Chapter 155: Ghosts of the Past
The sleek, autonomous taxi hummed to a silent stop outside the Zenith Vista residence. Its matte-black surface reflected the neon glow of Nova Lumina like a dark mirror. The door slid open with a whisper, and Moon and Kai stepped out into the cool night air.
"Where to?" the AI's voice was a neutral, synthetic chime.
"The main inter-sector teleportation hub," Kai replied, his voice flat. He didn't look back at the house.
Moon slid in beside him, his frame folding into the plush seating. The door sealed shut, and the vehicle accelerated smoothly, joining the river of light in the sky-lane. The silence inside was heavy, broken only by the faint whisper of the propulsion system.
After a few minutes, Moon spoke, his gaze fixed on the passing cityscape. "We could have taken the Sky-Rail. It's cheaper."
Kai didn't turn. "I'm not in the mood for crowds," he said, the simple statement carrying the weight of their shared trauma. The thought of being surrounded by cheerful, normal people going about their lives was unbearable. The taxi's isolation was a necessary buffer.
Moon grunted in acknowledgment, a sound that meant he understood completely. They rode the rest of the way in a silence that was more communicative than any words could be.
---
The Nova Lumina Central Teleportation Hub was a cathedral of technology. Soaring arches of reinforced transparisteel formed a vast dome, under which hundreds of teleportation pads shimmered with contained energy. Holographic destination boards flickered with data, listing sectors, cities, and even off-world colonies. The air hummed with a low-frequency vibration, the sound of spacetime being meticulously folded. People moved with purpose through the brightly lit concourse, their footsteps echoing on polished floors that seemed to be made of solidified light.
Kai walked with a detached efficiency, his eyes scanning the boards without truly seeing them. Moon followed, a brooding shadow in his wake. They approached a vacant console. Kai's fingers danced across the holographic interface with practiced speed.
"Destination?" a calm, automated voice prompted.
"Outer District 7. Slums Boundary Access Point," Kai stated.
The system processed the request. "Authorization confirmed. Kai. Moon. Proceed to Pad 7-Gamma."
They walked to the designated pad, a wide, circular platform marked with glowing runes. Other travelers gave them a wide berth, perhaps sensing the aura of devastation that clung to them. As they stepped onto the pad, a clear energy field rose around them, isolating them from the sounds of the hub.
"Teleportation sequence initiated. Stand by," the voice intoned.
The world dissolved into a blinding, pure white light. It was a sensation of being unmade and remade in an instant, a momentary loss of all physical form. There was no sound, no gravity, only existence as pure data stream.
---
On the other side, the white light receded as quickly as it had come. The pristine, climate-controlled air of the hub was replaced by a different atmosphere altogether.
They stood on a identical teleportation pad, but the chamber around it was starkly utilitarian. The walls were unpainted dura-crete, scarred with years of use. The light came from flickering overhead lumo-panels, some of which were dark. The air was thick with the smells of ozone, rust, and the distant, unmistakable scent of decay and overcrowding—the smell of the slums.
The holographic sign above their pad glowed a faint, tired blue: Sector 7-G: Slums Perimeter Transfer Station. Nova Lumina Municipal Authority. Have a Safe Day.
The advanced future had ended the moment they stepped off the pad. They had arrived at the edge of the past.
The transition from the teleporter's sterile hum to the slums' chaotic symphony was jarring. The air, thick and heavy, carried a cacophony of distant shouts, the whir of outdated machinery, and the low, constant thrum of millions living on top of one another. Flickering holographic ads for cheap synth-noodle bars and back-alley cybernetics cast a sickly glow on the rain-slicked streets.
They didn't speak. They simply walked, two solitary figures moving with a shared, heavy purpose through the bustling, grimy thoroughfares. After a few blocks, Moon lifted a hand, and a beat-up ground-taxi, its hover-pads sputtering, veered towards them. The door creaked open manually.
The driver, a man with a weary face and a worn data-ports tattoo on his neck, glanced at them in the rearview mirror. "Where to?" he asked, his voice raspy.
Kai's answer was a soft, hollow whisper. "The graveyard. The one near the slums."
The driver's eyes narrowed slightly, a flicker of surprise and something else—pity, perhaps—crossing his features. People who lived here didn't often take taxis to visit the dead; they walked. These two, with their clean clothes and haunted, faraway eyes, were different. Outsiders. Or ghosts themselves.
He simply grunted, "Alright," and the taxi lurched forward.
The five-minute ride was silent, the only sound the sputtering of the engine and the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of the taxi crossing the uneven permacrete. Soon, the crowded, ramshackle buildings gave way to a vast, open field surrounded by a rusted, low fence. The Neo-Lumina Memorial Grounds. It was a place for the forgotten, where graves were simple metal plaques set into the ground, illuminated only by the pale, washed-out light of the planetoid high above.
The taxi hovered to a stop. Kai transferred 300 credits. The driver nodded, the transaction complete without a word. The taxi pulled away, its sound fading into the distance, leaving them in a silence that was profound and heavy.
For a long moment, they just stood at the entrance, looking out over the sea of silent, identical plaques. The scale of it was overwhelming. So many stories. So many lives that ended here, in the shadows of the glittering city. The weight of it all, the weight of their own shattered history, pressed down on them.
Then, it came. A single, hot tear traced a path through the grime on Moon's cheek, catching the dim light. He didn't make a sound. A moment later, Kai's own composure broke. His shoulders trembled once, and a quiet, choked sob escaped his lips before he could stifle it. The tears came then, not in dramatic wails, but in a silent, steady stream that spoke of a pain too deep for sound.
Without a word, as if pulled by an invisible string, they began to walk. Their steps were slow, deliberate, their boots crunching softly on the gravel path. They moved through the endless rows, past names and dates that meant nothing to them, their eyes scanning, searching for the one anchor they had left in this world.
And then, they found it.
There, nestled between dozens of others, was a simple, unadorned metal plaque, slightly rusted at the edges. The name etched into it was a stark, unflinching truth in the twilight.
ANATOLY PAVLOV
They stopped. The world narrowed to that single, rectangular piece of metal. The man who had found two scrawny, feral boys in the gutter. The man who had taught Kai how to read the subtle tells in a merchant's eyes.
They stood before his grave, two broken sons returned to the only man who had never betrayed them, the silence screaming louder than any confession ever could.
Kai didn't speak. He didn't kneel. He simply walked to the side of the simple metal plaque and sank to the ground, his back against the cool, rust-speckled surface of Anatoly's grave. It was a gesture of utter exhaustion, of a child finally coming home after being lost for too long. And then, the tears came. They fell not in delicate drops, but in a relentless, silent torrent, carving paths through the grime and emotional residue on his face. His chest hitched, his shoulders trembled, but he made no sound. It was a silent cry, a vacuum of noise that was somehow louder and more devastating than the most agonized scream.
Moon watched for a moment, his own heart a tight, painful knot in his chest. He felt the sting in his own eyes, the pressure building behind them, begging for release. But he swallowed it down. He had to. If both of them shattered at once, who would be left to pick up the pieces? For years, it had been Kai—the strategist, the planner—who had been their rock whenever Moon's fiery emotions threatened to burn them down. Today, the roles were reversed. Today, it was Moon's turn to be the unyielding ground upon which his brother could finally break. He moved slowly and sat down beside Kai, their shoulders touching, a silent promise of his presence.
Eventually, Kai's tears ran dry. His eyes, red-raw and empty, stared up at the sky. The light pollution from Nova Lumina washed out the stars, leaving only a dull, orange-grey haze. But Kai saw past it. In his mind's eye, he saw the infinite cosmos—the swirling galaxies, the burning stars, the cold, dead planets. The universe was so vast, and he felt so infinitesimally small and broken within it.
"What a loser I am," he whispered, the words barely audible. He pulled a bottle of cheap, bitter beer from his storage ring, uncapped it with a flick of his thumb, and took a long, draining swallow. It wasn't for pleasure; it was an anesthetic.
Moon said nothing. He didn't offer empty platitudes or try to fix what was broken. He simply sat, a solid, warm presence in the chilling night. His silence was his support, screaming louder than any words ever could: You have not lost everyone. I am here. From our first breath to our last, I am with you.
Kai leaned his head back against the grave, the metal cold against his scalp. He closed his eyes, speaking to the memory in the earth.
"Uncle... when you were taking care of us, life felt... simple. It was hard. We were always hungry. We got bullied. We worked our hands raw for eighteen hours a day just to afford a patch of floor to sleep on." A faint, ghost of a smile touched his cracked lips. "But there was a peace in it. A purpose. You were the purpose. After you died... I've never been able to find that peace again. I just... pretended."
A memory, sharp and painful, flashed behind both their eyelids. A younger Moon, his body wracked with sobs, kneeling in this very spot. A younger Kai, his own small face a mask of stoic pain, standing behind him, a hand on his shoulder—the silent supporter even in his own grief. And before them, being lowered into the ground, the emaciated body of the old man who had saved them, his skin stretched taut over his skeleton, a final, brutal testament to a life of hardship.
Kai returned to the present. After all these years of being the mature one, the strong one, the unshakeable one, the weight of that performance had finally, irrevocably, cracked his foundation. But now, Moon was strong enough to hold him up.
It was then that Kai's personal comm device buzzed, its cheerful ringtone a violent intrusion in the sacred silence. The screen lit up.
A message from an unknown, encrypted source.
Go to Elora city. Join Mountbatten Bank and win their trust. 😎☠️👺
– Rivan
A wave of pure, incandescent rage surged through Kai so potent he almost crushed the device in his hand. The sheer audacity, the mocking emojis, the reminder that even in this moment of absolute vulnerability, the puppet master was still pulling the strings. He took a sharp, shuddering breath, his knuckles white. But then, he let the breath out slowly. The fight was gone. The anger was a luxury he could no longer afford. He had nothing left to give.
He let the device fall from his hand into the dirt. The emotional storm, Rivan's taunt, the weight of a lifetime of grief—it had all finally overwhelmed his systems. The world faded to a merciful black as sleep, a temporary death, took him into its embrace. Seeing his brother succumb, Moon finally allowed his own eyelids to grow heavy. Leaning his head against Kai's shoulder, he too surrendered to the darkness, two broken sons finding a fleeting peace in the shadow of their (foster) father's grave.
To be continued…