Cloud Dust

I got out five years ago.

Untalented, they said.

In other words, they didn't know what to do with me, and murder usually leaves a mess.

I understood messes. Saw too many of them in my dreams. That's why I live where I do, still in their shadow but outside their walls. The conditions, of course, are that I have to move every five years, check in now and then and never, ever, talk about them to anyone.

It was time to move.
* * *

Cloud Dust is a secret, government program, in which ninety-five per cent of the volunteers are dead.

Meet the one who didn't volunteer.