Awake by Egan Yip

merely a guess. I’ve been
wandering the streets for years. All I know is that the royal
family of Korgen descended from lab rats.”
    Helios glared at Genesis. “So you just
tricked me into admitting it.” Feeling rather embarrassed at being
deceived so easily, Helios frowned. “Well you got me. Yes, I’m a
prince.”
    Kevin wondered, “Why would a prince want to
help? The queen rejected us.”
    Helios smiled, tugging at his garments.
“Look. I’m wearing clothes. I’m doing this against my mother’s
wishes. To me, humans are fascinating. They invent things to solve
problems. They wear clothes to stay warm. They build massive
shelters and cultivate the land. So much freedom and creativity.
It’d be such a waste to let the humans die out.
    “However, as prince, things are very strict
for me. I have no freedom. I’m not allowed to go into the world.
I’ve always had to sneak out. But for a grand quest, sneaking out
wouldn’t do much good. I decided to fake my death by letting the
boy step on me.” He grimaced upon recalling it. “Though it almost
did become a real death because the boy didn’t lift his foot for a
long time. I thought I was going to really die.”
    “T-that was you?” Kevin tried to make amends
by offering moldy cheese, but Helios seemed offended.
    “Anyway,” continued Helios, “try not to let
word of this get out. If they find out I’m alive and working with
humans, they’ll send someone after me. More importantly, if other
animals learn that a prince of rats is helping humans, the
neutrality of the rats may be threatened. I don’t want to bring
trouble to my family.”
    Kevin nodded. “Okay, I promise to keep the
secret.”
    Genesis said, “Now onto the topic at hand.
The boys didn’t make it to the Nexus. But Helios has informed me
that he visited the Nexus beforehand.”
    Kevin said, “I still don’t know what a Nexus
is.”
    Genesis admitted, “I don’t know much about
it either. But it is rumored to be useful.”
    Helios entered Andrew’s clothes from the
pant leg. Andrew squirmed and kicked around as the white rat
climbed up his skin. Helios popped out of Andrew’s collar. He
situated himself on Andrew’s left shoulder. Andrew wondered why
Helios didn’t just climb up his clothes. It would’ve been much less
painful. Then, after noticing Terminus on his right shoulder,
Andrew wondered why his shoulders had become quite popular.
    Helios began, “Let me explain. The Nexus is
the meeting place of information. It is our knowledge and fact
center. There is a Nexus in every area with a high population of
rats. When a rat is born, he is placed through a series of tests.
He’ll run through mazes of intense complexity. If he is found to
have amazing memory, he will have the privilege of joining the
Nexus. Those who are of the Nexus sit in a chamber and receive
information from our networks of informants and spies. And when a
foreign rat comes to our city, he must stop by our Nexus and give
us all the information he can. By doing so, we will also have
information about foreign lands.”
    Andrew said, “So it’s like a database, a
storage of information?”
    “Exactly,” said Helios. “A word-of-mouth
database.”
    Tom raised a brow. “Why would rats need
information?”
    “Knowledge is important for everyone, not
just humans,” said Helios. “By having knowledge of which
restaurants are lenient and which are dangerous, we can determine
where we can go to for a safe meal. We can also discover if humans
are planning any form of extermination against us so we can
relocate. By knowing vital information, we can survive.”
    Kevin shrugged. “So how’s that suppose to
help us? We’re not looking for food and we’re not avoiding
extermination.”
    Helios replied, “Because the Nexus takes all information. It doesn’t filter out anything. It doesn’t
only contain information about food sources. It’s also our source
for news.”
    Coming to an understanding, Kevin