The door groaned behind us, sealing with a hiss as we stepped into the butchered carcass of the old droid plant. The smell hit first, ozone, burned lubricant, and something like melted copper dreams.
Fluorescent strips overhead buzzed and died in stuttering rhythms, casting epileptic shadows across everything. Half the chamber had been chewed to bones by corrosion and structural collapse, patched up like a dying patient with concrete foam and faith. The rest throbbed with Directorate occupation.
It wasn’t a base so much as a battlefield paused mid-sentence. Guards prowled in pairs, rifles low but ready, eyes flickering like faulty motion sensors. Storage crates and rusted plating were stacked into lazy barricades around portable comm rigs and coughing generator cubes. The air shimmered with static and long hours.
We slipped into a line of civilians, some wrapped in cracked hazmats, others in threadbare coats. Kids played with an old boot between refill breaks. No one stopped them. No one smiled, either.
Then it hit me.
A presence. Not physical. I saw him before I registered him, flickering at the edge of perception. Thin, twitchy, drained like a circuit left humming too long. His eyes glowed with that broken sort of knowing. I didn’t recognize him. Just like I hadn’t recognized the girl from before.
His mouth moved, but the words were chewed by disturbance. Didn’t matter. I felt the message crawl under my skin.
This city is going to die. Save who you can. Run.
He dissolved like smoke on hot metal, and I was left blinking into empty space.
I must’ve frozen. When I came back to myself, they were all staring. Vex looked amused, Aedan scowling, and Vulkred had cracked open a drink that could probably kill small rodents.
“Another vision,” I muttered. “A man, this time. Said the city’s gonna be destroyed.”
Aedan swept his gaze across the ruin like it might answer for him. “Bit late, don’t you think?”
No one had a better theory, so we shelved it and moved to the checkpoint.
This wasn’t the crew from earlier. These guards were younger, angrier, and more strung out. Whatever training they had was hanging by threads.
“Permit?” one asked, scanning me like a badly-coded security bot.
I said nothing. Just stared at him. Focused.
I could feel the shape of him. Tired. Anxious. Trying to project command, but his brain was halfway through checking out.
I reached in, carefully. No brute force. Just a whisper of awe. A breeze of authority through the cracked mental window.
“We passed earlier,” I said, calm and steady. “With Director Larek. Contact him if you need confirmation.”
Doubt crawled into his eyes. The kind that runs cold when you realize you might be speaking to someone too important to offend.
He glanced at the others. They shrugged. Vex tilted her head, watching me like she’d just spotted a new cheat code in the ruleset.
The guard grunted, collected our breathers. “Move along.”
We moved.
“You are getting spooky,” Vex said, smirking. “I kinda liked it better when we were just twisting rules the old-fashioned way.”
“I’ll grow horns next time.”
“You already have. The invisible kind.”
We threaded deeper through the outpost, past the makeshift barricades. The floor had been patched with synthcrete in places, but most of it still bore the scorch marks of previous occupants.
A medical booth blinked feebly in one corner, its translucent panels stained with something that might’ve been blood, or coolant, or both.
A few guards lounged near a cracked vending unit, helmets off, eyes sunken. One watched us with the blank stare of someone who’d seen too much and didn’t want to see more. Another cleaned his weapon with slow, devotional care, muzzle resting casually against his own boot like he was daring it to misfire.
We passed what used to be a cafeteria, now serving as a briefing zone with foldout chairs and flickering holos. The smell of reheated protein bricks clung to the air like guilt.
A slab of wall bore a crude Directorate symbol smeared in grease. Beneath it: “Endure. Adapt. Cleanse.” The kind of slogan that made you wonder whether they’d run out of better words, or just stopped trying.43Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHJFnWCsfyM
At the far end, the outpost funneled into a passage, once a transport artery for droids and parts, now half-choked and groaning with rust.
Beyond the bulkhead, a winding tunnel stretched ahead, flanked by pitted transparisteel windows overlooking industrial nightmares on both sides, vast bays of skeletal assembly lines, rusted conveyors, robotic arms still twitching from half-finished cycles. Some factories slept in darkness; others glowed faintly like haunted lungs.
Fog smeared the glass, lit by the occasional welding arc or the flicker of distant droids stalking the catwalks like metal ghosts.
The walkways were treacherous. Sections sagged or shimmered where the seals had failed. Metal panels bowed under our boots, and chemical runoff etched warning symbols where none had been painted. Pipes hissed overhead, venting breath-hot steam, and the sharp stink of oxidized coolant curled in my nose and turned my stomach.
I pulled up near one of the branching corridors and paused.
“I’ll catch up,” I said. “There’s someone I need to check on.”
Aedan gave a nod. “Vex, stay with him.”
Vex rolled her eyes. “Do I look like a babysitter?”
“An escort,” Aedan sneered, walking off with Vulkred.
I followed the old rail path until I reached the door, industrial-grade, old model, and alive with a greasy holo-panel. Stickers blistered across its flanks.
As I stepped closer, the interface flickered to life in my mind. « State your business. »
« I’ve come to see Jaraek. »
It didn’t ask for clarification. Instead, a cold pulse hit my head, and two images bloomed into my thoughts. One was a uniformed officer with polished boots and a buzzcut. The other was the grizzled survivor from the bunker.
« That one, » I said, selecting the latter.
Silence. Gears growled. Footsteps. The door opened.
Jaraek stood there like a half-healed scar. His face split with disbelief, then a grin.
“By the devines,” he said. “You’re alive. Didn’t hope to see you again.”
He grabbed my shoulders and gave me a shake like I was real. Like he had to check.
“I’m alive,” I said, breaking into a grin. “Barely. This is Vex.”
He gave her a wary nod. She raised a brow and gave him a once-over like she was appraising salvage.
“I was worried,” I said. “About you and Reya.”
“Ah, she’s here too,” He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Working second shift on the grinder line. Nothing glorious, but honest. We’ve been treated fair.”
As if summoned, Reya stepped out of a side door, cradling a steaming thermacup. She saw us and froze. Then the cup hit the floor and she ran.
Her arms hit me with surprising force. She laughed, half-sobbing into my chest. “Stars above, you’re real. We heard you were taken.”
“I got out,” I said. “Not pretty, but I’m here.”
She wiped her face on her sleeve, then turned and gripped Vex’s shoulders like a long-lost cousin.
“You’re his friend?”
Vex snorted. “Depends on the day.”
Reya turned to me. “Thank you again. We’ve got shelter, rations, work, even beds. Not much to complain about.”
“I’m glad,” I said. “I’ve got a group too. Living in the slums. It’s not bad.”
“You’ll visit?” Jaraek asked.
“I will,” I promised.
We clasped shoulders again. Not just habit. A tether.
Then I turned and walked away, heart heavier and lighter all at once.
Back in the tunnel, Vex leaned closer. “You’re kind of a sap, you know.”
“Don’t spread it.”
“Too late. I’m weaponizing it.”
We passed under rust-streaked struts and ductwork buzzing with distant pressure. One of the windows revealed a crane arm still dragging refuse into a molten pit. My breath misted in the filtered chill, vision twitched, static again.
Finally, the tunnel widened into the lift complex.
A guard droid loomed like a rusted god, scanning us with lattice beams. “Destination?”
“Slums,” I said.
It shifted aside with a wheeze like tired lungs.
Inside, ceiling fans turned with slow menace. Machinery ticked behind the walls, gears always one misfire from failure.
A door to our left hissed open, releasing a puff of chilled air. Two hulking guard droids stepped out, industrial models retrofitted for combat, their chassis dented and repainted with the Directorate’s blue striping. One scanned us with a pulse of red light.
“Escort assigned. Destination: Sublevel Gamma. Compliance mandatory,” one intoned, its voice like gravel dragged through static.
“Ah,” Arvie chimed, all velvet and venom. “Escorts or babysitters. Depends how well your charm's holding up.”
Up on the mezzanine, I spotted a glass-walled chamber. An officer stood inside, arms folded. He tilted his head, tapped something on a control slate. A faint buzz rolled through the floor like a warning.
Below us, the lift doors groaned. Steel jaws peeled open. The platform yawned wide, big enough to carry nightmares.
We stepped in, even as the jaws closed and the world tilted downward, part of me stayed behind. The memory of our reunion clung to me: three survivors bound by the stubborn truth that survival shouldn’t mean solitude.
ns216.73.216.139da2
and then Add to home screen.