The dome that contained Athena City kept out winds that blew at hundreds of miles an hour. Outside the tough glass was a desolate, white landscape, where sheets of ice were constantly torn off the surface to reveal a water ocean that froze over almost as soon as it came into contact with the air. There was only one place on the entire planet that could sustain life, and that was the city, where the atmosphere was always deathly still and cold.

Ed’s face was numb from the stinging air as he walked alongside the noisy night traffic, zigzagging his way through the mass of people that shuffled quietly about. His eyes hurt from dryness, and he cursed himself for leaving his protective goggles in the bar before torching it. Several times he had to force himself to slow down, as in his anxiety he had worked up a sweat that was now making him freeze up despite his warm clothing. His muscles, already tired from the fight, were tight and painful, and he found it hard to concentrate on his surroundings. It was already difficult enough to tell whether he was being followed by more of Hawk’s goons, given the size of the crowd.

Ed knew that they had to be around somewhere. Past experience had taught him that Max Hammer never showed up until he had had people watching Ed for some time, and more often than not Ed had to fight his way out after killing the other man. Why was this time different? For a second he considered that it may have been the size of the crowd that he was moving in, but he threw out the idea almost as soon as he thought of it. The number of people that had been caught by bullets and explosions that were meant for Ed was probably up in the hundreds. He had run through masses of people far larger than this before, and he had vivid memories of the trails of dead that were inevitably left in his wake.

And why should his pursuers care about collateral damage, Ed reminded himself? Hawk’s name was one that was familiar on every settled world in known space, precisely because of the colossal number of innocent dead attached to it. He was the terrorist with an entire planet’s resources at his disposal. Ed’s home planet, specifically.

That was the man that Ed had pissed off.

So why, then, wasn’t he being shot at right now? Were Hawk’s men trailing him so they could find out where he lived? Not likely, he thought. Max Hammer was nothing if not thorough, and would have known that bit of information days before showing up at the bar.

Which, of course, meant that there would be at least a small army waiting for Ed at his apartment when he arrived. Maybe that was why his fans hadn’t shown themselves yet- they were waiting for him to get home so that they could trap him there. With that thought, a part of his brain clicked and he realized that he was, at that very moment, taking his most familiar route back to the apartment. Not very careful, he thought. He was being clumsy, not concentrating on staying alive, being distracted by the little things and failing to look at the entire picture. Ed always did have trouble seeing the forest. He was all about the individual trees.

He moved closer to the big, bland-looking buildings which looked identical to the structures in nearly every other city in the trading worlds, and turned in to the first alleyway that he found. Quickly he planned out a route to the apartment in his head, and then several other routes so he wouldn’t stick to one. He had to get some things before leaving Athena, and if he were going to be ambushed at home, he may as well lose the guys that were invariably trailing him. He couldn’t spot them, wherever they were, so it was best to play it safe.

Almost automatically, he began scaling walls and jumping across the rooftops of the shorter buildings. Ed could temporarily strengthen his leg muscles for the job, using the nanomachines in his blood to produce the necessary chemicals, but for the time being he relied on Athena’s low gravity to carry him on his leaps. Doing it the other way always tended to take a lot of energy out of him, and so long as he wasn’t dodging gunfire he didn’t want to risk crashing later, when he needed to be alert.

Following his route practically on autopilot, Ed briefly lost himself to enjoying the air rushing over him, even as the cold stung at his face and limbs. The low gravity was definitely one thing he would miss about Athena. He had made an art out of dancing across buildings with nary a stop, and on this planet he had been able to do so with minimal effort. Here, he could simply allow his body to do what came naturally and retreat into his head so he could savor the experience of flight, speed, total freedom. It was one of the only things that he truly, deeply enjoyed in his life.

That, and killing, he reminded himself, taking all the pleasure out of the moment. The thing that he wanted so much to abhor, but that was so deeply ingrained into him. Damn Max Hammer, he thought, for showing up and ruining the life that he had made for himself once again. Ed suddenly found himself missing his bar. It was unlike him to care about possessions and he was very conscious of it, but damn it, it was his and Max had no right to take it from him. He hated Max Hammer, more than he hated Hawk or his own life that he could only live in fragments at a time. He didn’t want to lose his apartment, even though it was a cheap, dingy dwelling that barely qualified as living space. He didn’t want the bar to burn to the ground. It wasn’t the things at all, but the fact that they were his and for the millionth time Max had come back from the dead to take it all away. Ed started to breathe faster as his memories of all the ways that he had killed Max bubbled to the surface. His heart began to race and all his other thoughts faded away, replaced by fantasies of all the ways that he could punish Max, things that he could do or had already done. He felt the familiar rush of excitement as he visualized beating, stabbing, cutting him open, making him helpless as he drowned in red.

In a sudden rush, the fantasy faded and Ed stumbled, crashing hard on to one of the rooftops. He groaned as he pushed himself up, trying to calm himself down before continuing back to the apartment. He had to be calm. He had to be reasonable. He couldn’t let his inner maniac do the thinking.

The bar, the apartment, they were just things. The sham of a life that Ed had created on Athena using a fake name and a beard was unimportant. He could do it all again, even if it were just for a few months again. Let Max ruin it. Ed was not going to hand the burning corpse a victory by cracking.

He took several long, deep breaths and cleared his head. The evening had been a minor setback, he convinced himself. Killing Max and his partner had been necessary, and if Ed had to kill again tonight, that would also be out of necessity. The act was not something to be enjoyed. As long as he knew that, he still had the upper hand.

Feeling much better, Ed re-planned his route and set off across the rooftops again. This time he made sure to concentrate on what he needed to do.