The decision

CHAPTER 15 — The Decision

The silence lasted.

Garpon waited. Not impatiently. With the calm of someone who has put a question on the table and knows that time works for him while the other decides.

Marek looked at the rock formations to the west. Sira looked at Garpon. Zarpon, leaning against the rock wall, looked at the ground in front of him with the expression of someone calculating variables with what he had left.

Inside the rock formations, Arlo looked at the device in his hand.

One charge.

Garpon had said it out loud with the same coldness he used to describe any other variable. Not to intimidate. To inform. So the decision would be made with all the data on the table.

Arlo had it all.

If he used the device now, he would interrupt Garpon's armor for four seconds. Enough for Marek and Zarpon to attack the weak points. But he would be in the center of the second layer with no cover. And Garpon knew it. And four seconds wasn't enough for what they needed.

If he didn't use it, the team wouldn't last much longer.

Zarpon against the wall with no immediate reserves. Sira with her right shoulder unprotected. Marek with his aura flickering.

Arlo looked at the device. Then toward the center of the second layer.

He thought of the lab. Of Taka walking over components with total indifference. Of his father handing him the box without saying anything. Of three weeks building a square white ship in the garden because Sira asked him to and because getting out of monotony was worth the existential collapse.

He thought of Marek's farm. Of Joe. Of Zarpon telling them that a plan isn't a guarantee. It's a structure that reduces the possibility of error.

He thought of Garpon calculating his options out loud with the certainty of someone who already knew the outcome.

And then he thought of something Garpon hadn't calculated.

Not because he couldn't. But because Garpon didn't have enough information about how Arlo's mind worked. No one had it completely. Not even Arlo always.

He stepped out of the rock formations.

Not running. Walking. With the device visible in his right hand.

Garpon saw him immediately. He looked at him. His crimson eyes scanned the ten-year-old boy walking toward the center of the second layer in white armor with a device holding a single charge and no cover at all.

"Interesting," Garpon said.

Arlo didn't answer. He kept walking.

Marek watched him from his position.

"Arlo," he said quietly.

"Shut up for a moment," Arlo said without looking at him.

He stopped twelve meters from Garpon. Looked directly at him.

"You're right," he said. "One charge. Four seconds. It's not enough for what we need if I use it the way I used it before."

Garpon watched him.

"So?" he said.

"So a charge used the right way," Arlo said, "doesn't interrupt your armor for four seconds."

A pause.

"It completely disables it."

Silence.

Garpon processed that. His eyes moved to the device.

"That would require direct access to the armor's central core," he said. "Not the rear connector."

"Yes," Arlo said.

"The central core is here." Garpon pointed to the center of his chest with a calmness that was almost didactic. "To access it, you'd have to be within a meter. In direct contact with the armor."

"Yes," Arlo said.

"And to get within a meter of me," Garpon continued, "you'd have to cross twelve meters of open space with no cover while I decide whether to allow it or not."

"Yes," Arlo said.

Garpon looked at him.

"And still?"

Arlo looked at the device in his hand. Then at Garpon.

"Do you know the difference between a scientist and a warrior?" he said.

Garpon waited.

"A warrior calculates the risk and decides if it's worth it," Arlo said. "A scientist calculates the risk, accepts it as part of the process, and looks for a way to make the result justify the cost."

A pause.

"The result here justifies the cost."

Garpon looked at him for a moment.

And then something happened that none of the four expected.

Garpon smiled.

Not cruelly. Not arrogantly. With something that genuinely resembled appreciation from someone who had just seen something he hadn't seen before.

"All right," he said.

And he didn't move.

---

Arlo began to walk.

Twelve meters. Eleven. His footsteps on the rock were audible in the silence of the second layer. Ten meters.

Fear was there. Completely present. In his chest. In his hands. In the way the device felt heavier than it physically weighed.

Arlo didn't deny it. He cataloged it. As he cataloged everything. Variable present. Impact on motor precision estimated at fifteen percent. Compensable with additional concentration.

Nine meters.

Marek watched him. And in that moment, he understood. Not everything. Not the technical details of what Arlo was doing. But the essential.

Arlo was going to reach Garpon. And to get there, he needed Garpon to look away during the final meters.

Marek looked at the aura in his hands. Flickering. Irregular. With less than half of what he had at the start of the battle. Not enough for an attack that would damage Garpon. But enough for something smaller. More specific.

He ignited the aura in his right fist with all the concentration he had left. Not to attack Garpon. To make Garpon see him do it.

"Garpon," he said.

The warrior looked at him.

Marek struck. Not with maximum power. With precision. An attack aimed exactly at the point on Garpon's left shoulder that Zarpon had pointed out in training as the joint between armor and natural tissue where impact felt different even through protection.

Garpon turned his torso to block it. His crimson forearm intercepted Marek's yellow. The shockwave was small. But Garpon's turn was real.

And in that turn, his crimson eyes looked away from Arlo for exactly the seconds needed.

At the same time, Sira moved from the right flank. No signal. No verbal coordination. Simply because she understood what Marek was doing and understood what her function was in that moment. A low strike to the back of Garpon's left knee. Small. Enough for Garpon to have to distribute his attention across three points simultaneously.

And in that moment, Arlo covered the final four meters. With his hand extended toward the central core of Garpon's armor.

Garpon looked back at him. Too late to fully stop him.

The device touched the armor at the exact point. Arlo pressed. The full charge. Direct to the core.

The crimson lines of Garpon's armor went out. Not blinked. Not flickered. They went out. All of them. At the same time.

Garpon looked down at his own armor. Black. Without lines. Without energy. Silent.

Then he looked at Arlo, ten centimeters from his face.

"It works," Arlo said.

Not as a celebration. As confirmation of a hypothesis.

Garpon looked at him for a second. Then he raised his hand and pushed him aside with a gentle movement that was completely different from anything he had done in the entire battle.

Arlo stepped back two meters and stayed on his feet. It hadn't been a strike. It was a displacement. The kind made when space is needed to think.

Garpon looked at his hands without active armor. Then at the team. Zarpon getting up from the wall. Marek with his aura depleted but standing. Sira on the flank with her right arm unprotected but present. Arlo two meters away with an empty device and no cover.

And then he did something none of the four expected.

He waited.

Didn't attack. Didn't speak. Just waited. Like someone who had just received something that needed a moment before responding.

Marek watched him. His hands without aura. Completely spent on that last attack. Not with regret. With the specific clarity of someone who used exactly what he had for exactly what mattered.

Then he looked at Arlo. Arlo looked back. He said nothing. But something in his expression shifted slightly. The kind of shift that happens when someone receives something they didn't expect and doesn't yet have words for it.

Zarpon watched Garpon with his usual attention. Reading. Processing.

"What is he doing?" Marek whispered.

Zarpon took a moment.

"Deciding," he said quietly.

"Deciding what?"

Zarpon looked at Garpon.

"If this is still what he thought it was," he said. "Or if it's become something else."

Garpon's armor began to glow again. Slowly. The crimson lines returning one by one. With more intensity than before.

Garpon looked at them.

"Good," he said.

His voice was different from how it had been throughout the entire battle. Not colder. More direct. Like someone who had made a decision and no longer needed to evaluate anything.

"Now we fight for real."

END OF CHAPTER 15