ADAM'S POV
The ceiling fan in the upstairs bedroom turned with a rhythmic click-clack, cutting through the heavy silence of the farmhouse. I lay on top of the covers, staring at the shadows on the ceiling. My body felt light, the Impulse within me humming a steady, perfect tune.
For fifteen years, the Doctor's presence had been the compass for that energy. Now, the needle was spinning.
I sat up and looked at my hands. There was no "shell" to hide, no glow I had to fight back. The power was just there, as natural as the blood in my veins. I looked across the room at the twin bed where Eve was already sitting up, his dark hair messy, his eyes clear.
"He's really gone, isn't he?" Eve asked. He didn't sound scared. He sounded like he was trying to solve a math problem that didn't have enough variables.
"He is," I said. I stood up and walked over to him. I sat on the edge of his mattress, and when our shoulders brushed, there was no spark, no clash of energy. Just the warmth of a brother. "He's going to the moon. He thinks that by being the villain, he can keep the Council's eyes on him and off us."
Eve looked at his hands, then at mine. "He spent fifteen years making us perfect, Adam. He gave us the ability to rewrite the world with a thought. And then he leaves us with a man who wants us to fix a 'crooked fence.'"
"The Doctor called it humanity," I said, my voice flat. "Silas calls it work. Whatever it is, it's our new directive. We have to blend in. If we use even a fraction of what we are, we might as well light a signal flare for the High Curators."
Eve stood up, pacing the small room. "How do we just... turn it off? I can feel the Light Impulse in the air, Adam. I can feel the heartbeat of the trees in the valley. It's like being told to stop breathing."
I stood up and grabbed him by the shoulders. I didn't have to worry about hurting him with my Dark Impulse; it was under my total control. "We don't turn it off. We bury it. Deep. We become the Vances. We eat the pie, we build the fence, and we act like we don't know how to dismantle a Praetorian with a snap of our fingers."
Eve looked into my eyes, searching for the big brother he needed. "And if they find us? If the Seekers come while Silas is teaching us how to plant corn?"
"Then I'll be the monster the Doctor made me to be," I said firmly. "But until then, I'm just Adam. And you're just Eve. We're brothers, not weapons. At least for today."
A heavy knock sounded on the door—three sharp raps that could only belong to Silas.
"Six o'clock," the old man's muffled voice growled from the hallway. "The eggs are getting cold, and the sun's already beating you to the south pasture. Move it."
Eve looked at the door, then back at me. A small, genuine smile finally touched his face. "I think I'd rather face a High Curator than Silas Vance when he's grumpy."
"Common ground," I noted, heading for the door. "That's a start."
The kitchen was thick with the scent of fried eggs and coffee. Martha moved around the table with a forced rhythm, her eyes red-rimmed but her hands steady. She kept piling food onto our plates like she was trying to fill a hole that didn't have a bottom.
Eve ate in silence, his movements precise. Silas sat across from us, his shadow stretching long across the floorboards. He wasn't looking at us like we were "Masterpieces." He was looking at us like we were a problem he hadn't figured out how to solve yet.
"The south fence line is down," Silas said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "The storm last week took out three posts. You two are going to replace them. By hand."
"We can have it done in five minutes, Silas," Eve said, his voice quiet.
"I said by hand," Silas repeated, his voice dropping an octave. "No Impulse. No tricks. You use the post-hole digger and the sledgehammer. If I see so much as a flicker of that Light of yours, Eve, you'll be doing the north line twice over."
I nudged Eve's foot under the table. "We understand, Silas. We'll get it done."
The sun was high by the time we reached the edge of the property. The valley stretched out before us, a sea of green and gold that looked peaceful—until you looked at the horizon and saw the faint, jagged distortion of the nearest Council relay tower.
I gripped the handles of the iron post-hole digger. It was heavy, but to me, it felt like a toy. That was the hardest part: the restraint. I had to consciously tell my muscles to move slow, to struggle, to mimic the weakness of a normal human boy.
"He's testing us," Eve whispered, leaning against a pile of cedar posts. He looked at the sky, his Light Impulse likely sensing the massive energy shifts coming from the Moon. "He wants to see if we'll break."
"He wants to see if we can live without the power, Eve," I said, slamming the blades into the dry earth. The jar of the impact traveled up my arms, and for a split second, my Dark Impulse pulsed, wanting to simply vaporize the dirt instead of moving it. I pushed it down. "If the Council takes the Relay, or if the Doctor fails, this is all we'll have. The dirt and the tools."
"The Doctor won't fail," Eve said, though he sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
"Maybe not. But he's not here." I pulled the handles apart, lifting a clod of earth. "We are. And right now, the only thing that matters is this hole."
Eve picked up the sledgehammer. He looked at it for a long moment, then at me. "Adam? Do you think the people in town... do you think they know what we are? Or do they just see two more orphans?"
I stopped digging and looked at my brother. He looked human. He looked like a Vance. "They see what we show them. As long as we keep the Impulse buried, we're just kids. That's the only way we stay together."
I reached out and squeezed his arm. No sparks. No energy. Just a brother making sure the other one was still there.
"We finish the fence," I said. "Then we eat the pie. One objective at a time."
Eve nodded, raising the hammer. He swung it down with a dull thud, the sound of manual labor echoing across the valley, drowning out the silent hum of the war waiting in the stars.