The sun slowly rose over the City of Iron. Usually, the morning in Rustgate was loud. It was filled with the terrible sounds of heavy metal gears turning. It was filled with the loud, booming whistles of the giant factories. HOOOOOT! It was filled with the wet, rattling coughs of a hundred thousand sick scavengers waking up in the dirty mud. But today, the morning was different. Today, there was absolute, perfect silence. In a small, dirty tent in Sector Three of the junkyard, an old man named Kael opened his eyes. Kael was the man whose arm had been crushed by the giant metal press. Brin had fixed his arm with wooden splints and black silk thread. Kael lay on his thin, dirty blanket. He waited for the terrible, sharp pain in his arm to wake him up. He waited for the burning ache in his chest from the toxic yellow smog. He waited. But the pain did not come. Kael frowned. He slowly sat up. He looked at his left arm. He reached over with his right hand and pulled the dirty white

The thousands of scavengers cheered. They raised their rusted pipes. They raised their heavy rocks. They were terrified, yes. But they were no longer helpless. They were a healthy, massive army of broken things that refused to be broken again. The Ghost Doctor was gone, but his medicine remained. High above the roaring crowd, inside the tallest, cleanest white tower in the inner city. Auditor Isaac sat perfectly still behind his clear glass desk. His white suit was flawless. His thin silver glasses rested perfectly on his nose. He was staring at his giant digital screen. The screen showed the live video feeds from the city’s Surveillance Drones. The drones were flying high over the junkyard. They were showing the massive crowd of thousands of scavengers gathered around the black iron crater in Sector Four. Doctor Vance stood next to the desk. He was shaking. He had washed the mud off his face, but he still looked terrified. "Auditor Isaac," Doctor Vance stuttered. "Look at them.

The clock on the pure white marble wall made a soft, sharp sound. Tick. Tick. Tick. The sound was very quiet, but in the massive meeting room of the Pharmaceutical Guild, it sounded like a heavy hammer hitting a drum. The room was perfectly clean. The walls were made of white glass. The long, oval table in the center of the room was made of polished silver. Bright, cold artificial lights shined down from the high ceiling. There were no shadows in this room. There was no dirt. But right now, the room was full of fear. Ten of the smartest, richest, and most powerful doctors in the City of Iron sat around the silver table. They wore spotless white coats. They wore expensive silver glasses. They were all staring at the giant digital screen on the wall. Usually, the screen showed beautiful, climbing numbers. It showed how much money they were making. It showed how many pills they had sold to the sick, desperate scavengers in the junkyard. Today, the screen showed something impossibl

"Good!" Sterling grunted, turning around. "Lock the gates permanently! Set the automated defense turrets to shoot anything that tries to climb the walls! Let them rot in their fake health!"Sterling marched out of the room. The ten terrified doctors quickly followed him, eager to get away from the black folder on the table. The heavy white doors clicked shut. Isaac was alone in the giant meeting room. He looked at the heavy black folder on the silver table. He reached out and picked it up. There was no medical data inside the folder. The pages inside were completely blank. It was just a prop. A tool for a magic trick. Isaac smiled a genuine, warm smile. It felt strange on his face. "You are safe now, my broken friends," Isaac whispered to the empty room, looking down toward the junkyard. "Breathe the clean air. Drink the boiled water. Grow strong in the dark."Isaac turned and walked out of the meeting room. He walked down the clean white hallway toward his private office. He had

The man carried a smooth wooden staff. Little Isaac shrank back in terror. He thought it was a city guard coming to throw him in the incinerator. He tried to crawl away, but his arms collapsed. "Please," Isaac whimpered, coughing up a drop of dark blood. "I have no money. Do not hit me."The man in the gray coat did not speak. He slowly knelt down in the freezing, filthy mud. He did not care that his coat was getting dirty. He did not care that the alley smelled like rotting garbage. The man reached out a bare, warm hand. Isaac flinched, expecting to be slapped. But the hand did not hit him. The hand gently brushed the wet, dirty hair away from Isaac’s freezing forehead. The touch was incredibly gentle. It was the kindest touch Isaac had ever felt in his entire, miserable life. The man placed his right hand flat against the center of little Isaac's small, trembling chest. "Earth Pulse," a deep, warm, beautiful voice whispered from under the dark hood. Instantly, a brilliant,