The air in Sub-Sector 88 didn't just smell like decay; it tasted like it. It was a thick, metallic soup of recycled oxygen, aerosolized grease, and the pheromones of three million desperate souls packed into a rotating tin can called The Ring.
Kaelen Voss pressed his back against a weeping coolant pipe, ignoring the heat searing through his synth-leather jacket. Below him, the mag-lev rails shrieked as a transport hummed toward the Upper Tiers—the "Azure Levels"—where the air supposedly tasted like real pine needles and the sunlight wasn't filtered through a thousand layers of radiation shielding.
"Keep your head down, Kael," a voice crackled in his ear.
It was Jax, his technical eye-in-the-sky, broadcasting from a cramped basement three levels up. "Hegemony patrols just cleared the East Gate. You've got a four-minute window before the sweep-drones cycle back."
"Four minutes is plenty," Kael muttered. He adjusted his goggles, the digital readout flickering in a sickly amber hue.
He was staring at the carcass of a Scavenger-Class Hauler that had clipped a bulkhead and tumbled into the "Gut"—the maintenance abyss between the station's outer hull and the residential zones. The wreck was still steaming. Most of the valuable tech had been stripped within minutes by the local gangs, but they were looking for power cells and ration kits. They weren't looking for what Kael's sensor was currently screaming about.
Kael slid down a heap of scrap metal, his boots clattering against rusted plating. He reached the Hauler's cockpit, which had been sheared open like a sardine can. Inside, the pilot was a mess of bio-matter and shattered glass, but Kael's focus was on the flight console. Or rather, what was lodged behind it.
He reached into the jagged wreckage, his fingers brushing against something cold and unnervingly smooth. It wasn't the standard carbon-fiber of a flight recorder. It was obsidian. As his skin made contact, a sharp, electric sting shot up his arm, making his teeth ache.
"I've got it," Kael said, pulling the object free.
It was a drive, but unlike any he'd seen in his ten years of scavenging. It was a perfect rectangular prism of black glass, seemingly absorbing the dim neon light of the sector. It didn't just vibrate; it thrummed, a low-frequency pulse that synchronized with his own heartbeat.
"Kael, move!" Jax's voice lost its cool. "The sweep-drones skipped the cycle. They're locking onto your thermal signature. Fifty meters and closing!"
Kael shoved the drive into his inner pocket. He scrambled up the scrap heap, but the light hit him before he reached the top. A blinding, clinical white spotlight washed over the wreckage.
"Unidentified inhabitant, remain stationary," a mechanical voice boomed, amplified to a deafening volume. "You are in violation of Hegemony Scrap Ordinances. Submit for biometric scanning."
High above, a Sentinel-class drone hovered, its quad-rotors whining as it repositioned. Its underbelly glowed red—the universal sign for a weapon system warming up.
Kael didn't submit. He vaulted over a jagged beam and sprinted toward the narrow maintenance crawlspace that led back to the residential blocks.
Zip-crack!
A bolt of ionized plasma slammed into the metal inches from his heel, melting the steel into a glowing puddle. The smell of ozone filled his nose.
"They're using lethal, Jax! For a scrap violation?" Kael yelled, lunging into the crawlspace.
"That's not a standard patrol, Kael! I'm looking at their signatures—those are Black-Ops tags. They aren't trying to arrest you; they're trying to erase you!"
Kael scrambled through the dark, cramped tunnel, the obsidian drive burning against his chest. He could hear the drones screeching outside, trying to find an angle for a second shot. He pushed through a rusted ventilation grate and tumbled out onto a crowded walkway in the Sub-Sector slums.
The crowd was a blur of neon mohawks, tattered ponchos, and cybernetic limbs. Kael blended in, pulling his hood up and keeping his head low. He forced himself to walk, not run. His heart was hammering against his ribs, mimicking the steady thump-thump of the drive in his pocket.
"Get to the safehouse," Jax whispered. "I'm wiping the localized camera feeds, but I can't hold them forever. Someone really wants that piece of glass you're carrying."
Kael turned a corner, passing a noodle stall where the steam smelled like synthetic shrimp. He looked down at his hand. The electric sting from earlier had left a faint, glowing mark on his fingertips—a series of gold, geometric lines that looked like a circuit board etched into his skin.
He didn't know what he had found, but he knew the world he had woken up in that morning was gone. The Ring felt smaller now, like a cage that was rapidly running out of air.
He ducked into the shadows of the "Rust Bucket" docking bay, unaware that three levels above, a man in a pristine white suit was watching his thermal silhouette on a holographic screen.
"Subject 402 has the Echo," the man said into a comms-link. "Authorize the Seekers. Leave no witnesses in Sub-Sector 88."