Eric blinked awake slowly and pinched himself again to make sure he wasn't dreaming — or to jolt himself out of this nightmare. His arms and legs and feet still ached from the strain, but the pain had eased. He pushed himself up, propped his back against the wall for a moment, then sat and packed the bag he'd been using as a pillow. He checked his supplies. Only a few rations left. It was bad, but at least he still had the coins he'd stolen from the corpse.
Coins meant commerce — people used money here — which meant there might be a shop.
Right now he wanted something decent to eat: bread, sausage — anything better than the ration cakes. But first he needed a safer place to rest, somewhere he could settle for a while. He wasn't sure if any of that existed in this district.
He checked his ammo. Forty-one rounds left in the rifle's magazines — not a lot. The pistol had a little over thirty rounds. He wasn't planning a war; it might be enough.
Eric moved out of the alley into the dim street, passing the corpse of the man he'd killed before he'd slept. He picked his way through narrow lanes carefully and got turned around a few times — he still didn't know the layout — but eventually he emerged into an open area that surprised him.
He'd come out between rows of metal-clad buildings. It looked like a crowded quarter, except the buildings weren't brick but dull gray metal. Scattered street lamps gave a weak glow. It was the biggest slum he'd ever seen, and the smell wasn't much better than what he'd left below — only the decay here was less extreme. People moved about, but not in a dense crush; something about the scene made him hesitate — he couldn't quite put it into words.
Most of the people here looked slightly better off than those below, but you could still see the toll of pollution, long hours, and other hard lives. Eric kept his hood up and a cloth over his face, rifle slung across his back and a hand resting on the pistol in his pocket as he tried to walk without drawing attention. As he went he noticed signs of trouble everywhere: people passed out in the streets, symptoms like heavy drug use, people who looked enslaved, brothels. He even spotted a body that had been fused to a triangular tracked base — a human's torso grafted onto machine treads, eyes and an arm replaced with crude robotics, a broken servitor abandoned at the curb and uncared for. Gross. Like something ripped from a cyberpunk nightmare. This place was getting stranger by the minute.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire erupted somewhere hundreds of meters away, like a scene out of Mad Max — people fighting with guns and improvised weapons. Eric rubbed his eyes. Where the hell was he? Half-robot people, Mad Max-style fights — this was getting out of hand.
He forced himself to breathe slowly and ignore the chaos. He needed supplies, shelter, anything to improve his chances of surviving — or, ideally, a way out. When he spotted a shopfront or something like it, he didn't hesitate and walked straight in.
_____________________________________________
About a week later.
The clang of metal never stopped in the old factory, where the air always smelled of oil and gunpowder.
Eric — or the person who now wore his face — stood in front of a huge shell-press that thudded with a steady, hypnotic rhythm. The machines were old enough that parts of them were rusted, but steam pipes above kept them running. Spent brass casings lay in heaps on the floor; the scrape of metal and the clatter of machinery made his stomach turn.
Under the stifling heat and chemical sting, everyone here wore heavy protective suits and large respirator masks. Eric wore his as well; the full-face mask and dust goggles caught the orange flicker of the overhead lamps. He was grateful for it — more than annoyed — because it hid everything he didn't want anyone to see.
The suit wasn't comfortable. Sweat soaked him through and made him miserable, but the alternative was worse. Why the factory didn't have better ventilation was beyond him.
His hands moved in a practiced rhythm: pick up an empty casing, feed it into the slot, pull the lever, check the finished round, stack it in a wooden crate. He hated this work. He hadn't gone to college to end up in a dim, noisy munitions plant. Yet he was luckier than most here: there was work to do. The pay was small — they were making ammunition for local gangs — but it kept him alive for another day. Fate had also opened a position when a worker disappeared and was later found dead and apparently sexually assaulted in the street, leaving a vacancy that Eric had taken.
Announcements crackled over the system in a language he was beginning to pick out: orders about "new lot" and "don't drop them." He didn't understand everything, but he understood enough: don't make mistakes. This was not a city company with benefits and understanding supervisors. People who screwed up tended to disappear without anyone asking questions.
Vibrations from the press ran up his arms. He shrugged and flexed his wrists to loosen the ache. He was getting used to this body. At first the shifted center of gravity had felt foreign and awkward, but now his slim hands and arms moved with steady efficiency. The chest that had distracted him when bending or reaching now barely registered — his body had adjusted to the heavy work.
He glanced at the two workers beside him, muffled voices and laughter leaking out from behind their masks. Under the flickering lights they were anonymous labor — nameless hands in a room full of machinery that swallowed conversation.
He pulled the lever again — crack — and stacked another ten loaded shells into a crate. He paused only briefly, glancing up at the faint light slipping through a ventilation shaft. And finally, the moment he had been waiting for — in whatever world this was — came: the end of his shift.
The factory whistle screamed and vibrations rippled through the metal floor like a bone-deep tremor. Machines that had been roaring eased one by one into clicks, then into the tired exhale of pressure pipes letting off steam.
Eric set the final crate down and, using the back of his hand, wiped sweat from his mask (though the sweat was actually inside, steaming and sticky). "Finally… I'm exhausted," he mumbled, his voice muffled and hollow through the respirator.
Workers peeled off oily gloves and sighed until mist fogged the filters on their masks. Tools clattered as they were set down. Eric threaded his way through the flow of people leaving via the main gate. He disliked jostling, especially now in a body that felt exposed; even a light touch made him uncomfortable in a way it hadn't before.
At the wash corner he removed his gloves and revealed pale hands streaked with soot and powder. He turned an old, leaky tap and rinsed them, staring at hairline cracks in the concrete wall while thoughts wandered. He'd grown accustomed to the smells of oil and hot metal — whether he liked them or only accepted them, he couldn't say.
Outside the factory the whistle blew again — not for starting work, but to mark the evening shift's beginning. Life in the Hive never paused. Eric lifted his face under a ceiling of metal and weak lamps; there was no sky to see, only a dim false light that always seemed moments from dying. He breathed in, turned, and began the walk back to the place he called home, hand ready at his pistol.
His route took him down a run-down street where the lamps flickered and buildings wore soot and gothic flourishes. People moved about as they always did: the homeless slept in doorways, local gangs negotiated with shopkeepers — clearly collecting protection money. The distant gunfire from gang fights was a recurring, baffling ritual: fights broke out near quitting time, lasted an hour, then resumed again the following day. He didn't understand the point, but it was part of life here.
What bothered him most was how often the shooting happened during his commutes. He was glad the gangs generally ignored him, but stray bullets were a constant worry.
He passed a church that had been modified with darker iconography — black skulls and gloom mixed into otherwise familiar Christian ornament. Symbols like lilies and roses still appeared occasionally, and a golden, armored statue holding a burning sword and a clawed gauntlet stood in a niche. Faint chanting leaked out; from what he knew, most people here worshipped the Emperor as a quasi-religious figure. Fortunately, the priests didn't yet have the power to turn the area into a theocratic nightmare — areas where the clergy ruled tended to resemble the medieval past, and he'd seen people burned on stakes a few days earlier. Eric hurried past the church and ducked into a shop three blocks down.
A narrow little shop revealed itself behind the counter. Most of the goods were cans and bars of corpse starch, other packaged foods, bottled water, a few items of clothing, medicines, sanitary pads, and a number of guns and rounds. Behind the counter stood a pale woman with blond hair, wearing a red top and a white work apron. One of her eyes was green and the other was a bright blue optical lens; one arm was mechanical and roughly three-quarters of her face looked metallic. She was the first person Eric had spoken to properly since he'd arrived — a strange, cyberpunk-ish woman, though nothing here looked particularly high-tech. She was repairing a prosthetic hand as Eric greeted her the way he usually did.
"Hello, Magda. The usual — a corpse-starch bar and a bottle of water, please," Eric said in a familiar tone as he pulled off his gas mask, revealing his face. He looked a little better than before: he had enough water and food for now, the dark circles under his eyes had faded slightly, though he still looked exhausted. His white hair was a little messy and greasy. Magda paused for a moment, then spoke without looking up from the prosthetic hand she was fixing.
"Same as always, little miss. Erica — you're doing well, surviving here for about a week, all things considered," Magda said flatly, her voice showing no particular emotion.
Eric frowned. He wasn't from "upstairs" — he just looked like them.
"It's the same as always. And seriously, Magda, I'm not from upstairs. I can't tell anyone where I came from — it's not safe," Eric tried to deflect. Who would believe he'd come from the 2020s? Dodging the subject made things smoother and kept him safe.
"Some secrets are better left unsaid, kid," Magda said. "Here — three units." She rose, moved to the shelf, and grabbed the starch bars and a bottle of water, setting them on the counter. Eric took a coin from his pocket and handed it over.
"So how was work today, kid? I hope pretty girls like you aren't working in the brothels," Magda joked as she took the coin.
Eric clenched his jaw and puffed his cheeks in annoyance. He knew she was teasing, but the comment still irked him. Why did people keep talking to him like that?
"Look at me, Magda. I'm in this suit. I work in a factory. I'm not in any brothel. This is factory work," Eric replied, annoyed, and pointed to his heavy brown coveralls and gas mask. Then he tucked the starch bars and water back into his backpack.
"I didn't mean to offend, little one… be careful out there. Don't vanish mysteriously, and don't end up a corpse dumped in the street. This place is dangerous — especially for pretty ones like you," Magda warned as she sat down again and continued repairing the prosthetic. Eric exhaled. At least someone seemed to care, or at least to pretend to care.
"Thanks for worrying. May the Emperor or the Omnissiah watch over you," Eric said, using the local blessing people often spoke. It felt strange, this quasi-religion of machine worship, but in this place anything could be true.
"You too. Be safe," Magda nodded. Eric pulled his gas mask back on and left the shop.
He walked through alleys until he reached a building where he now lived alone — a place set a little away from the busy center, so fewer people disturbed him. He'd gotten the room a week ago. The rules here were informal: if a room was unused and nobody claimed it, anyone could move in — so long as they paid water and electricity to the gangs. Those fees were steep.
He climbed the stairs to a single room where the water and power still functioned. When he unlocked the door and stepped inside, he found a shabby gray room, ten by ten meters: a single window, an empty bed frame, a chair, a hanging rail with a few clothes, and one box. There was a small bathroom — one he rarely used because water was outrageously expensive, even though he badly wanted a proper wash.
Eric flipped the light switch and set his bag down gently on the cot. He took off his gas mask and hung it on a hook. He breathed in deeply with relief — he no longer had to breathe through that stale filter, not for a little while at least. He began to strip off his heavy coveralls and hung them on the iron peg in the wall. The sweat and stale smell clung to the clothes; on the outside they looked dry enough, but the inside was soaked with his own sweat. He took off another layer and hung it beside the first, until only a thin undershirt and shorts remained, clinging to him from the heat. It felt strange to be like this — oddly exposed.
Next came the thing that made him most uncomfortable. Eric removed the undershirt and unwrapped the cloth he'd been using to bind his chest — a temporary measure until he could afford a bra. The binding had kept his chest from bouncing while he climbed or worked, but it had been tight and irritating. He untied the knot carefully and eased the cloth down. For a moment he felt the two lumps of flesh free of the binding; then he folded the cloth and set it on the chair before putting the undershirt back on. He felt a real sense of relief without the tight wrap.
He felt oddly embarrassed to be half-naked, even though he was alone.
More comfortable now, he grabbed a towel from the hook and collapsed onto the cot, exhausted from the day's labor. He wiped sweat from his forehead, neck, chest and thighs with the towel — a surprisingly odd feeling when he wiped his inner thighs, a small discomfort he couldn't quite explain. He tossed the towel aside, pulled his pack up onto his stomach, and took a swig of water. He put the bottle back, reached for his gun propped against the wall, removed the magazine to count the rounds, racked the slide to chamber a round, and hugged the weapon like a bolster while he thought over everything he'd learned in the past seven days.
For someone in this place, he'd gathered a lot of useful information — and most of it was bad, or at least insane.
First, he was in the far future. The date he'd pieced together: the 265th year of the 986th millennium of the 41st millennium. In other words: a ridiculously distant future. He'd crossed time after being hit by a car? How did that even make sense? He'd expected some otherworldly portal like in cartoons — something sleek and high-tech — not an industrial, medieval-feeling slum. Still, seeing Magda with cybernetic equipment made the future explanation at least plausible.
Second, he was not on Earth. He was on the planet Opel III, on the eastern fringe of the Sacmentum Ultima system, far from Terra, the holy world people talked about.
(For anyone who doesn't know: Sacmentum Ultima is the Imperium's largest region, overseen by Ultramarines and other Space Marine chapters. It's infamous for extreme threats — Chaos, xenos, and more — and the eastern flank is especially violent, with heavy activity from Chaos, Orks, Tau, Tyranids, Necrons, and others.)
Third: the Imperium of Man. Eric thought it sounded like the biggest boast he'd ever heard — a human empire that controls most of the galaxy — but judging from some of the technology around him, it might actually exist.
Fourth: the place he's living in now is called a Hive City — a gargantuan, sky-piercing metropolis or massive slum, packed with people, arms, machines, and all the infrastructure that pays tribute and taxes to the Imperium.
Three noble houses effectively run this Hive: House Korvax, House Malvernis, and House Thalric. These three families have been political rivals for centuries—perhaps millennia—constantly competing and trying to undermine one another. They also sponsor the major gangs in the lower hive and wage proxy wars through their pawns.
All of that politics felt distant to Eric; he didn't care much about those rivalries. Right now his concern was simple survival — finding a better life and, if possible, getting out. That was very difficult. He'd been dumped in the lower hive, almost the lowest tier: law barely existed, pollution was extreme, and his escape options were slim. One realistic route out might be to enlist in the Imperial Guard.
But the immediate priority was staying alive long enough to consider that option. Worrying too much would only steal the rest he needed, so Eric decided to sleep.
First, though, he had to get up and switch off the light — otherwise he'd be stuck paying a ridiculously high electricity bill.