In the tunnels beneath Nova-Veridia, time was measured by the rhythm of dripping water, but in Nena Volt's workshop, which she called "Iron Lung," time was divided by the sound of metal grinding against metal.
The workshop smelled as usual of heavy machine oil, molten solder, and dampness. But tonight, an additional acrid chemical scent had joined this familiar cocktail: antiseptic and burnt flesh.
Kaelen slumped in a rusty metal chair in a dim corner of the workshop. He kept turning the cheap whiskey glass on the workbench in front of him between his fingers. The liquid swirled like an amber vortex, but it wasn't enough to drown out the images in Kaelen's mind. He hadn't slept for three days. Every time he closed his eyes, that last scene, etched onto his retina, appeared: Chief Miller's chest pixelating and dissolving.
*"They said they'd bring my daughter back..."*
Miller's last words were stuck in Kaelen's ears like a broken tape. The Chief was a traitor. But in the last second, just before that damned core exploded, he had chosen to die like a hero. This contradiction burned more than the whiskey in Kaelen's stomach.
At the other end of the room, the sizzle of a welding machine was heard. Blue and white sparks flew through the air, momentarily illuminating the dark corners. Nena Volt, her face obscured by a heavy welding mask, was working on a figure lying on a platform resembling an operating table.
With a final metallic hiss, the machine fell silent. Nena lifted her mask. Her eyes were bruised purple underneath, and the soot stains on her face made her indistinguishable from a miner.
"It's done," she said, her voice hoarse with fatigue. She pulled off her gloves and tossed them onto the workbench. "You can wake him."
Kaelen rose with heavy movements, as if his joints were calcified. He put the glass down on the table and approached the operating table.
Jester was awake.
The clown stared blankly at the water stains on the ceiling and the dangling wires. His usual mocking expression had vanished from his face, replaced by an unsettling stillness. But the real change wasn't on his face.
Kaelen lowered his gaze. Jester's left leg was no longer a part of human anatomy. From just below the kneecap, flesh and bone ended, giving way to a crude, industrial, and terrifying mechanism. A skeleton sculpted from matte black metal, hydraulic pipes jammed between pistons, and exposed, faintly vibrating blue energy cables... This was not a medical prosthesis. This was a work of art crafted from salvaged parts, a Frankenstein limb.
Jester slowly lifted his head and looked at his leg. He moved his metal toes – which resembled claws.
*Click-clack. Whirrrr.*
The sound of the servos echoed in the silent workshop.
"Well, wow," Jester said. His voice was hoarse, as if the ash of data mines still clung to his throat. "I guess I won't be dancing anymore, Kaelen. Those graceful pirouettes are history." He lightly lifted his metal leg, and the pistons groaned. "But at least if I kick someone, I'll take down the building, not just the door."
A forced, bitter smile appeared on Kaelen's lips, but his eyes were icy. "Be grateful you're alive, clown. Nena pieced you back together from the data dump, from that acidic sludge. That leg is the most solid thing you have right now."
Nena came over to them, holding a heavy monkey wrench. She was rhythmically tapping the wrench against her palm. "I put him back together, but there's a problem," she said, her voice turning serious. "That explosion... it shook Jester's memory core. Some files are irrecoverably corrupted."
Jester tried to sit up. "Which files? What was I remembering anyway? My childhood is a fog, my youth white noise."
"Not the old ones," Nena said. She turned the bulky, CRT monitor on the workbench towards them. "The new ones. Or rather, the locked ones."
The complex lines of code flowing across the monitor's green phosphor screen stopped. A grainy, low-resolution image appeared on the screen. A photograph.
A young woman. Her black hair fell to her shoulders, her hazel eyes looked tired but compassionate at the camera. Her facial features bore an eerie resemblance to Jester's unmasked face. The woman was in a hospital bed, wearing a faded nightgown in 80s fashion. And she was heavily pregnant.
Jester gasped. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen. He reached out a trembling hand, and the image crackled slightly as his fingertips touched the cold glass.
"This..." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Who is this?"
"I ran a DNA analysis," Nena said, her voice possessing the cool composure of a doctor delivering a diagnosis. "I scanned the data bank with samples I took from the remains. This is your mother, Jester. Her name is **Elena Richert**."
Kaelen's brows furrowed. His detective's memory scoured dusty archive shelves. "Richert..." he murmured. "The Richert Case. 1989. Elena Richert's name was never mentioned in the files. She was only coded as 'Missing.' The file was completely empty, as if someone had torn out all the pages."
Jester buried his face in his hands. He winced with a sudden migraine, stabbing like physical pain. In the depths of his mind, a locked door was being ripped open from its hinges.
XXXALINTIXXX "The past is not a dead thing, it is not even past; it is a poison flowing in the veins of the present." — Lie Ying XXXALINTIXXX
The air in the workshop suddenly grew cold. Jester's pupils dilated, his irises once again filled with that familiar grey static. He was no longer in the workshop.
*(Flashback - Fragmented Images)*
*It's freezing here. It smells of metal. His mother's voice, muffled yet clear like a distant radio broadcast: "Don't touch him! He's just a baby! Leave us alone!"... Men in white coats, no faces, just masks... Bright, dazzling surgical lights... And Him... The Envoy. But without his mask. His face was young, smooth, his eyes dead even then. He held a scalpel. The tip of the scalpel glowed with a blue light. The Envoy leaned in, a cruel smile on his lips: "Don't worry, Elena. He won't be a child. He'll be a key."*
Jester came to with a muffled scream. His chest heaved like bellows. "I saw him!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the workshop walls. "My mother... And the Envoy! The Envoy was there! He was one of those doctors!"
Kaelen stepped forward, trying to steady Jester by gripping his shoulders. "Calm down! Did you see who the Envoy was?"
"His face was blurry, as if static interference covered it, but his voice..." Jester was trembling. "His voice was the same. That mechanical, soulless intonation. They took my mother, Kaelen. They 'created' me. I didn't become this way by accident. I'm a product. A broken toy the Syndicate put on a shelf."
Jester suddenly got off the bed. When his new metal leg touched the concrete floor, there was a heavy, dull *THUD*. He lost his balance, stumbled, but didn't fall. The metal pistons hissed, balancing his weight.
"Where are you going?" Nena asked, worriedly.
"To find answers," Jester said. The fear in his eyes was replaced by pure, distilled rage. He opened a panel on the calf of his metal leg with his fingernail. Into the hollow space inside, he hid a small, pointed knife he'd taken from the workbench, and snapped the cover shut. "My mother... If she's alive, she's in one of the Syndicate's disgusting labs. If she's dead... I'll find her grave, and I'll plant the Envoy's head on top of it."
He started to limp towards the door. With each step, the sound of metal hitting concrete was like a counter ticking down to an approaching disaster.
"You can't go alone," Kaelen said, his voice commanding. He grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the chair. "I told you to stop!"
Jester paused but didn't turn around. "Are you going to stop me, Detective? Even like this, I could pin you to the wall."
"I'm not going to stop you, you idiot," Kaelen said. He reached into his pocket. "I'm just going to prevent you from committing suicide. Chief Miller... he gave me something before he died."
Kaelen pulled a small, black memory card covered in dried blood from his pocket. There was a faint police emblem on the card. "He slipped this into my pocket at the last moment. He betrayed us, yes. But perhaps his conscience got the better of him in his last breath."
Nena snatched the card from Kaelen's hand and plugged it into the main computer. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
A colossal map appeared on the screen. This wasn't Nova-Veridia's official city plan. This was a map of the city's underground sewer system, metro tunnels, and forgotten bunkers. But hundreds, perhaps thousands, of red dots were blinking on the map.
"What are these?" Jester asked, his rage momentarily replaced by curiosity.
"These are the 'Forgotten'," Kaelen said, looking at the screen. His voice was icy. "People the Syndicate abducted, experimented on, but failed. Those exposed to anomalies and deformed, those driven mad... Chief Miller hadn't obeyed the Syndicate's order to 'eliminate' them. He had hidden them. He was keeping them underground, in an old Cold War bunker."
Jester approached the map. The red dots were like beating hearts in the city's bowels. "An army," he whispered. "Broken, wounded, furious army."
Kaelen nodded. "Like us. If we're going to attack the Syndicate, we can't do it with just two people. The Envoy's guards, those shadow entities... We can't overcome them. But if we go to that bunker and find these people..."
"We free them," Jester said, a dangerous smile appearing on his lips. "And we start the biggest carnival Nova-Veridia has ever seen."
Nena sighed deeply. She pulled a wrist-mounted device, full of complex circuits, from under the table. "Take this," she said, extending it to Jester. "This is a 'Glitch Stabilizer'. When you use your power, it slows down your body's deletion. It won't stop it completely, but it'll buy you time. I don't want to be picking up your pieces from the dump again."
Jester put the device on his wrist. "Thanks, Iron Mother." He leaned in and placed a kiss on Nena's cheek, right next to a grease stain.
Then he turned to the broken mirror in the corner of the workshop. He looked at his reflection. His tattered purple jacket, faded makeup, and now this metal leg... He looked less like a hero and more like a king of the junkyard.
He picked up a can of spray paint from the floor. He shook it. The ball rattled inside the can.
*Pssssht.*
He began to paint his metal leg purple and black. The sharp smell of thinner filled the air. Before the paint even dried, he drew a neon green, distorted, grinning face on the kneecap.
"Alright," Jester said, looking at his work. "Now it's done."
Kaelen opened the heavy iron door of the workshop. Outside, the pitch-black darkness of the underground tunnels and the distant roar of water awaited them. Wind rushed in, billowing Jester's purple jacket.
"Are you ready, partner?" Kaelen asked, checking his weapon and holstering it.
Jester struck his metal leg against the ground. *THUD.* The sound echoed like a war drum, spreading into the depths of the tunnels.
"I've been ready since I was born, Detective," Jester said. In his eyes, there was a glint of determination that suppressed the chaos of white noise. "Now let's go find my family... pardon me, my *army*."
As the two walked into the darkness, Jester's metallic footsteps were the first thunderclaps of the storm descending upon Nova-Veridia.