Standing here on the periphery of the firelight, second thoughts start creeping in. These people are younger than me, tougher than me. Unpredictable and feral. I get the feeling that I’ve fallen into a cage at the zoo.

This is Astra and I’m scared of it.

I never see Lyle coming. He slaps me on the back, hard. It staggers me and the loud clap gets everyone’s attention. People turn to look at us. Lyle wraps an arm over my shoulders and roots me to the spot.

“Gray,” announces Lyle. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Half of Lyle’s face is lit up red by the fire. His implant is a dark blemish on his temple, like mine.

“Need you to formally meet some of the boys,” says Lyle. As he says each name, Lyle squints one eye and points at the person with his index and middle fingers pushed together, like a gun. Finally, he gets to the looming shape on the tree stump.

“And I believe you’ve met the Brain.”

Lyle puts a hand beside his mouth, whispers loudly at the side of my face. “Try and keep your lunch down this time.”

People chuckle. I wonder how much they know about me.

“Let’s go,” I whisper, ducking my head so the others can’t hear. “Cops are going to tear Eden apart looking for us. We’ve got to warn Valentine. Did you call him yet?”

“Won’t matter,” says Lyle. “They got him under surveillance. If he makes a move, they’ll take him.”

“They’ll kill him. We have to get him out of there.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” asks Lyle, putting his back to me. He is a thin dark shape blocking the flames—an absence of light. “But before we go, you got to join Astra.”

“Okay.”

“Okay what? You got to say it.”

“I want in, Lyle. I want to join Astra.”

Lyle puts an arm back around my shoulders. Addresses our audience. “This is Gray, y’all. I vouch for him.”

Lyle turns to me.

“But there’s only one way in or out of Astra. We welcome you tonight with our fists. If you’re strong enough, we’ll have you. Otherwise …”

Dry chuckles seep in from all around me.

I take a step back. But Lyle’s wiry fingers clamp harder onto my shoulder. Dark shapes are rising behind him. Looming up to form an ominous wall. A shifting, bobbing sea of neon-colored stars. Lyle pulls me toward him, whispers into my ear. “You know the part of you that’s listening right now? The part making decisions? The little man at the steering wheel right between your eyes?”

Lyle pushes his index finger between my eyes.

“Yeah,” I say, shaky.

“That’s your executive function. Does all your planning. Abstract thinking. Picks your actions. All the rest of your body is on automatic. Digesting your food. Sweating, bleeding, balancing. Recognizing the faces of your brothers.”

“Okay.”

“You got executive and you got automatic. With me?”

“Yes.”

“Execute your trigger action. When you’re inside, take that executive—that little guy who is you—and send him on down to automatic. Step on his shoulders and stand up. Drop down through those levels and you’ll be fine. Can you do that, Gray?”

“Yeah.”

“You kicked some ass in the field tonight. But now you go deeper. Whatever you got, you better use it.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because we’re about to do our best to beat you to death.”

“What?” I gasp.

“Ad astra cruentus,” says Lyle, and the people around the campfire mutter in unison: “To the stars. Stained in blood.”

He means it. My right hand instinctively goes to a three count. Pushing my focus to the Zenith, on the verge of the trigger, tickles something. Like pressing a hidden button.

Three, two, one, zero. Fist.

It’s as though I’ve fallen through a trapdoor and into my own brain. Thoughts are written on the inside of my forehead. I can see them scrolling there. White text on black background. Speeding past at the speed of thought.

Level two. Close-quarter combatives. Fluid shock striking technique. Vital points. Nerve motor points. Defensive stances. Do you consent? Do you consent?

In a distracted way, I notice Lyle’s first punch land on my diaphragm. I stop breathing. A red haze settles over my vision.

Yes, yes, yes.

I see the words. Then, the words are replaced by my own thoughts. The little man at the steering wheel of my mind. I read my own impressions as they appear and in a secondhand way, I am alarmed.

The words say that beyond this room in my head, there is a campfire surrounded by five trailers. A lanky cowboy covered in crow tattoos means me harm. Strangers are amassing with evil on their collective mind. My body is in danger. And here on the inside, hands on the controls of myself, I wait for the raw external world to attack again.

And it does.

Lyle leans into a lazy swing, going for my face this time. It’s a tight right hook, accelerating fast to vicious, a wicked elbow up and out to catch me on the chin if the punch misses. But the fist and elbow whiff past my face. The breeze of minutely displaced air feels cool on my upper lip.

I count the tendons rippling across Lyle’s forearm. Watching them, I find I can predict which muscles will flex. Where his tattooed arms will go. Those white-knuckled fists floating in darkness.

The next few punches come in flurries, quick combinations. But I am a tree, swaying in the wind and avoiding contact. From my perch inside, I watch this ballet unfold.

After a fruitless thirty seconds of attack, Lyle stops. Puts his hands on his knees. Sweaty hair hangs in his face. He spits on the ground, panting.

“You’re a quick learner, Gray. Shit.”

I am faintly aware that my body is balanced on the balls of its feet, arms raised slightly for balance. Fists uncurled, fingers relaxed. Breathing steadily and evenly, blank faced.

I mentally kick toward the surface, searching for the cradle of my body.

“Not yet,” whispers Lyle. “Not yet.”

He pushes his hair out of his face, turns to the crowd of people now standing and watching. Backlit by the fire, it is hard to see their faces. But in shifting neon glints, I catch a few traces of awe—and many more of grim anticipation.

“All right, y’all. Let’s welcome our brother with our fists, as we were once welcomed,” says Lyle. “If he lives, he can fight alongside us.”

The hellish shapes come for me, but I am safe inside. I dance with the shadows of the campfire, untouched as dark fists push the night air around my body.

Local Scrap Causes National Outrage

NOWATA, Okla.—Twenty-two people were injured, seven of them seriously, in an apparent gang fight Tuesday in a field outside the Eden Trailer Park on Cottonwood Avenue near Spiro.

One of the victims, Sheriff Billy Hardaway, reported that a group of implanted youths approached the field armed with baseball bats, knives, and sticks. Unprovoked, the youths attacked a group of local men who had convened in the field to form a candlelight vigil in support of pure human rights.

“After hearing reports of unrest from inside Eden, some local citizens were gathered in the field to ensure that any violence coming from the trailer park did not affect the rest of the nearby community,” said Sheriff Hardaway, who added that he himself required a visit to the hospital after the attack.

Sequoyah County police, aided by state troopers, are still looking for suspects in the late-night ambush. News of the skirmish has been picked up on national talk radio and televised news reports.

Senator Joseph Vaughn, the head of the Pure Human Citizen’s Council, urged the U.S. government to “crack down on these amped delinquents before the violence can spread beyond their crime-infested ghettos.”