Kael filled his canteen. He didn’t kill the Qackperps. He learned to tickle them—to bait them with tiny pressure leaks, making them spit out bubbles of the old sky.

And somewhere in the ruins, a Qackperp hiccupped, swelled, and gave birth to a tiny blue sky.

In the year 2147, the remnants of humanity lived in the —sterile, silent cities where the air was filtered to the last particulate. Outside, the Qackperp ruled the ruins.

The Dome elders called him a demon for dealing with the Qackperps. But the sick lined up anyway. Kael became the first , a boy who traded in the only currency that mattered: a single perp that meant life, not death.