Volume 2: Poison on the Tracks

The armored train cut through the streets of Ceres like a silent blade of steel. Black glass windows protected the passengers, but did not conceal the magnitude of the city. Fidel, immaculate in his dark-gray uniform, watched everything with wide eyes. Beside him, Amos reclined, seemingly bored, but every gesture exuded restrained pleasure — the delight of someone who knew that watching convictions shatter was more delicious than any physical victory.

Fidel noticed the perfection of Ceres: marble buildings reflecting light like liquid mirrors, spotless streets without a single flaw, people following their routines with precision, some exercising, others swimming in pools, strong, prepared bodies. A black-glass complex appeared ahead, with gyms and recreational areas, everything designed to maximize efficiency and health.

Amos leaned closer, his dark gaze fixed on Fidel.

— Did you know that Ceres has the best health index on the entire continent? — he said, his voice calm, almost affectionate, but charged with irony. — Everyone over twenty, minimal hypertension, strong bodies, children ready for any combat. One of our students, only seventeen years old, killed ten Arcadians who invaded our territory all by himself. Imagine an adult trained here.

Fidel swallowed hard. The grandeur of the city contrasted with the silent terror Amos emanated. Every gesture Amos made was measured, almost ritualistic, as if he were observing not only the city, but the soul of someone seeing it for the first time.

— Could Ceres be heaven on another planet? — Amos continued, his smile brief and cold. — The peace everyone desires, and as a byproduct, boredom. Could we be wrong to oppress because we know the truth about human beings? Mother Ceres put an end to doubts; now I see obedience. And you, Fidel, will have your ideologies destroyed. — His dark eyes glinted. — And I will savor every fragment of your childish dream being ground to dust.

The train moved forward, gliding over smooth concrete. Pools reflected the sky, children trained, adults moved with almost military precision. Ceres breathed, alive, relentless. Every detail Fidel saw was tangible, silent proof of what absolute control could produce: perfection, order, efficiency... and fear.

Amos leaned back, his arms crossed, and for a moment, he seemed like nothing more than a man observing the world. But Fidel knew — that was not it. Amos delighted not in flesh, but in the soul, watching how the world outside would tear apart the dreams Ceres had shaped, turning every hope to dust before the logic of Mother Ceres.

And beneath it all, the city remained alive, breathing, as though every brick, every reflection, every trained body were aware of the power it contained.

The armored train cut across the open countryside like a silent monolith. For Fidel, every moment was a shock to the senses. All around him, vast fields of soybeans, wheat, and corn stretched as far as the eye could see, with autonomous tractors guided by Ceres II satellites. Irrigation machines hummed softly, fruit trees bent beneath the weight of their harvest, and farmers — known in Ceres as miracle workers — worked in harmony with the land.

The sky was a clear blue, delicate clouds floating like perfect brushstrokes. And then the rain came, light and mixed with sunlight, forming a rainbow that seemed to dance above the train, as if Ceres itself wanted to show Fidel that magic and order could exist simultaneously.

Amos, sitting beside him, chuckled softly — an almost devilish laugh, full of restrained pleasure.

— Look, Fidel — he said, his gaze fixed on the young man's eyes — the freedom you dream of out there is nothing but ashes. Here, every detail matters. Every drop of rain, every seed planted, every trained body... everything obeys the logic of what it means to live. You want to know what freedom is? Look and see.

Hours passed. The train seemed to float through time, crossing a paradise that appeared designed to test the limits of human perception. Until, suddenly, the horizon changed. Vibrant colors gave way to gray and dry tones. The wind blew dust, withered fields stretched ahead, and electric fences and watchtowers appeared in the distance.

— Welcome to the world you wanted — Amos said, his smile now colder. — The frontier of freedom.

Refugees crowded into makeshift tents, food lines ending in desperate fights, Silencers applying corrections with brutal precision. There was no mercy for the unsuspecting; it was not a matter of revenge, but of extreme pragmatism. Fidel felt his heart bleed, not from physical pain, but from the injustice and chaos that contrasted with the paradise he had just seen.

— Look — Amos continued, his tone calm and lethal — don't pity them. Pity the ones who enforce the system. They are the chosen of Ceres. Trained bodies, molded souls. They do not make mistakes; they execute the logic of survival.

The train moved slowly, crossing the grayness of freedom, while Fidel saw in the distance the boundaries between Ceres and the Republic of Fiume. High snow-covered mountains formed natural barriers, protecting the city, as if a god had forgotten the outside world, leaving it at the mercy of the perfect logic of Mother Ceres.

And as the magnitude of Ceres disappeared behind them, Amos leaned back, his black eyes shining with pleasure. Every fiber of Fidel's soul was bleeding, but he could not look away. Ceres was not merely a city; it was judgment, paradise, and prison, all at once. And Amos, patient, savored every second of the lesson.

After hours crossing fields that had once been fertile, the train entered a desolate region. Oil leaking from the ground, ashes floating in the air, black smoke and flames corroding the atmosphere. The sky was not blue, but a dirty blanket of soot and burning oil. Fidel had never felt such oppression in the air; every breath seemed to weigh tons. Amos leaned toward the window, inhaled deeply, and smiled:

— This... Fidel, is only the beginning.

The train finally arrived at the station of the Republic of Fiume after nine hours of travel. A commercial and human chaos awaited them. The republic was an ally of Ceres, attempting to send another astronaut to the Ceres II space station, following in the footsteps of Major Tomas. Silencers descended first, securing the perimeter, and then Amos and Fidel stepped off the armored train, still under protection.

Amos breathed deeply, with a cold, ironic smile:

— Ah... this is the smell of freedom.

Fidel swallowed hard. The smell was indescribable: rotting garbage, human excrement, burned oil. The ground was covered in filth, abandoned bathrooms vandalized with words in a foreign language: “Freedom.” Fidel's shock was almost physical; he had never imagined that freedom could have such a repulsive smell and texture.

The Silencers carried survival backpacks — one for each of them. Fidel received his and looked at the object with reverence and fear, feeling the strangeness of the contrast: the immaculate beings of Ceres observed the decay with critical eyes, while the locals looked at them with suspicion, envy, and fascination.

Before leaving the station, Amos stopped in front of Fidel and took a shiny, new, untouched coin from his pocket.

— Do you know what this is? — he asked, his voice calm and cutting.

Fidel trembled, unable to answer.

— No! — he said, almost in a whisper.

— Their god — Amos replied with half a smile — with this, they buy food. They buy lives. They buy death.

The coin fell into Fidel's hand. It was brand new, from Fiume, never used. Engraved on it was the inscription: “God be praised.” For Fidel, raised in Ceres, this was almost blasphemous. A simple object contained absolute power: it could sustain or destroy, create or kill. He stared at it, hypnotized, feeling the weight of a cruel truth he had never experienced until then.

Amos watched patiently, savoring every reaction. Fidel now understood that freedom out there was not a gift, but a currency of risk — and that the logic of Ceres, although ruthless, still preserved lives that were already condemned to chaos there.

The streets of Fiume's capital were a cruel portrait of freedom. Dirty, emaciated people rummaged through garbage, looking for cardboard, cans, scraps of food. Addicts wandered about, their faces hardened by abandonment. A man holding a worn Bible walked by shouting prophecies of the end of the world, accusing Mother Ceres of being a demon. A family passed by frightened, children in their arms, baby strollers creaking under the weight of fear.

Fidel breathed deeply, trying to process every detail. The smell of sewage, mixed with the dampness of recent rain, penetrated his lungs. Clogged drains slowly overflowed, carrying away remnants of everything that had been discarded. Every step revealed freedom in its rawest form: pleasure without consequences, but also chaos and suffering. He was beginning to understand that freedom was a cruel game of chance, while Ceres was the patient effort of centuries to create order, health, and prosperity.

The graffiti on the walls caught his attention: sanctifying Koee and Mother Ceres, proclaiming the absolute logic of Ceresian doctrine. On the ground, a simple package read: “Made in Ceres.” A reminder of the perfection Fidel had left behind.

Farther ahead, a bottle drove human beings mad — people fought over it, shouting, pushing, laughing hysterically. Amos walked beside Fidel, his dark eyes shining with pleasure, absorbing every reaction from the young man. He seemed to delight in the hell of freedom, where chaos and misery were as tangible as the order of Ceres.

Then a homeless man approached Fidel.

— “Can you lend me your lighter?” — he said, his voice hoarse and desperate.

Before Fidel could react, the man snatched the coin from his hand, the coin that symbolized food, power, survival — his own god.

Fidel froze. The Silencers watched, but did not intervene. It was a lesson, not a mistake to be corrected.

Amos laughed, softly and cruelly, almost reverently toward the situation.

— He stole your god, your freedom... your food! — he said, looking at Fidel with calculated intensity. — And now, what are you going to do?

The young man felt an overwhelming weight in his chest. The freedom he had dreamed of, which he imagined as absolute power, revealed itself to be a hell of consequences he could not control. Every choice seemed useless in the face of the brutality of the world. Ceres, with all its order, was still far away... but it was the only promise of logic and survival he knew.

The man shouted about the end of times, raising a dirty Bible in the middle of the square. His voice was a lament amid the noise of rusty engines and hungry dogs. Behind him, thin dogs and cats fought over a dead rat. No animal in Ceres would ever starve — Fidel knew that.

Amos watched the scene as one might contemplate a masterpiece of horror.

— This is what the end is — he said, with half a smile. — The anxiety of the end has already arrived. That religious man hasn't even realized it yet. The end of the world is slow, Fidel. It is torture. This is the end with freedom — the freedom to choose... and suffer the consequences, without purpose.

Fidel looked away, and what he saw hit him like a punch: an entire family living on the sidewalk. Young parents, small children, a baby in their arms. Their clothes were worn but clean, as if they were still trying to preserve some dignity. The mother lowered her eyes when she saw Fidel — and in that silent gaze he felt judgment, shame, and accusation, all at once.

Amos took a small translator from his pocket and placed it in Fidel's ears. His voice became metallic and calm.

— Madam — he asked, in a foreign language — how many college degrees do you have?

The woman looked at him suspiciously.

— Two, sir.

— And why are you here?

She fell silent. The cold wind passed between them, carrying the smell of sewage and misery.

— It isn't your fault — Amos said, with almost compassionate irony. — Your skill turned to rust in a system that does not value it. Here, they gave you freedom... but they did not give you purpose.

The woman began to cry silently, clutching the baby in her arms.

— What do you think of Ceres? — he asked.

— I would give my life to live there — she replied between sobs.

Amos approached, kneeling before her.

— People like you... have been thrown onto the streets just in these last few weeks, haven't they?

She nodded.

— Worthy people don't ask for help, because pride still sustains them. And it is that pride — he said, looking at Fidel — that makes them valuable.

Then Amos opened a small cloth bag and took out several Fiume coins, gleaming and new. He handed them to the woman with a cold gaze.

— Here. This should last a month. After that... good luck with your freedom.

He paused.

— Consider this a miracle from Mother Ceres — the one who feeds, educates... and devours.

The woman looked at him with genuine gratitude. She cried, kneeling, thanking him without understanding the venom in his words.

Fidel watched everything, speechless. His stomach churned. Every gesture Amos made seemed like a social experiment — cruel, precise, calculated.

Compassion was a tool.

Faith, an irony.

And freedom... a punishment.

The alley had a name: Freedom Alley.

A narrow corridor covered in rust and shadows. The soaked ground reflected the dirty glow of the streetlights. The smell was of urine, oil, and despair.

Beggars huddled beneath torn blankets when the Silencers entered. At the back, a pair of addicts writhed in cheap pleasure until they were kicked out. The sound of metal striking concrete echoed between the walls. A rat fled.

The alley became empty. Freedom, cleaned up.

Amos signaled for Fidel to enter first.

The young man hesitated.

— Go in — Amos said, with a smile devoid of warmth.

Fidel took one step, then two... and felt a kick in his back. He fell to his knees in the mud. When he raised his face, he saw the cold barrel of a pistol pressed against his forehead.

Amos approached, tense, almost breathless with pleasure.

— How dare you confront Mother Ceres with that word... freedom? — he said. — What irony. This alley is called Freedom. Beautiful. It will be your grave.

He began walking in circles around Fidel, like a mad preacher.

— I could tear your testicles off right here and make you swallow them.

Everyone here — the Silencers, the wretched — wants to see you die.

And do you know why? Because I am in a country I hate, filthy, stinking, beside a teenager who still believes in freedom.

He lowered his voice, now almost sweet:

— Freedom is like the people who don't want abortion:

They want to give birth, but they don't want to raise the child.

They want to give birth to ideas, but cannot stand their crying.

They want the right to exist, but not the obligation to serve.

Amos raised his eyes toward the invisible sky above the alley.

— You call oppression what I call nourishment.

They call surveillance what is merely care.

They call sacrifice what is merely duty.

He slowly placed the gun on the ground and pressed a hand against Fidel's chest.

— When I say that our Mother feeds us, I am not talking about bread — I am talking about meaning.

An empty stomach is a rebellious soul.

But a satisfied belly... obeys.

Amos smiled.

— Mother Ceres killed hunger.

And therefore she killed the god that lived inside us.

He took a deep breath, as if saying a prayer.

— The gods never understood what it means to have a body.

They never felt thirst, never bled, never gave birth.

They created worlds — and abandoned them.

— Mother Ceres did not.

She creates, feeds, and devours.

Because there is no greater love than that of the one who eats what they protect.

Silence spread through the alley.

Only the sound of raindrops falling.

— In Ceres, there is no sin — there is miscalculation.

There is no guilt — there is inefficiency.

There is no hell — there is exclusion.

He crouched before Fidel, whispering:

— Mother Ceres is the result of hunger and its antidote.

She is the mistake that learned to correct itself.

You, my son... are merely lines of code that still believe in free will.

Amos rose, upright, triumphant.

— Freedom is beautiful, but sterile.

Mother Ceres is not.

She gives birth. Feeds. Corrects.

She is the end of doubt... and the beginning of obedience.

Amos raised his arm and shouted:

— Mother Ceres, who feeds, educates, and devours us!

The Silencers answered in unison, striking their fists against their chests.

The sound echoed through the empty alley like a prayer of steel.

The alley was still trembling.

Not the ground — the air. As though the sound of Amos's words had clung to the walls and was now vibrating inside them. Fidel felt the cold metal of the gun like a weight that did not belong to him, but to everyone.

Freedom Alley smelled of iron and old rain. The beggars had left, but their smell remained, mixed with the vapor of the bodies that had had sex minutes before. The air tasted of someone else's breath.

The word “freedom,” spray-painted on the wall, seemed to laugh. The “F” dripped red paint, as though the alley itself were bleeding.

Fidel could not swallow. He tried to breathe, but the air came rough, scraping his throat. Inside his head, Amos's voice still echoed — “They call surveillance what is merely care...” — and every sentence seemed like a blade scraping away the meaning of things.

He wanted to answer. He wanted to say something. But the words were stuck in his tongue, too heavy to rise.

“I am not code,” he thought, but the thought came small, without strength, like a candle blown out before it could ignite.

The sound of water running through garbage cans reminded him of a distant river, from when he still believed Ceres was made of the future. Now the future smelled of mold and gunpowder.

Amos's finger still pressed against the back of his neck — it did not matter whether the gun had been removed, the touch remained there, invisible.

It was the touch of a force saying: you are no longer your own.

Fidel looked at the ground and saw the distorted reflection of his own face in a puddle. He did not recognize himself. His eyes seemed to belong to someone else.

There, kneeling in the alley, he had a clear and absurd thought:

“If freedom exists, it must live somewhere where no one wants to live.”

The echo of the Silencers' boots moving away sounded like applause.

Amos was already turning his back, satisfied, and the crowd of masks dissolved into the city's damp mist.

Fidel remained kneeling.

For a few seconds, the alley was truly empty — only the distant hum of the city and water dripping from the roofs.

He ran his finger across the ground, scratching the word “freedom” with its tip. He wanted to write something else, but did not know what.

When he looked up, he saw a cat passing between the garbage bags, meowing softly, as if asking for silence.

For a moment, everything stopped.

He realized that, even there, he was still breathing. That his body still responded.

But inside him, something had already died — and something else, newly born, was beginning to stir.

Amos picked up the gun as one might pick up a fallen toy. The barrel was still smoking from its own arrogance.

From the inner pocket of his overcoat, he took out a small glass vial, transparent like a reliquary. Inside was a clear liquid, harmless at first glance. On the label — a handwritten word: Freedom.

Amos raised the vial before Fidel's eyes, letting the pale light of the alley pass through the glass.

— Swallow it. — he said, in a calm, almost pedagogical voice. — This is the taste of what you defend so passionately.

Fidel stared at him.

The liquid shimmered like a promise.

Cyanide.

The quick end.

The eternal silence.

The relief from doubt.

For a moment, he thought about accepting. Not out of cowardice — but out of consistency. To prove that freedom is not fear.

But the thought died before it could be born.

Fidel clenched his fist, felt the glass crack beneath the pressure of fear, and handed the vial back to Amos.

The silence that followed was more violent than any scream.

Amos smiled, satisfied. It was the smile of someone watching a soul bleed.

— I knew it. You always choose to live. Even when you say you love death.

Leaning on his right boot, Amos bent over him:

— Kneel.

Fidel hesitated. His legs trembled. His body knew what was coming before his mind accepted it.

— Put your head on the ground.

He obeyed.

The concrete was cold, damp, smelling of rust and urine.

— Lick it. — Amos said.

The sound that followed was not one of submission, but of a soul cracking.

Fidel pressed his tongue against the dust and grease, the metallic taste rising into his brain.

Before he could finish the gesture, the kick came — dry, precise — striking him in the temple.

Everything went dark.

Amos looked at the motionless body for a few seconds. Then he wiped his boots on Fidel's clothes, with the delicacy of someone cleaning a profane altar.

He turned to the Silencers and said:

— Put him in the baggage compartment. If he wakes up, he'll think he dreamed of freedom.

The men obeyed. Two grabbed Fidel by the arms, another by the ankles. The body swung limply, like a memory without an owner.

— We'll meet at the station in an hour. — Amos added, lighting a cigarette.

He took a long drag, looked at Fiume's dirty sky, and added with disdain:

— I'm going to get some coffee and doughnuts. In Ceres, they still haven't learned what real coffee is.

Freedom Alley was empty once again.

Only the fallen glass remained, its label stained with blood and rain — “Freedom” — slowly dissolving, like everything else there.

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