I drifted in the liminal space between a half-remembered nightmare and the cold, relentless bite of reality. The first thing to slice through the fog was the chill, a bone-deep cold that seeped into my skin, reminding me I was still alive, tethered to this grim existence.
My head throbbed, a dull, persistent ache, like a hangover from whatever hell had just passed. I forced my eyes open, only to regret it. The overhead light flickered with all the subtlety of a migraine trigger. Great.
Took a moment for the world to settle. Everything swam at first, fragments of memory bobbing up like wreckage, the blinding flash, the searing pain, Larek’s gasp, all of it came rushing back, distorted.
I pushed myself upright, wincing as the world tilted on a bad axis. The floor was a patchwork of old metal and grime, and the air reeked so sharp it set my teeth on edge. Across from me, Larek lay slumped, breath ragged, eyes cracked open just enough to register pain.
Arvie’s wasn’t chirping yet. That alone told me things were bad. “Arvie?”
“Took you long enough,” she said, voice clipped. “We need to get a grip before they come for us.”
I scanned the cramped cell, a simple metal box, no windows, no tech. Nothing but a grimy door, and Larek’s shallow breaths filling the space. The memory of our capture crawled back into focus, piece by piece.
Larek groaned awake. His eyes found mine, some recognition flickering behind the pain.
“You’re here,” he rasped, eyes darting to the door like it might explode any moment. He opened his mouth to say more, but before he could, the heavy lock clanked and the door slammed open.
Two guys filled the frame. They weren't Directorate, that was for sure. They wore heavy, mismatched hazard plating deeply scored with acid burns, breathing through crude rebreather masks that hissed with every inhale. They smelled like rusted iron and Nether rot.
The one on the left, a guy with a spiderweb of scars across his bare, greasy scalp, pointed a thick finger at Larek. “This the guy?”
The other one, chewing lazily on something behind his mask, nodded. “Yeah, that's the guy. Boss says bring the suit, we bring the suit.” He aimed a heavy, steel-toed boot at Larek's ribs, not quite making contact but threatening it. “You, on your feet. I don't wanna carry you, see?”
They didn’t bother with me. Just yanked Larek by the collar. He winced, but didn’t resist, throwing me a resigned look.
Then they were gone. The door slammed shut, and the silence that followed was thick and oppressive, broken only by a faint drip.
“Well, that was unpleasant,” Arvie quipped, cutting the tension with her usual mix of sarcasm and concern.
I stared at the metal panel where the door had been. “What now?”
A pause. “We wait. Not much else to do.”
I leaned back against the wall, steel-cold and unyielding, and shut my eyes. “If they come back.”
“They will.” Her voice serious. “You’re too interesting to ignore.”
Time dragged on, a slow, torturous crawl. I tried to piece together the shattered fragments of memory, but every path led back to the same question: Who am I?
When the door creaked open again, I almost welcomed it. A new pair of goons, wearing the same scavenged hazard-suits, their rebreathers rattling like dying engines. They dragged me out into a rust-streaked hallway that smelled like wet decay and burned circuitry. Every instinct told me to fight, but my muscles were water.
They shoved me into a chamber with dim, flickering lights. One metal table sat in the center, covered in tools that looked like torture devices. I forced myself to stay still as they strapped me into a cold metal chair.
The one who had dragged me in popped his rebreather off, revealing a mouth full of teeth that looked like shattered porcelain. He leaned in, his breath hot and reeking of synthetic tobacco.
“Look at him,” he said. “Lights are on, nobody's home. You got a name, pal? Cause you see, my friend here gets impatient when folks don't introduce themselves.”
Hell of a question.
The memories flashed, fragments of a shattered past. Waking in the wreckage, breathing the toxin, finding the relic and weapon, meeting Jaraek and Reya, the busted neurolink, being dragged to Larek, and then the attack. But before all that… nothing. Just a void.
“I… I don’t know,” I muttered, each word scratching at my throat.
The guy snorted, looking back at his partner. “ Don’t know, huh? We’ll see about that.” He leaned over me again, resting his heavy hands on the armrests of my chair. “See, we ask around, we hear you're with the director. Why's a nobody walking with Larek, huh? You gonna tell us that?”
I swallowed, feeling the walls close in. “My neurolink’s busted,” I said. “Droids got suspicious, so they dragged me to Larek for interrogation.”
“He can breathe in the miasma,” a voice from the shadows said. I couldn't see the speaker, but the tone was colder, sharper than the street-level grunts.
The goon with the bad teeth tapped my chest. “You hear that? My associate asks if you breathe the rot. You telling me you take a stroll on the slag and you don't melt?”
“Yeah,” I said, keeping my voice flat. “Lucky me.”
“Hit him.” The goon gave a nod to the other figure, who stepped forward from the shadows, holding a sleek, humming device. Its surface glowed with faint symbols, pulsing like a heartbeat. Without warning, he slammed it against the back of my neck.
Lightning arced through me, white-hot, searing every nerve. My thoughts fractured, shards of memory slicing through an unrelenting maelstrom of pain. Colors bled out, shapes collapsing into a chaotic mess as the device hunted for something I didn’t have, tearing through the wreckage of my brain like they’d find some hidden truth.
My jaw locked, muscles straining as I fought to stay conscious. And then, abruptly, it was over. They pulled the device away, leaving me gasping, heart pounding. The goon stared at me, frustration twisting his face.
“No data. No ID. Blank slate meatware,” he growled, shoving the device away. “Toss him back.”
Dragged again. Back through the rust and rot. Dropped into the cell like trash down a chute. Larek was still gone. Just me now.
The headache hit before I'd even finished landing, a slow detonation behind my eyes, pressure building in waves, like something in my skull was trying to remember how to be a fist. I pressed the heel of my hand against my temple. Didn't help. The cell swam at the edges, light fracturing into too many colors for a room with no light source worth the name.
“Easy,” Arvie said, her voice low, steady. “Breathe. I've got it. Just give me a moment.”
Something in my skull shifted, cool and deliberate, and the worst of the pressure eased back like a tide pulling out.
The grip of it loosened, and so did she. “They didn’t seem too happy with your readings, did they?” Her voice mischievous again. “Looks like I’ve been having a little fun with them.”
“Did you mess with them?”
“Of course. Couldn’t let them poke around in your head, now, could I?”
I managed a weak laugh, wiping a line of blood from my nose. “What do they want with Larek?”
Arvie’s tone darkened. “Whatever it is, it’s bad. We’ll face it together.”
I leaned back, letting the chill of the metal seep into my skin. They thought I was just garbage to be discarded after Arvie wrecked their interrogation. That was their first mistake. As soon as I broke out of this cage, they were going to learn exactly how dangerous this blank slate meatware could be.475Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVUWr2Vm9KX
and then Add to home screen.