the symptoms. Sterility and such. Otherwise… Fur irritates the inflammation. You can lessen some of the pain by shaving it, but shaving over a rash isn’t something I’d advise if he isn’t knocked out. And you need to manage his temperature – the fever needs to break, but if it gets too high while his nervous system’s in a fragile state, it could permanently damage his brain. Keep his hands and feet cool, and don’t let him fold his ears. That’s… about all you can do.”

The robot stared at him for a few seconds, then turned away, clenching its little hands. “We never should have gone back to Fastoon. I should have been more firm with him. This is all my fault.”

“Look, if you know where Fastoon is, just go back there again,” he snapped. “It doesn’t matter where he was raised – he’s a lombax, and that means his people will take care of him. Get him to a doctor!”

“There are no lombax doctors!” the robot said again. “Fastoon is a dead planet – a museum of empty buildings and ghost streets! And apparently dangerous fungus in the water. Oh, Ratchet…!”

Next thing Kaden knew, he was jerking upright in the passenger seat of his ship and meeting Alister’s startled gaze.

His boy’s name was Ratchet.

Kaden hadn’t thought about it too much, but it suddenly came to him as he found himself staring out a window at a blue sky, listening to shuddering breath behind him. That’s what they kept calling him – the girl, the robot… they called him Ratchet.

He was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and obviously trying to fight off the tears streaming down his cheeks. His fingers, so rarely seen outside of those ridiculous gloves, were caught in the holes his nails had torn in the sheets. As Kaden walked over, he was able to see the fevered glaze over his boy’s normally bright eyes. The rash was visible through the paler fur around his muzzle and chest.

Kaden slowly sat on the chair last occupied by the markazian girl, and tried reaching out. As he’d suspected, he couldn’t touch. His hand slipped through his boy’s ear like a hologram.

“It’s okay, boy,” he whispered. “I promise this will pass in time. You have to be strong.”

What had the robot meant about there being no lombax doctors? About Fastoon being a dead planet? What was he seeing and why?

His boy was so small. He looked like he was older again… his ears had grown to be almost comically large, just as Kaden’s had before his final growth spurt. But even at what, twenty-five? The boy was tiny. Barely five feet tall, and still thin. What little weight he had seemed to be muscle. Not surprising, given everything Kaden had seen him do, but it wasn’t what a kid was supposed to look like.

And young adults were not supposed to suffer an illness most lombaxes caught and dealt with when they were young enough to cry without shame.

“I want to meet you one day, Ratchet,” he said. “So you have to be strong and make it through this. So we can meet up then.”

“I hate everything.”

Kaden smiled as he turned away from the window, pleased to finally hear Ratchet speak after a week of dreams about his boy in delirious pain. Unfortunately, he was still dreaming of Ratchet in his sickbed, but the boy was finally sitting up and glaring at a bowl of soup.

“You have said that many times today,” the robot noted. “It does not excuse you from eating.”

“I hate eating.”

“If you do not eat using your own power, I will bring Talwyn in here,” the robot said imperiously. “She will make you eat.”

“I hate Talwyn,” he grumbled, and glared at the little robot. “And I hate you too.”

“I suspect I would be more upset by this if I had not spent two weeks concerned you were going to die,” it replied. “Now please eat.”

“The bad mood comes with the recovery phase,” Kaden told the robot. “The pain should mostly be gone, but the rash is gonna itch like crazy for another week or so. He’ll get over it.”

“He always does,” the robot replied without turning, and the boy looked up from under his brows.

“Who always does what?”

“Nothing. Now, will you eat, or do I need to bring in Talwyn?”

The boy scowled but reluctantly picked up his spoon. He poked at the soup a few times before managing to scoop a mouthful. Obviously he hadn’t regained his appetite, but the idea of being force fed was less appealing than doing it himself.

“When you are done eating, you should try taking a bath—”

“Hate baths.”

“—we discovered, last week, that adding juice of the corivian plant to the water soothes your skin. You quite enjoy it.”

Kaden raised his eyebrows. “You do know corivian fumes are a euphoric depressant to lombaxes.”

The robot jerked, and Kaden’s eyebrows rose even higher. “You’ve been getting this kid stoned all week. I see.”

“Well, it seemed to work, anyway,” the robot said vaguely, then continued. “If you are feeling better after that, I thought it would be nice to take a walk. You need to rebuild your strength after such a long time in bed.”

“Hate walking. Hate the bed. I hate everything.” And then the kid suddenly froze, staring at nothing for a second before his head snapped around to stare at the robot. “You bathed me? I didn’t just dream that, you actually bathed –?!”

“Of course. It has been over a week since you were fully conscious. You have been delirious, and the sweat from your hands and feet dirtied the blankets, which in turn irritated your skin further. We often needed to –”

“No! That was a dream!” he insisted. “Talwyn did not have anything to do with me being bathed. That was a dream.”

The robot tilted its head in confusion. “I do not understand why you are upset by this. It is not as if –”

“Oh my god, it really happened,” The boy put aside the bowl and disappeared under the blanket. “I’m never coming out. Kill me now.”

The robot turned to look up at Kaden, who shrugged. “Honestly, if my girlfriend gave me a sponge bath and I wasn’t aware enough to enjoy it, I’d probably wanna do that too.”

Veldin was a desert planet. There wasn’t much to it.

He wasn’t as surprised as Alister expected him to be. The last week of dreams had given him the hint that if what he was dreaming about was real, then at the very least, it wasn’t in his time. And even if it had been, it didn’t seem like Ratchet had stayed there too long.

More important to him now was that there were no lombaxes. Not on this planet, or even apparently in the entire system.

So how had his boy ended up here?

When would he been born? To what parents? Who took care of him, beyond the little robot?

Alister stepped up beside him as they stared out over a plateau below. “So, Kaden. The kid’s not here. Probably never was. Can we go home? What do you want to do now?”

“I think I need to talk to a dimensional physicist,” he murmured, gripping his wrench. He needed to find his boy.

He looked down from the sky to see a younger Ratchet alone, crouched over an engine and quietly fixing it. It felt like it had been a long time since he’d dreamt of something so peaceful.

Kaden moved over to crouch on the other side of the engine, just looking at the kid.

“Who are you?” he asked quietly.

He didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. He didn’t know Kaden was there. He just carried on with what he was doing.

Kaden woke up staring at the wall in front of him, and then sighed and got up.

Once again, Kaden didn’t have time to realise he was staring at space before noise broke into his dream. But not weaponsfire, this time. Just the shattering of a thrown glass.

“I’m not a cazar!” Ratchet yelled. “Stop pretending I am!”

“You’re close enough!” It was the cazar girl. But this time there was no attraction between them. They both looked hurt and angry. “The only thing stopping you from being one of us is you!”

“No kidding!” he shot back. “What do you think it is, the ears? The eyes maybe?”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“It’s what it is!”

“You’re being irrational!” she snapped. “Who cares if you have a few different features? You’re still a felid! You’re close enough to pass!”

“Pass? Pass?” Ratchet slammed his fists on the table between them. “I don’t want to pass, Sasha! And even if I did, you’re delusional if you think anyone would ever think I’m one of you!”

“That’s not what this is about anyway.”

“No, it’s about you constantly telling me to act like someone I’m not.”

“I don’t want you to act like anyone!” she insisted. “I want you to be happy. What is wrong with that?”

“Oh, and just because I don’t make some stupid noise you don’t think I’m happy?”

“Would you drop the purring for one second, that’s got nothing to do with it!” she snapped, and pointed at him savagely. “I’m talking about the fact you never relax! You don’t do anything for you! You wouldn’t even let me take you out for dinner without me telling you I needed a night out!”

“Maybe I just don’t like eating at some fancy restaurant, you ever think about that?” he shot back. “You ever think maybe the reason I don’t want to do the stuff you say I should enjoy is because I know what I enjoy and it’s not any of that stuff?”

“No, because I know what you enjoy. You enjoy getting shot at!”

“Yeah, maybe I do! Saving people is what I enjoy, Sasha. It’s kind of my thing!”

“Oh, please, you never got into this to save anyone! You’re just hoping someone gets a stray shot in!”

“Screw you!”

“And the hell with you!”

“Fine!” he yelled, shoving himself away from the table. “See ya ’round!”

“Ohh, no, we are not finished here!” she said darkly. “You are not running away from this.”

“What else is there to say? You think I’m suicidal! Why the hell would I care what you want?” he snapped, stalking across the room. “I want to go home!”

“I can’t believe you! All that time you spent alone and now you’re pushing away anyone that cares about you!”

“Do not –!” he yelled, spinning around with one finger raised. He stalled, then slowly lowered his arm again. “Do not talk like you understand anything about my being alone.”

For a moment, they could only stare at each other, angry and hurt and separated as you could only be when arguing with someone you cared about.

“I love you,” the girl ground out. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You never had me,” Ratchet replied quietly, and left.

“Don’t!” Kaden cried, grabbing at the thin air over his bed. He stared at his empty fist for a second, then collapsed back against the pillow, breathing hard.

For once, he wasn’t staring into space, or at a wall, or anything much at all when he became aware of Ratchet in front of him. Maybe he’d been looking at the horizon past Ratchet and the cazar girl, but his attention quickly focussed.

Ratchet was leaning against an archway, legs and arms crossed, ears lowered and tail flicking behind him. The girl stood on the opposite side, her arms folded over her stomach.

“Sorry I yelled at you,” Ratchet said finally. “And… you know… left. The way I did.”

“I’m sorry I said all that stuff,” she said. “I just… I just want to see you happy. Happy like you make me.”

Ratchet sighed, lifting his eyes to the ceiling above, before lowering back to the ground. Eventually he looked at her again. “You do, you know? Make me happy.”

“No, I don’t,” she said softly, and when he lifted his head to argue, she just smiled sadly. “I don’t, Ratchet. Not as happy as I think you could be… with someone else.”

He immediately turned back to her, eyes wide. “What?”

She hesitated, bouncing in place for a few seconds and pulling her lips into her mouth. She tightened her arms around her waist and blinked several times, but nothing she did could hide the sharp breath she had to take to stop herself from crying. “You’re right, I mean… I have been trying to make you into something you’re not. I… I mean, think about it. I want to settle down, start some kind of… political career, and you… you’re not that guy.”

“What guy?” he asked. “What – what does your job have to do with –”

“You need to be out there,” she said, gesturing to the horizon Kaden might have been looking at. “With Clank, and the Galactic Rangers, and… all the bad guys there are. It’s who you are, Ratchet. You can’t be here with me.”

The boy peeked at her from the corner of his eye, then lowered his gaze back to the ground. She sniffed, wrapping her arms tighter around her waist, then said, “I think I’m always gonna love you, but… this is done. We’re done, Ratchet.”

His head turned a little toward her, but he didn’t say anything. Kaden wished he knew the kid well enough to know why. But the girl apparently did, because she took it as enough of a response to cross the archway and lean down to press her lips against the side of Ratchet’s mouth.

“Take care of the Phoenix for me,” she whispered, and walked away.

The boy just stood there as she left. Long after she was gone, he slowly slid down to sitting, elbows propped on his knees as he stared past Kaden.

Eventually, he pulled out a blaster, and just looked at it for a long time. Then he seemed to shrug to himself, a small smile on his face. “Okay.”

Dimensional physicists were generally a strange bunch. They walked a very thin line between the real and the theoretical, knowing all their science had real applications but unable to test most of them because it could cause the end of the universe.

As a Guard of the Avoidables, it had always been Kaden’s job to keep an eye on them. Whenever they got funding (or didn’t) to bring one of their ideas to life, it inevitably ended up in his care. So he understood the basics of what they did, and was—for the most part—on good terms with them all.

So they did him the honour of listening carefully when he told them about the dreams. About how real they were. About how he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Ratchet was out there somewhere. And that he needed to know why he was seeing visions of him every night.

“When did all this start?” one of them asked.

Honestly, Kaden couldn’t quite remember, but he had a vague idea. “I think it was when we brought in those artefacts from sector nine-two-four.”

They all hummed and exchanged knowing looks.

“Son of a Qwark!”

Kaden tried not to smile at the unusual expression as he shifted up on his elbows to see Ratchet standing in the middle of a body-strewn battlefield, wringing his fingers like he’d snapped them in a door.

“What is wrong, Ratchet?” the robot on his back asked curiously, and the boy huffed.

“Zapped myself with my frikking thunder-blazer.”

“Is that not why you wear gloves?”

“Leather gloves don’t do anything against electricity,” he snapped, dancing in place like that would help him get over it.

It should have been horrifying, such an amusing, casual scene in the middle of all this death and destruction. It was horrifying. But Kaden kept his eyes on the boy. Older, again. Taller too. Almost full-grown now.

He felt the strangest twinge of pride.

He quickly focussed his eyes away from the stars and onto the reflection of the window, noting his boy was almost directly behind him for once, watching a group of people gathered across some kind of command centre. The attention seemed to be focussed on a hulking, furless creature in green latex.

“—and then, we all regroup back here for waffles and celebration before reporting in to the Galactic President, who will no doubt reward me for my brilliant strategy and heroism!”

Ratchet lowered his head into his palm, and said, too quietly for anyone but Kaden and the robot to hear, “So once again, his plan is ‘send Ratchet and Clank in to almost certain death and take all the credit if they survive’?”

“I suppose we could be flattered he has so much confidence in our abilities,” the robot replied lightly.

“Ughhh…” He pulled his head up and raised his voice, “Qwark, stupid question: what are the rest of you going to be doing while I’m uh… diverting enemy attention?”

“Monitoring the situation, of course!” the big lug announced. “Don’t you worry your fuzzy little head about it, Ratchet! I wouldn’t leave my favourite sidekick unsupervised!”

“Great,” Ratchet said, lowering his head again. “Just great.”

Kaden rubbed his own face as he dragged himself from sleep, and then frowned. It was the first time he’d seen Ratchet show any kind of reluctance to fight. He wondered if it was normal, or if it had been this time in particular, before shrugging it off and getting up.

Another night, another battle, and Kaden sighed as he dove behind a stack of crates. He’d been engaged in his own fight today – a thief broke into the Hall of Invincibles, and it took him all too long to break past the stolen armour to get at the thief himself. He had hoped tonight’s dream would be peaceful.

Instead, he had only just begun to search out the boy when Ratchet was bodily thrown through the crates Kaden was hiding behind. He lay there for a moment, just breathing, before flipping back to his feet and drawing a new weapon.

The robot wasn’t on his back for once, but when Kaden turned to watch the boy run back into battle, he saw it shooting its own massive gun alongside another, taller robot and the hulking creature from the last dream. They were facing off against another ridiculously oversized robot. This one appearing closer to a squid than anything else, but with a massive blue holoshield blocking its front.

The robot side-eyed Ratchet as he joined them in leaping over a laser attack. “Ratchet, your nanotech is low. Perhaps you should take cover.”

“We’re almost done,” he panted. “We need to take down that shield!”

“I’ve got it!” the hulk proclaimed, and switched out his blaster for what looked suspiciously like a vacuum. The other three jerked, but that was all they had time for before the vacuum actually sucked Ratchet up against the mouth with a startled yelp.

“Qwark,” the boy said warningly, “remember to aim. Remember to aim!”

Kaden wasn’t sure whether he aimed. Either way, Ratchet was shot, yelling the whole way, up to a wall high above their heads. He hit metal, and then jumped back just enough to gain air again before slamming his wrench down on a platform Kaden couldn’t see. He then leapt down, just barely giving himself enough time to vault another laser blast before he was sucked up into the taller robot’s vacuum as well. “H-hey!”

“Trust me!” the robot sneered.

Kaden didn’t.

And yet the process was repeated, and this time, the holoshield vanished. The four of them immediately opened up enough firepower to level a small city, until eventually the bot faltered, fell back, and then went crashing out of sight.

“Victory!” the tall robot screeched. “Evil always triumphs!”

Ratchet and the smaller robot turned to give it matching deadpan stares, completely ignoring the smaller robots still skittering around the edge of the battlefield. Ratchet even holstered his gun, switching it out for his omniwrench. “Y’know, Nefarious, just when I think we’re getting somewhere with you, you go and –”

And then he got shot in the back.

“Ratchet!” the little robot cried as he crumpled, while the tall one smirked.

“My day just got a whole lot better!”

If it hadn’t been a dream, Kaden would have thrown his wrench at the robot’s head. As it was, he woke up in an exceedingly bad mood.

Joen pressed her hands together as she considered everything he’d told her. “They certainly don’t sound like dreams. But I’m not sure what you’re suggesting is possible.”

“If they’re not dreams, what other explanation is there?” he asked bluntly. “They’re clearly some kind of vision, seen though a mental connection to some kind of… warp hole. The only question is whether it’s from another time or place.”

“There is another question: what caused the connection.”

“Honestly, given my line of work it could have been any number of things,” he pointed out. “Not everything in the Avoidables works the way they’ve been catalogued to.”

“Very true,” she said, and paused to consider him for another moment before sitting forward again. “Unfortunately, until we have the answers to some of these questions, there isn’t much we can do to help you. My next suggestion is to share the dreams, in the hope that we may be able to find some kind of clue.”

“A dreamoscope?” he asked with a wince. Once upon a time, dreamoscopes had been sold off the shelf – a way to share dreams with friends. But the problem was that very few people could control what they dreamed, and having a record of some dreams turned out to be bad for many relationships. Now they were only used by psychiatrists and the black market.

Joen smiled, obviously guessing at the reason for his reluctance. “I’m sure we can let you review the tapes before anyone else looks at them.”

He was staring at a dark ceiling, soft snores echoing around him.

He turned his head, slightly unnerved to find himself less than a foot from the sleeping Ratchet, who didn’t appear to be wearing anything under his twisted sheets, except for the equally undressed markazian draped over his back. What his boy saw in non-lombax women, Kaden could not for the life of him understand. At least the cazar had fur! Markazians were just…

He grimaced and turned away, wondering once again why he saw the glimpses of Ratchet’s life that he did. There was no order to it. No rhyme or reason. No –

Ratchet suddenly gasped, jerking violently and startling Kaden into attention and the poor girl awake. He stared blindly for a few seconds, reaching for something that wasn’t there, until the markazian realised what had happened and pressed back into his shoulder.

“It’s okay, Ratchet. We’ll find him,” she breathed, moving her arm from where it had been resting against his hip to curl around his chest instead. Her fingers spread into his fur, and she shifted a little further over him before kissing the back of his neck, close to his ear. “It’s okay. You’re not alone; I’m here, and we’re gonna find him. I promise.”

“Tal,” he whispered vaguely, and she hummed, nuzzling into him.

“M’here, Ratchet.”

“Okay,” he said, closing his eyes again and shifting his own hand up onto the bed where it could wrap around hers. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

Soon, they were both asleep again, while Kaden woke up instead.

He was staring out into empty space, a strange rock station playing music he didn’t recognise. He looked around the cockpit, noting Ratchet in the pilot seat, with no little robot or female companion. Just his boy, silently multi-tasking between checking his scanning instruments and flying the ship.

He was at the age Kaden saw him most frequently – his early twenties, after he apparently discovered shirts outside armour but before his ears started off his final growth spurt. And this, Kaden realised as he looked around the cockpit again, was a lombax ship. It had a few features Alister probably would have drooled over, but the controls were worn, with signs of age creeping along the edges. Another point for ‘time’ being the victim of the warp hole he was apparently looking through.

Despite his focus, Ratchet seemed tired in this dream. Tired and a little frustrated. The way Alister sometimes looked after a long day of arguing with other politicians. As Kaden watched, Ratchet rubbed his face, then pushed his hand back over one ear, folding it flat against his head with a sigh that could only be described as world-weary.

He stayed that way for a few seconds, then rubbed his face again, with both hands this time, and then paused again, hands pressed against his temples so Kaden couldn’t see his face. He thought he heard a sniff, and short breath.

Was Ratchet… crying?

The radio died, and a mechanical female voice took its place. “Ratchet.”

He paused, then made a soft coughing noise, before his voice came out as strong as ever. “Yeah. Here.”

“If I might make an observation—”

“I’m fine, Aphelion.”

“Of course,” the voice said, in the tone of all exasperated women everywhere. “—you are simply tired. You have not taken a break since leaving Apogee Station two days ago. You should rest.”

Ratchet shifted slightly – not enough to show his face, but enough to be more resting his head on the sides of his hands than using them to hide. “Speaking of which, how pissed are her messages sounding now?”

“She has calmed. Would you like to hear the most recent one?”

“Sure, why not.”

The next sound from the speakers was a sigh, and then, eventually, the markazian’s voice. “I don’t even know if you’re listening to these, Ratchet. If you are, I’m sorry. For… fuck it, for everything. It was out of line. I am… so proud of you for not giving up on him, it says so much about you and I am a horrible person for even suggesting you stop, it’s just…” She sighed again. “It reminded me of how much I wish I could have found my father. How much I still want to find him. And I wish I was strong, like you, to keep looking, but I’m not. And, you know, I projected that on you. I’m sorry.” She took an audible breath, and her tone abruptly switched to something almost too upbeat as she changed subjects. “To make it up to you, and you’re gonna hate this, I got in contact with Qwark. I told him you could use a friend, and so he’s waiting for you to pick him up. I am going to add the coordinates for his pick-up location at the end of this message, and hopefully Aphelion will take you to him.”

“Bitch,” Ratchet said, with feeling that was equal parts annoyed and fond.

“We care about you and we’re worried. I know you want to find Clank, and I really, really hope you do. But it’s been two years, and I need you to take care of yourself while you’re searching, okay?” The girl paused before speaking again. “Anyway, I’ve rambled long enough for a message that may not get listened to, so… be safe, Ratchet. I’ll see you when you get back.”

The message shut off, and for a moment, everything was quiet except for the humming of the console. Ratchet took a shaky breath, then let it out in a long sigh.

“Don’t call, but… send a message back,” he instructed.

“Recording,” the robotic voice confirmed, but Ratchet didn’t immediately speak. It took almost thirty seconds before he did.

“Thanks, Tal. I’m sorry too.”

He reached out and pressed a button to end the recording, then bent further forward, curling close to his knees. “I’m sorry I’m such a fucking mess.”

Not even able to breathe, Kaden extended a hand, but his fingers slid right through Ratchet’s shoulder. It only felt worse when he blinked, and found himself reaching for his alarm clock instead.

As much as Kaden didn’t understand his visions, and didn’t exactly welcome them, he had never felt so much relief to dream of Ratchet again the next night.

Better still, Ratchet was clearly the same age as he had been in the last dream, only this time Kaden was hunched in the back of the ship, and the passenger seat was taken by the little robot. Ratchet was laughing.

“—and then, without so much as a change in vocal signature, he says ‘I have been meaning to fix that’,” the robot finished, and Ratchet burst out in a whole new peal of laughter, quickly trailing off into breathy giggles that could have been sobs if not for the grin on his face. The little robot gazed up at him, somehow looking extremely affectionate, and said nothing as Ratchet slowly calmed down.

Kaden gazed at him too, looking at the tight set of his shoulders and the weary look on his face. It was so strange. So much of what he saw in these visions were horrifying. Ratchet was horrifying. A child—he’d yet to see him fully grown—capable of utterly decimating small armies with nothing but a handful of weapons and a robot on his back. He’d never seen him interact with another lombax. Never seen him do anything normal.

And yet, each new vision made Kaden feel more and more affection for the kid. He wanted to know more. He wanted to meet him. He wanted to talk to him.

He wanted to ask what that moment had been about, when Ratchet had been alone.

“Thank you for helping with the repairs to the clock,” the little robot said finally. “I believe you saved the zoni quite a lot of time.”

Ratchet’s shoulders hunched for a moment before dropping again. “Least I could do.”

“I am sorry about what happened.”

He shook his head, all smiles gone. “You have nothing to apologise for. He… he did what he did, and… things happened like they happened. Nothing you – nothing either of us could have done.”

“I am glad you see it that way,” the robot said. It carried a hint of ‘for once’ that Kaden didn’t really understand, but went unspoken anyway. Besides, it soon continued, “but all the same, I am sorry. For everything.”

Ratchet glanced at it, a half-smile on his lips, before he turned back to the stars. “It’s good to have you back, pal.”

“It is good to be back. There is nowhere I would rather be.”

Ratchet adjusted his grip on the controls, and didn’t say a word in response.

Considering it had been her idea, Joen looked surprisingly sceptical as the doctor pressed the dreamoscope down over Kaden’s temples. Alister, leaning against the far wall with his arms folded, just looked amused.

“Alright, Judge,” the doctor said slowly, “that should be it. You just need to make sure the recording box—” He pressed a small silver device into Kaden’s hands. “—is within a cubit of your bed while you’re sleeping, and it should pick up everything you see. When you’re reviewing the footage, it will be just like a standard holo-vid. You can cut anything that’s not relevant.”

“Or save them to another file for later viewing, if it’s saucy enough,” Alister added with a lecherous grin, and Kaden rolled his eyes. Ever the mature one, his friend.

“I’d like at least seven recordings to verify the theory and conduct analysis,” said Joen. “So if you could report back in fourteen days, that should be more than enough to ensure a solid collection.”

“Anything in particular you think would help?” Kaden asked, touching the dreamoscope. It wasn’t too cumbersome – he could barely feel it through his fur, but it felt like he had oil or gum stuck to his head.

“Technology, pop-culture, communication styles,” Joen suggested vaguely. “Anything to give us a concept of how this boy lives.”

“Understood. I’ll let you know if I run into trouble.”

There was a white wall across the room, and a room full of orange-suited prisoners.

Kaden frowned and looked around, then did a double-take as he discovered Ratchet and his little robot both dressed in orange as well, living up with trays along a cafeteria wall.

Well. There went his good guy theory.

They were talking too quietly for him to hear from even his short distance away, but Kaden noticed a very large, angry-looking prisoner eyeing them off for almost a full minute before taking a purposeful step forward into Ratchet’s path. The collision was inevitable.

“Why donch’ya watch where you’re going, space rat?” the prisoner yelled, and Ratchet winced before quickly taking a step back. He was less the half the prisoner’s height and perhaps a quarter of his weight.

“Easy, pal, no one’s looking for any trouble,” he said gently, but two other prisoners stepped up to sneer alongside the first.

“General Glahm ain’t your pal, furball!”

“General Glahm ain’t got no pals!”

“Wait a second,” the first one said, leaning down to peer at Ratchet with one squinted eye. “Have we met?”

Judging by the suddenly innocent expression on Ratchet’s face, they absolutely had. “You know us space rats, we all look the same.” He turned a little with a smile that looked more like a grimace. “I think it’s something about the ears.”

Kaden raised an eyebrow. Lombaxes were the only ones with ears like them.

“Now I know!” the general yelled. “Krell Canyon, Planet Lumos! Am I right, fellas?”

“Oh, boy,” Ratchet sighed.

“Sweet eye of a zoni, that’s him!” one of the tagalongs cried.

“Fellas,” Ratchet began again, holding up his tray like a shield. “Let’s all just take it easy. You were invading a peaceful village, I had to do something—”

“Well, now so do we,” the general informed him. And that was all the warning he gave before ramming his fist for Ratchet’s face. Somehow, he got his tray up in time to block, and immediately retaliated by slamming it against the general’s jaw hard enough that Kaden was amazed something didn’t crack.

It didn’t help the situation any, however, as the general glared down at Ratchet. “Get him!”

In all his years, Kaden had never understood why some prisons let their prisoners carry weapons. Surely it was asking for trouble. But for once he was glad, as Ratchet pulled his wrench and pummelled it against his first new attacker’s head, before swinging it up and around to clock the second upside the jaw, flipping him right off his feet. But that was all the luck he had, as the general tackled him right in the gut and pinned him by the neck, fist raised for a new punch.

“Now I’ve got you, ya miserable –”

“Enough!”

They both looked up to find a wardenbot standing over them, flanked by two heavily armed enforcers. The wardenbot put its hands on its hips and demanded, “What is going on here?!”

“I know what this looks like,” Ratchet said, still trying to peel the general’s hands off his neck, “but I was actually winning this one.”

Kaden grumbled to himself as he rolled over, wondering what exactly was wrong with his boy to get himself into these situations.

“You. Again.”

Kaden blinked, becoming aware of the stars he was staring at a moment after hearing the accusation. He turned to find the little robot blankly staring at him over a fire, Ratchet beside him and hard at work… disembowelling a frog. Kaden pressed a hand to his mouth and tried to resist the urge to throw up.

“What’s that?” Ratchet asked, and the robot stared at him, then pointed at Kaden.

“Do you not see that?”

“See what?” He looked up, eyes tracking right past Kaden. “Trees? Bushes? Swamp gas?” He turned back to the robot with narrow, worried eyes. “Is this a zoni thing?”

The robot somehow blanched, then lifted one hand to tap at its metallic jaw. “Perhaps. It can be difficult to tell.”

“Okay, well…” Ratchet glanced at a spot a cubit to the left of Kaden’s hip. “You um… you wanna… I dunno, tell me about it, or something?”

“I do not know what there is to tell,” it said. “For the past several years, I have, on irregular occasions, seen a…” It stopped, looking at Ratchet for a long moment. It obviously decided to change what it had been about to say. “…figure. It appears to be watching you.”

“Well, that’s not creepy at all,” he said, and went back to the frog. “Since you never mentioned it, I’m guessing you don’t think it’s dangerous.”

“No. I do not think it has any say in the matter.”

He glanced up again, but more out of curiosity than concern. “If it starts growing horns, breathing fire, or telling you to kill me in my sleep, you let me know. Zoni thing or not, it wouldn’t hurt to get Al to check out your visual circuitry if you’re seeing things that aren’t there.”

“Your concern is truly touching, Ratchet,” it replied, then refocussed on Kaden. “Are you indeed there?”

“And now he’s talking to the things that aren’t there,” Ratchet muttered playfully. “Great.”

“I’m…” Kaden paused, walking around the fire to hide Ratchet’s work from himself and better see his boy. “I don’t know whether I’m here or not. This is a dream.”

“How strange,” the robot noted.

“Who is he?” he asked, kneeling down to look at Ratchet’s distracted face. “Why isn’t he with his family?”

The robot pulled back slightly, eyes narrowing in what almost looked like an expression. 

Kaden pressed his lips together, watching his boy work for a few moments, then sighed and looked at the robot instead. “Just tell me that. If nothing else, tell me where his family is. I need to find… something about this boy. Please.”

“Okay, that’s the gross bit done,” Ratchet said, and then held up the disembowelled frog just long enough to violently spear it on a long metal spike. He drove the other end of the spike into the dirt, angled to put the frog over the fire, and then let out a tired breath as he gathered the remains up in a plastic slip. “Be right back, Clank. Don’t let the imaginary creature eat my dinner.”

“I do not believe he is imaginary, nor capable of eating your food,” the robot replied, and Ratchet snorted.

“Yeah, well, either way.”

Without even thinking about it, Kaden got to his feet, ready to follow, only to trip in his sheets and hit the floor hard, groaning as he slowly woke up.

...