Seven p.m., and the late afternoon shadows are reaching across the lawn at the Tufala House. It'll be dark by 7:30, but right now there's still some light. Envoy sits with his spine to the wall, on the roof outside the room that used to be his. He's been in this spot a lot lately, but today is the first time it's been the real roof, the real sunlight, the real house. There's a million things he should be doing instead of sitting here, but right now he doesn't care.

That's a lie, though. Right now he cares too much.

It's funny how much the human mind can make itself forget. Until an hour ago, when he'd let the professor rifle through his memories of the Earth they'd come from, Envoy had done his best to forget what they had seen that last apocalyptic day and night of Earth One. But for the sake of understanding, of confirmation, he'd let Professor Xenon relive it all in his mind. He can remember it all now, as vivid as when it happened -- the monstrous demons, the destruction, the unavoidable certainty that if they did not leave there, they were going to die. It was a doomed world, he'd felt it under his skin. It hadn't died – yet – but it was dying, condition terminal, no chance of remission.

And now it was coming here. It was Penumbra.

"There are only two outcomes possible," Xenon had said. "Either we succeed, and defeat Penumbra, or Penumbra will envelop this planet, corrupt it at its molecular level, and herald the extinction of Earth. The only comfort is that if we fail, we will undoubtedly be dead and not have to watch as it happens."

They can't fail... not again. Please, not again.

The fading sunbeams warm his face. He closes his eyes, letting them spread across his eyelids, trying to memorize the sensation. It was so cold, in that future. So dark. Without really thinking about it, he runs his left hand down the length of the right, elbow to thumb. Marlene, he thinks, rubbing his left thumb over his palm as a strange inner warmth spreads through him. She'd held out her hand to help him stand up earlier, on the academy roof. He hadn't -- they'd -- it was the first time in a very long time that he'd reached out to touch anyone without a clenched fist. It seemed even longer since anyone had reached out to him.

She's been in his thoughts a lot in the last 24 hours – well, not just in his thoughts. It was... nice... talking to her earlier today. Nice to have someone who understands, at least a little, and doesn't want anything from him at the same time. There was a lot more to her than he'd been letting himself see. Stupid to have been angry at her so long for something that wasn't really her fault. Just... stupid.

"I'm sorry, Marlene."

He says it to himself, because he can't say it to her. All that talk about choices – I've made my choice, what kind of god will you be? – and it turns out he's full of shit. Shit and hypocrisy. Maybe there never was a choice, maybe he's just been deluding himself all this time. Maybe you can't escape what you're created to be.

Xenon's words echo damningly in his head. "There needs to be a shining light, but there also need to be those who take the actions that would tarnish the light. Not all who are not shining lights are its enemies. Survival often depends on horrible things that are often taken for granted. One can never truly do anything for the greater good except in only a few circumstances, and those circumstances carry horrible consequences. And the future may very likely call upon you to shoulder those consequences."

Envoy pulls out a cigarette and lights it. His hand is shaking a little, he observes. Pent-up emotion. He'll have to lock it down tighter, box it away. Get his control back.

Xenon had looked directly at him. "You once asked why I don't work under the auspice of the Liberty League, and I told you it was because we could not win. The Liberty League must be allowed to be the example that it is. They are the stars that everyone will look at. They must be able to look at something and be able to believe in it as something pure, as flawed as they are. They will not be the ones who make those hard decisions. They are ill-equipped. A pure symbol cannot sustain that amount of tarnish. But you will."

The words are bitter in his mind. It doesn't matter what he chooses, does it? It doesn't matter that he and Protonik come from the same project – they are miles apart. One of the light. One of the shadows.

"In your history – do you know the story in your own history of the town of Coventry? Things are going to happen soon – you'll have to forgive me, because I can't tell you what exactly they will be. I don't know, myself; I only know that they will happen, because they always do."

Coventry, Envoy remembers: World War II, a town sacrificed to die, for the sake of the so-called greater good. He wonders how many times the alien has watched these sorts of events play out, to be so unassailably certain.

"Envoy – from what I've seen, why I've brought you to this place – you are heroes not of the light of the star, but of the greater good and of terrible decisions. I only hope that when you make the decisions that you're going to have to, that the light will still remain."

The shadows are falling across the roof now, the light withdrawing for another day. His skin has already begun to cool in the encroaching dusk. The crumbling embers of his cigarette glow increasingly dimly in a face now veiled by the gloom.

"You are heroes not of the light of the star, but of the greater good."

I want to be of the light, he thinks, exhaling grey smoke through his nostrils. What's the point of being a hero if the only way to save the world is to choose to let some of it die?

There has to be some way to change it this time.

I don't want to make these choices, he thinks. I don't want this responsibility. He crushes the cigarette out, tosses it off the roof, anger and hurt and resentment welling up in him faster than he can tamp them down. I'm only 17.

But he'll do it. He knows he will. If he can't find another way… if they can't find another way... if there is no other way. He crosses his hands across his knees, hugs them close to him. He warned Marlene he was a jerk -- So be it. It's the easy way out. It's the only way he knows, the only armor he's got. Let them dislike him, if they want to. Let them despise him if and when the time comes. Let them blame him for making the hard decisions.

Let them stay in the light.

In fifteen minutes, when the sun has set, he will stand up, collect himself, and begin to do whatever needs to be done. In fifteen minutes he will go back to headquarters and sit down with the database and try to figure out what they should be seeing but aren't. In fifteen minutes. Things can wait that long, surely. Just a little longer, until he can get his head together and his hands back under control. He buries his head in his arms and thinks, fifteen minutes is enough.

Alone on the roof, as the shadows gather and the sky fades to black, the echoes of a dying world inside his mind, Envoy leans his head forward and lets the tears fall.

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