The Gear — Chapter 12 Part 2

Gifuke did not look away. Instead, he did something Tomas did not expect: he placed the letter on the bench between them.

— So… keep the letter for a while. There’s no picture, but… read it. Imagine what it’s like.

Tomas widened his eyes, surprised, then looked back at the sheet as though it were a forbidden artifact. Finally, he closed his fingers around it.

— You really are a miracle, aren’t you? — he murmured, almost to himself.

Gifuke smiled again, that crooked and stubborn smile.

— “Lolo” miracle, as you say.

Tomas shook his head, almost smiling too — but restrained himself. He would not give him the satisfaction. Instead, he stood up and slipped the letter into his uniform pocket, feeling a warm knot in his throat.

— Get back to training. Tomorrow we’ll have another test. And I’m not going to let you embarrass me up there.

Gifuke raised his hands in surrender, with his lilting accent.

— Yes, sir. Mother’s favorite son.

Tomas clenched his jaw to keep from laughing.

And as he returned to the bar, he felt — for the first time in a very long time — that perhaps there was room for another kind of devotion, right there beside the one he felt for his Mother Ceres.

At night, after the final curfew whistle, the gymnasium is empty. Only the sound of the wind passing through the ducts, the rustling of the Ceres flags hanging from the high ceiling, the white lights flickering here and there. I lie on the bunk, staring at the wood of the bed above me.

My chest feels heavy. A weight I cannot describe — I only know it has been there since the day Mother devoured me, when I was twenty. I swear it wasn’t like this before. Before, when I ran across the field with Deb, when I scored goals in Flapball, when I dreamed of space… I felt something else. Something that was light. Warm. Something that made my entire body seem larger than it was.

Now it feels like lead. She tore out the feelings I had — fear, joy, anger, love — melted them all, molded them into ingots, and put them back inside my chest. Because lead does not jump, does not scream, does not cry. Lead only weighs. It only sinks.

And I know that is what she wants. For all of us to be made of lead, so we do not fly beyond her walls. So no one floats. So no one escapes.

But lead does not belong with humans.

That is the secret tragedy of all of us in here: we continue, we eat, we train, we breathe, we obey, we pretend that lead is enough. But in the dead hours, in the shower, in the shadows, when no one is watching, it begins to melt. I know because I feel it running down my throat. Sometimes bitter like blood, sometimes salty like a tear. I feel the lead melting inside me, a little each night.

I hear the others crying in the dark too. Masord thinks he hides it when he wraps himself in the blanket so he won’t make a sound, but I hear him. Me too. We are all the same.

She thinks we are all made of lead.

But we are still made of flesh.

And flesh hurts.

When I think of my son whom I do not know, when I remember Deb, when I see the flag fluttering outside and the tower watching over us… I think that Mother Ceres is not only a mother. She is a stepmother. She feeds us, educates us, and devours us. But deep down, she does not truly transform us into something else. It does not matter how many times she repeats that we are now only numbers and gears — we still bleed.

I bleed inside, in silence, every night.

I am lead on the outside. But inside I still have fire.

That is why I smile at Masord, teach him my words, laugh at his accent. He does not understand that I envy him not only because of his son, but because, even carrying his sadness, he still has not forgotten who he was. Me? I don’t know if I still know who I am.

I am Major Tomas. I am the thirteenth astronaut. I am a son of Mother Ceres.

And I am only a man trying to survive the lead inside me.

Tonight I close my eyes, and for a moment I see you.

I do not know your face. I do not know your color, whether you inherited my dark eyes or hers, whether you have a broad nose or a thin mouth. I know nothing, son. I only imagine. I imagine that you are light — because a child is not made of lead yet. I imagine you running barefoot, laughing loudly, falling and getting back up, crying without fear. I imagine that you still do not know what it means to be devoured.

And I ask Mother Ceres, every day, to keep you that way, even if it is a lie, even if I know she only creates children to devour them afterward. Even so, I ask.

It is difficult here to remember why I do all of this. Sometimes, when training becomes harder, when the Silencers pass by, when I feel Garpan’s anger, Masord’s envy, Deb’s pain, I think about giving it all up. I think about letting the lead pull me all the way down. Because that is what she wants, son. For us to forget that we are still human, even beneath this shell of metal.

But I cling to you.

I wish I could give you a birthday. Teach you how to hit the ball, like I did at school. I wish you knew that your father has not forgotten you, even though he has never seen you. That he trains every day, that he exhausts himself, that he bites down on the pain, that he smiles on the outside so he will not be burned in Plaza A… all so that, perhaps, one day, he might do something right for you.

But you have to forgive me, son. There is no room for love here. Here we learn to swallow everything, even love. Because she feeds us, educates us, and devours us.

And I let her devour me for you.

I swear, son, that even if I am only lead on the outside… inside I am still your father. I am still yours.

One day — even if only in a dream — I will still hold your hand.

And when that day comes…

…I will feel again what it is like to be light.

And when I think about it — about all this lead — I remember something I read in one of those medical reports, hidden away.

Lead poisons.

It is true. Lead enters the blood, accumulates in the bones, devours the brain from within. It causes confusion, trembling, forgetfulness, madness.

The training center’s doctor wrote that lead drives you mad because it settles in slowly, like a parasite — no one notices at first. Only later, when it is already too late, when you no longer know who you were.

Maybe that really is what Mother Ceres does to us. She does not need to cut out our hearts, nor blow our heads apart in the plazas. She only needs time. She only needs to let the lead do its work in silence.

When I look at the other men in the gymnasium, I see the marks. They tremble slightly while they lift weights, have empty eyes, forget names, do not truly laugh. I have seen veteran soldiers who could no longer even speak properly, who cried without knowing why.

Sometimes I think: am I already like this too? Is this pain in the back of my neck, this dull anger, this longing for my son… is all of this already the lead, corroding my mind?

Maybe that is why I still get angry at Masord. Because he still seems alive inside. He still makes stupid jokes, still has an accent, still cries for a son he at least knew. He still does not have lead all the way to his marrow.

And I envy that. Because I know no one leaves here clean. No one escapes. Sooner or later, we all become too heavy to remember why we are here.

Mother Ceres says that this is the price.

“Feeds us.
Educates us.
And devours us.”

But inside, sometimes I think: what if it is already too late? What if, when I finally go up to the station, I am no longer myself?

What if the son I have never seen inherits only a father made of lead and longing?

I do not want to go mad, Mother. I do not want to forget him.

I only want him to know that I fought, until the end, not to let the lead devour all of me.

Because there is still a part inside here…

that insists on being light.

Gymnasium. The machines groan. The air smells of iron.

The sound of steel cables and the friction of the weights fills Tomas’s mind, already numb from so much lead. He continues with the repetitions, muscles tense, eyes lowered. The words of his own monologue still echo: lead drives you mad, and we are made of lead, not flesh. Mother knows what she is doing. But lead does not belong with people…

Then, behind him, the familiar voice sounds, with that tangled Garpan accent:

— “You’re going to end up bending that machine, Tomas. The iron here isn’t to blame for your ghosts.”

Tomas slowly raises his eyes and sees Masord leaning against the wall, his uniform shirt half-open, sweaty from an earlier workout. Between them, as always, the two Silencers — motionless, stationed by the door, watching with their colorless eyes, their black hoods. Lead sentinels too.

— You shouldn’t call me that — Tomas mutters, dropping the weights. — It isn’t allowed. My name is... my number.

Masord smiles. That damn smile.

— “Ah, but I didn’t come here to love your Mother Ceres, Tomas. I came here to look at the face of someone who still remembers he is human.”

Tomas furrows his brow but does not answer.

Masord continues, walking slowly through the gymnasium as though he has no fear of the Silencers:

— “Do you know why you go mad? It isn’t only because of lead in the blood. It’s because you forget that you were people. Your Mother devours you alive, but she does not let you die completely. I don’t understand you. You have everything: food, medicine, warm beds... and a huge hole in your chest. Here...” — he strikes his own chest — “A hole of silence.”

Tomas takes a deep breath.

— You talk too much.

Masord laughs.

— “And you feel too much. That’s why you hate me. Because I’m not afraid to speak, and you don’t have the courage to feel.”

For a moment, Tomas squeezes his eyes shut, as if struck by a punch. He remembers the words he thought minutes ago: lead drives you mad. He wanted to punch Masord until he made him shut up, but a tiny part of him, hidden beneath layers of lead, envies that man who dares to laugh in a Ceres gymnasium.

The Silencers take a step forward.

Tomas raises his hand.

— No. It’s fine. He’s just... talking too much.

They retreat without a single word.

Masord stares at Tomas, still wearing that crooked smile.

— “You know, lead doesn’t belong with people. But neither does gold, Tomas. The gold you drag here poisons the soul. The difference is that I prefer rust to madness. And you? Are you going to let Mother melt you too?”

Tomas does not answer. He returns to the machine. Starts another set. The iron groans beneath his weight.

But for the first time that night, he cannot shake the feeling that a small piece — tiny, almost imperceptible — of the lead inside him has cracked.

And that frightens him more than any condemnation.

Locker Room. Late at night.

The gymnasium is already empty. Now the only sound is the water falling from the shower, incessant, like rain inside a tunnel. Tomas is leaning against the cold tiled wall, head lowered, letting the water run down his face.

Masord’s words still echo.

“I prefer rust to madness.”

“Lead doesn’t belong with people.”

“And you? Are you going to let Mother melt you too?”

He squeezes his eyes shut, as if trying to drive the foreigner’s voice from his head. But he cannot.

He feels a knot in his throat. And once again that forbidden feeling, that shame greater than anything else in Ceres: the desire to cry.

A son he has never seen. A son who does not know whether he has his eyes or his mother’s.

He does not know whether he is still alive or has already been devoured by Mother.

The Mother who feeds them, educates them, protects them... and devours them.

He slides down the wet wall and sits on the floor, still beneath the shower, the hot water mixing with the tears he refuses to admit are tears.

For a moment, he closes his eyes and imagines a scene he has never lived:

A child lying in a crib, tiny hands trying to grasp his finger. A pair of bright eyes looking at him as though he were everything in the world.

And he, Tomas, smiling. A real smile, not the rehearsed laughter he puts on for the Silencers.

But the image dissolves like steam.

The water is turning cold.

He raises his eyes toward the ceiling of the shower stall and murmurs very softly, almost inaudibly, the prayer everyone in Ceres learns:

— Oh Mother Ceres, who feeds us, who educates us, who protects us... who devours us... do not forget me.

He remains like that for a while longer, sitting in the water already pooling on the floor, feeling heavy. Heavy as lead.

Then he slowly gets up. Turns off the faucet.

And with trembling hands, he begins to dress.

In his pocket, he carries a crumpled draft of a letter — a letter he will never send — addressed to a nameless son.

“When I return, if I return, I hope you are still here. And that one day you forgive me for being Mother Ceres’s son before being your father.”

He puts the paper inside his uniform. Takes a deep breath.

He leaves the locker room with his head held high, because that is what Mother Ceres’s children are supposed to do.

Even with the lead cracking inside.

Tomas’s Letter

Son,

I do not know if you will ever receive this.

In truth, I do not even know if you still exist, or if Mother has already devoured you the way she devours everything a man dreams of having.

I… also do not know if I can call you that.

Because a father… a father is someone who is present. And I was never there.

But even so… son… I cannot find another way to address you.

I am fine.

At least that is what I am expected to say.

Mother takes good care of her children. She feeds, educates, protects… and devours.

Always devours.

Her food is good, the shelters are clean, the medicines work… but every one of these gifts from her tastes like iron in the mouth. Tastes like lead.

And you will discover, if one day you are also her child, that lead, son, drives us mad from within.

But no one here has the courage to say it.

Today I met a man from outside.

He speaks of freedom as if it were a god, speaks of his son as if he were a miracle.

And I envy that in him.

I envy it so much that I almost hate him a little, because he has what I never had.

He knows the color of his boy’s eyes. He knows what his laughter sounds like. He knows the warmth of his little hands.

And I… I do not even know if you are a boy or a girl.

If you have my eyes.

If you have already said your first word.

If you already run around.

If you still breathe.

And that is what corrodes me, son.

I gave my life to Mother Ceres because I believed it was right, that it was everything a man could be.

But at night, in the locker room, with the water falling, I feel… that it was cowardice.

That I should have stayed to hold you in my arms, even if it meant starving to death with you.

But I did not stay.

I came here because Mother promised me she would take better care of you than I ever could.

And I believed her.

I still believe her.

But it hurts me more and more.

That is why I write.

Even if no one reads it.

Even if you never read it.

Because while I write, I remember that I have a heart.

A heart that still beats, even weighed down by lead.

And it beats for you.

If one day I return — if I manage to leave here whole — I want to find you.

And if you look me in the eyes and tell me that you hate me, I will understand.

But even if you hate me, even if you spit in my face for leaving you, I will still be your father.

And I will still love you the same way.

Forgive your father, son.

He only knows how to obey Mother.

And that is no excuse… but it is all I know how to do.

With love — even if I do not know how to show it,

Tomas.

In the Locker Room, After the Letter

The cold ceiling light casts harsh shadows over Major Tomas’s tired face. The sound of the shower water falls in a cascade, muffled by the tile. He stares at himself in the mirror, red eyes, dilated pupils — a soldier who has crossed the line of silent resistance.

He takes the crumpled letter from the pocket of his uniform and holds it against his chest for a moment, feeling the weight of the paper as though it were a piece of his own heart.

— “Son... I don’t know if I can be your father...” — he whispers, as though speaking those words were a forbidden confession.

His hands tremble slightly as he folds the letter, carefully, almost reverently. He puts it into his pants pocket, hidden, a secret that will never be revealed.

The shower water stops abruptly. He turns, looks at the mirror once more, as though challenging himself.

In the reflection, a man hardened by the rigidity of Mother Ceres — a man who learned to hide his emotions behind an almost unbreakable mask.

But there, in that instant, a thin crack appears.

— “I’ll come back. I have to come back.” — he murmurs to his own reflection.

He takes the towel and dries his face with rough movements, expelling the hidden tears.

Without hesitating any longer, he opens the locker room door and returns to the illuminated corridor, where cold and order await him.

The routine of Ceres’s monstrous gear will continue, but inside him, a flame — faint, but real — still burns.

Dialogue in the Simulation Room — Tests and Exchanges

The constant hum of the centrifuge made the air vibrate around them, while Major Tomas and Captain Masord stood side by side, adjusting their equipment, immersed in the pressure of the test. Both knew there were no winners or losers — only the need to be equal to the mission awaiting them.

After the exercise, already out of the machine, they sat on a cold metal bench, breathing deeply. The silence was broken only by the distant noise of the simulation machines.

Tomas broke the silence:

— “Your proposal to adapt the seeds to space, using cosmic radiation as a mutagenic agent… interesting. I never considered the risks so directly tied to accelerated evolution.”

Masord smiled with a touch of sarcasm:

— “You think Mother Ceres would allow something she couldn’t control? Power lies in knowledge, but also in the way it is channeled.”

— “And you, do you think the Republic of Garpan’s model, with its apparent freedom, does not hide its own prisons?” — Tomas retorted, serious.

— “We are all prisoners, Tomas. We simply have different bars. But it is through dialogue that we find cracks. It is difficult to change the world alone, much less impose your way upon another.”

Tomas nodded:

— “I learned that no ideology survives without reinventing itself. New ideas are born rejected, yes, but if they are useful, they spread. Not colonizing another’s thoughts is a principle that should guide even Mother Ceres.”

Masord agreed and completed:

— “Two minds that disagree can create a path that one alone would never see. If the exchange is honest, even between rivals, the world can move forward. But knowledge is a weapon — and we both know that, in Ceres, it is absolute control.”

They stood up. Two men with different worlds, but who recognized the value of the other — a hard respect, even without easy concessions.

Training would continue, the differences would remain, but amid the tension, understanding had begun to grow.