CHAPTER 2
Cole moved deeper into the city, guided only by flickering neon lights and his own fading strength.
At first glance, everything looked alive
almost mesmerizing.
Vibrant colors danced across the skyline, holograms hovered mid-air, particles of light swirled with artificial grace.
But beneath that glow… something felt deeply wrong.
A heavy darkness pulsed through the veins of this world quiet, suffocating, and inescapable.
The deeper Cole ventured into the backstreets, the clearer that truth became.
The broken truth.
Homeless figures slumped against the walls.
Women waited on street corners, their stares hollow.
Thugs brawled in the open, knives flashing under neon signs.
Bloodied fists. Echoing screams. Eyes too used to violence.
This place was rotting.
Not just its people, but its system. Its soul.
He paused.
His gaze rose to the signs above bright, blinking, intoxicating.
They lit up the streets like celebration.
But his chest felt heavier with every breath.
"Is the whole city like this," he wondered, "or just this part?"
He pushed the thought aside.
Focus. Survive. Stay unseen.
Cole kept moving, hugging the shadows.
That's when he saw them
A group of armed thugs, sprinting down the alley, guns raised, firing wildly into the air and walls.
They were running from something.
Behind them came soldiers.
Armored. Tactical. Merciless.
Each movement was calculated. Trained.
Altaris Command Net.
Cole remembered the name from the pre-mission intel
A known control node tied to this city.
A possible outpost.
"If I reach them… maybe I can explain. Maybe I can get help."
But then, the last voice he heard before deployment echoed again:
"Trust no one."
He froze for a second.
Torn between instinct and protocol.
Between survival and silence.
Cole came to a sudden stop.
His eyes locked on the chaos unfolding down the street.
Soldiers in high-grade tactical armor, carrying shoulder-mounted weapon systems…
And a helicopter slowly descending behind them.
All of it… just to chase two low-level thugs.
"All that force… for two guys?"
The thought echoed in his head.
But the answer was already clear.
This wasn't a chase.
It was a display.
There was something in the soldiers' movements
Amusement.
The thugs were screaming in pain, writhing on the ground, and the soldiers?
They just stood there, watching.
One of them even laughed.
This wasn't about control anymore.
It was about entertainment.
Cole's mind sharpened.
"Trust no one."
That phrase was no longer a warning.
It was a rule.
But there was another problem:
His clothes.
He had survived the blast, but he was still wearing torn, smoke-stained field gear.
Walking around like this was practically screaming, "I don't belong here."
Worse his interplanetary payment card issued by the Altaris Command Net had been lost along with the rest of his equipment.
Buying anything was out of the question.
His eyes caught something.
A simple clothing shop.
Prices flickered on a neon display out front.
The lights were weak, the inventory looked cheap
But right now, it was worth its weight in gold.
He pushed open the door.
A small chime broke the silence.
Racks lined the room, filled with ordinary clothes.
Pants, jackets, shirts nothing special.
He quickly picked a solid, neutral outfit.
Something that wouldn't draw attention.
He walked toward the register.
Slow. Casual. Just another tired customer.
The clerk middle-aged, with a dull expression approached him.
Cole took a breath.
Then, without hesitation,
he raised his hand and slammed the edge of his palm into the man's temple.
The man staggered.
His eyes rolled back.
He dropped silently to the floor.
No time wasted.
Cole changed quickly into the new clothes.
He left the tattered, burned remnants of his uniform behind.
Left that version of himself behind.
Now, he looked like just another local.
His face still sharp, his eyes alert
But to anyone watching, he was just a worn-out man blending into the crowd.
He opened the door.
Stepped back onto the street.
Quieter this time. Less visible.
Cole kept walking.
But this wasn't just movement it was a confrontation.
Each step was a quiet resistance.
A refusal to belong.
To be seen was to be touched, and he couldn't afford either.
So he melted into the rhythm of the street, silent yet fully aware.
The city was loud, but the silence inside him was louder.
Colors danced across signs like they meant something.
But they didn't.
Not here.
Voices echoed, bodies moved, eyes wandered.
But everything felt hollow.
Women called out under neon halos,
thugs marked territory with raised voices and broken glass,
the homeless stared into nowhere hoping, or perhaps just existing.
Cole didn't flinch.
He didn't judge.
He just watched, like one would study the crash of waves before stepping into the sea.
To reach out meant to sink.
To stop meant to be seen.
And in this place, the visible died fast.
Inside, a compass spun.
Find the team.
Find a signal.
Either one would do.
Just as the thought circled again, voices pierced through his mental fog.
"Bro, you hear about that girl?"
"They found her naked on the far side of the city. Right leg metal, they said."
Cole didn't stop walking.
But his heartbeat dropped into a slower rhythm.
Focused. Sharp.
"No way. What happened?"
"Some thieves tried to grab her, but then the city police showed up.
People say she had a weird tattoo on her back.
Some say it's cult-related, but... no one's sure."
Cole's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
The word cult didn't mean much.
Cities were full of stories.
Myths wrapped in fear, sold like truth.
But metal leg...
That wasn't myth.
That was memory.
A face surfaced in his mind.
One of the girls on his team.
Yes she had a tattoo. But more than that...
Her right leg was synthetic.
And in a city drowning in noise,
truth often wore the voice of strangers.
He had found a trace.
And now
he was no longer wandering.