Salvation Hidden in the Light

A two-male-lead story you can binge in one sitting.

[The surveillance footage in the Federal Prison always hides secrets that should never see the light of day.]

When Shen Jinghan woke up in the isolation room for the seventeenth time, the brain-monitoring device's alarm pierced his ears. Danger level: 120, just below the threshold for "disposal."

He licked the blood at the corner of his mouth and looked at the figure in uniform behind the one-way glass. Then he laughed.

Ling Che, the Federation's youngest authority on the brain, was the one who had personally sent him to prison. Now, with red-rimmed eyes, he wrote a line on the monitor: [Neuron Synchronization Experiment, Volunteer: Ling Che]

No one knew that Shen Jinghan's crimes, each one sealed into the code of law, were all smokescreens: an official who embezzled military funds died at his mistress's home; a director who monopolized food prices suffocated at a banquet; a researcher who falsified data died in an accident...

They were all just a means of clearing the way for Ling Che.

Then came the neural illusion. Seven personality fragments faced off in a sealed room, and the ballot box produced eight votes, all bearing the same answer.

"So," Shen Jinghan said, gripping the ballot marked "Ling Che" until his fingertips turned white, "you put yourself in this game of atonement too. Are you trying to take the blame for me?"

Ling Che said nothing. He only undid the collar of his uniform, revealing a scar beneath his collarbone, in the same place as the wound on Shen Jinghan's chest. It was where Shen Jinghan had shielded him from shrapnel in the explosion all those years ago.

"Shen Jinghan," he said hoarsely, "your crime was protecting me. My punishment is waiting for you."

Later, people in the Federal Prison all spread the story that the convict serving a lengthy sentence had somehow been "taken home" by Colonel Ling.

At a small ship-repair shop by the starport, Ling Che, dressed in work clothes, always closed up at dusk. His temples had grown lightly frosted, but his eyes were still bright. He watched Shen Jinghan emerge from the back room, polishing a repaired engine until it gleamed. His movements still had the same crisp precision he'd shown when commanding a starship.

Someone asked Ling Che, "Was it worth it?"

He turned to look at the star trails glowing in the distance. The silver ring on his left ring finger flashed. It had been forged from the military saber Shen Jinghan had hidden away years ago.

"I've already waited fifty years," he said with a smile. "What's a few more fifty-year stretches in the rest of my life?"

[You are the tenderness I hide within my sharp edges. I am the redemption you buried beneath your past.]

[Two powerful leads | Reconciliation after a breakup | A formidable team | Redemption]

Theme: Mutual redemption