Scene 1
Seventeen Years of Waiting
• •
The woman's knees were on the concrete floor.
She had knelt of her own accord. No one had forced her. No hand pressed her shoulders down. And yet she held the posture, and in the eyes looking up at Ian, there was not fear but a strange heat.
Worship.
Ian knew what it was. The same gaze the citizens of the upper tier sent toward the Purification Ministers. The same light in the eyes of the devout, kneeling before a saint's icon. This was the same species.
"You came up faster than I thought."
The woman's voice was low and even. No tremor. No elevated heart rate. Ian's gaze paused briefly on the side of her neck, where the carotid artery ran. Beneath the skin, her pulse beat in steady intervals. Approximately sixty beats per minute. For someone kneeling before a heat-wreathed monster in the middle of a Sector Seven factory, the number was absurdly stable.
"Do you know who I am?"
Ian's question was not a question. It was verification. The clamp in his hand still held residual heat, and as the metal cooled it emitted a faint ticking—tick, tick—that dropped into the silent factory. Between those ticks, the uneven breathing of the eleven huddled behind him leaked through. The survivors. They were trying to silence their breath but could not fully manage it.
"I do."
The woman answered.
"CS-0042. Born seventeen years ago in Atlas Heavy Industries Production Block 7 to a pipe-worker. Mother deceased at age eight. Father deceased at age twelve. Enlisted in the lower-sector militia thereafter. Led an armed insurrection three years ago. Failed. Currently listed as deceased in the Imperial database."
The voice that recited this inventory carried no feeling. As though counting stock in a warehouse, or reading livestock numbers in a slaughterhouse, the woman laid out Ian's life.
And the strange thing was this:
Ian felt nothing.
When his mother, his father, his past were being dissected in a stranger's mouth—the things a human being should feel. Anger. Shame. At the very least, discomfort. None of it stirred beneath his sternum. It was merely information. What the woman was reciting was the résumé of a dead man, and that dead man was no longer Ian.
Instead, something else happened.
His bones ached.
What returned when the heat faded. A pain that began inside his left femur crawled down through the knee and seeped to the ankle. A wound that did not exist was throbbing. The sensation of someone dragging a thin iron skewer along the inside of the bone. What he had briefly forgotten while hearing screams on the upper tier had come back in full.
Phantom pain.
Whether that was the precise term, Ian didn't know. What he knew was that the pain was real, and that the only thing capable of erasing it was the scream of another person. Those two facts were now verified.
"Who are you?"
Ian asked. His voice was still level. The pain was gnawing at his vocal cords, but he would not let it leak. Would not permit it to.
"Maria."
The woman answered.
"I am someone who has been waiting for you."
Ian's eyebrow moved. 0.5 millimeters. No more.
Waiting.
She had known a heat-wreathed monster would climb from the upper tier, trailing blood. She had known he would be born. That was what she was claiming.
"How long?"
"Seventeen years."
The number seeped between the rusted girders of the factory.
Seventeen years. The entirety of the time Ian had spent alive in the underground. This woman was saying she had been waiting for this exact moment through all of it.
"Why?"
"Because weakness is a sin."
The woman's lips formed a smile. For the first time.
The smile traveled down Ian's spine. Not discomfort. Alertness. This woman knew his language. She was reciting the first article of the law he had written, word-perfect.
"You went up there to prove it. And you did."
Maria's head lowered slowly. Her forehead stopped at an angle just shy of touching the concrete.
"I have waited seventeen years for that proof. Your Honor."
Your Honor.
Ian rolled the words inside his mouth. Words that should have left a taste on his tongue left none. Dried blood from the upper-tier officer he had bitten into should have been crusted on his lips, yet not even the iron tang reached the tip of his tongue.
The absence of taste.
That, too, was among the things that returned. When the heat surged, he could forget. When bones melted and flesh charred and screams filled the factory, there was no room to register what his own body had lost. But when the quiet came back, it returned. The fact that nothing tasted. The fact that nothing could be felt.
"I have information."
Maria said. Head still bowed.
"Where you must go next. Who you must judge next. I know."
Ian's gaze locked on the crown of the woman's head.
Information. Next target. Next scream.
The bone-scraping pain throbbed once more, and Ian felt his fingers tighten around the clamp. Metal bit into his palm. That sensation was alive. Pain alone was alive.
"Raise your head."
Maria raised her head. Her eyes met Ian's. The worship was still there. The heart rate was still stable. She still did not fear him.
"What do you want?"
"Me?"
Maria echoed.
"I want nothing, Your Honor. I merely wish to attend. To stand beside you when you harvest the screams."
Whether it was a lie or not.
Ian did not judge. Did not need to. Whatever this woman wanted, if it was useful, he would use it. If it was not, he would discard it.
Weakness is a sin.
That law did not apply only to others. Being swayed by emotion, being tripped by doubt, delaying a decision—all of it was weakness. And Ian was no longer weak.
"Stand."
Maria stood. She did not brush the concrete dust from her knees.
"The information you have. All of it."
Ian's voice was a command. And while that command echoed through the factory, the eleven sets of breathing behind him missed a beat.
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Scene 2
The Severed Line
• •
One of the eleven breaths broke loose first.
"Ian."
A cracked voice. A middle-aged man's. Ian did not turn. He didn't need to check. He knew the voice's owner. Viktor. The man who had held the left flank during the insurrection three years ago. The only one among the surviving eleven who could call Ian by name.
"Cal…"
Viktor's voice cracked again. Behind Ian, something dragged along the floor. The sound of someone crawling on their knees. Viktor was approaching.
"Cal and Eli. They've been taken."
Ian's fingers stopped.
Cal. The one who had fled. The one who had vanished with the child while Ian was on the upper tier.
Eli. Eight years old. The only child among the remnants. The one Cal had taken.
"Imperial informants. They came at dawn. While we were hiding, Cal went outside and…"
Viktor's voice dissolved into a sob. Wet air pushed against Ian's back. The smell of tears and mucus mixed. The smell of fear and guilt left to rot.
"It's our fault. We should've stopped him. Cal was out of his mind—saying you abandoned us, saying you'd become a monster, saying we had to run…"
Ian was not looking at Viktor.
Instead, he looked inward.
Cal. A man he had fought beside. A man he had entrusted his back to. Three years ago, inside the Purification Corps' encirclement, they had bled into each other's hands.
Eli. Two years ago, Ian had carried the child on his own back after finding her collapsed from hunger. Small fingers clutching the hem of his sleeve as she fell asleep.
The memories were there.
The images were vivid.
And yet.
Nothing stirred beneath his sternum.
Ian confirmed it. Slowly. Precisely. As though pressing a hand to the center of his chest, he searched the interior. The place where rage should have risen. The place where guilt should have surfaced. The place where at least urgency, or desperation, or the compulsion to act should have erupted.
Empty.
Not cold. Not hot. Simply absent.
The Ian of three years ago would have been different. That Ian would have bolted before Viktor finished speaking. Would have cursed Cal and worried about Eli and drawn up a rescue plan and wagered his own life. Because they were comrades. Because they were family.
But now.
Ian rolled the words inside his mouth.
Comrade. Family. Responsibility.
No taste.
Rolled across his tongue, chewed between his teeth, the words were hollow sound. Dead language. Characters of an ancient script no longer in use—meaning understood, but reality unfelt.
"…Ian?"
Viktor's voice shook. Ian's non-response was frightening him further. Ian knew without turning. Viktor's accelerating heartbeat was spreading through the air.
"Are you listening? Cal and Eli have been taken. By Imperial informants. We don't know where they've been moved. We—we need to do something—"
"What."
Ian said.
One word.
Viktor's breathing stopped.
"What should we do?"
Ian turned slowly. Viktor came into view. Still on his knees, in the posture he'd crawled in, face smeared with tears and grime, a middle-aged man looking up at Ian. Behind him, ten shapes were huddled. All with heads bowed. All avoiding Ian's gaze.
"Their decision to flee was their own."
Ian's voice was level.
"Their capture is their consequence."
Viktor's mouth fell open. A mouth with no words. Eyes of disbelief. Ian read the expression. Precisely.
"You—you can't say that—"
"It is fact."
Ian said.
"The weak disappear. That is the law of this world. I did not create it. I merely acknowledged it."
Another tear ran from Viktor's eye. This one was not grief. It was terror. Ian made the distinction precisely.
"You…"
Viktor's lips trembled.
"You really have become a monster?"
Monster.
The same word Cal had reportedly used. Ian rolled this one too.
No taste.
Monster or not, it was irrelevant. What mattered was only one thing. The pain gnawing at the inside of his bones was, at this very moment, descending from his left femur to his knee. And the only thing that could stop it was another person's scream.
Cal's scream? Eli's scream?
Would those relieve his pain?
Ian considered it. Without emotion. As calculation. Whether a comrade's scream and an enemy's scream produced the same effect, or whether there was a difference. An untested variable.
But one that did not need testing right now.
"Maria."
Maria bowed her head.
"The informants. Can you access the Imperial database?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
Maria's answer was immediate.
"All Imperial records are stored in the Central Data Hub. Informant activity logs, transport routes, detention facility locations. Everything."
"Including Cal and Eli's location?"
"Verifiable. It will take some time."
Ian nodded.
The motion carried no feeling. No resolve to rescue. No cold intent to abandon. Merely the verification of information. The assessment of possibility. Nothing more.
Viktor's voice surged with hope.
"Then—then you're going to save them? Ian, if you go—"
"I don't know."
Ian said.
"Whether I go or not. I don't know yet."
Viktor's face froze.
"Wh—?"
"If there are more efficient screams where they're being held, I'll go."
Ian's gaze passed through Viktor. Did not see him. Did not see the ten shapes behind him. It was fixed on somewhere, on empty air where no one stood.
"If not, I won't."
A moan leaked from Viktor's mouth.
It was not a scream. It was despair. The kind of sound that could not relieve Ian's pain.
Ian confirmed this, and turned his gaze back to Maria.
"The information. Tell me."
The phantom pain throbbed once more. Left knee to ankle. The sensation of a nonexistent wound being torn to shreds. Ian's teeth grazed each other. Soundlessly. Expressionlessly. Only the pain was alive and moving inside him.
"Where is the next scream?"
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Scene 3
The Four-Hour Shortcut
• •
Maria's lips parted.
"The Data Rat."
Ian's eyebrow shifted. 0.3 millimeters.
"A parasite living inside the Empire's Central Data Hub. Lower-tier origin. His real name has been incinerated. In the Imperial database, he's a ghost who doesn't exist."
Maria took one step closer. Ian did not retreat. He confirmed through the tremor of her carotid artery that her heart rate still held at sixty.
"You need him, Your Honor."
"Why?"
"Because a scream only matters if it's heard."
A flash of something crossed Maria's eyes. Not worship. A different species. Sharper. More calculated.
"Twelve men from the Purification Corps melted on the upper tier. But no one knows. The Empire buried it. Bodies incinerated. Records deleted. Witnesses purified."
Ian's fingers trembled around the clamp. The phantom pain. Boring from knee to ankle.
"Your screams are trapped in Sector Seven. The Empire's citizens hear nothing. They're still breathing lavender, sleeping in peace."
Maria's voice dropped.
"Does that satisfy you?"
Ian did not answer.
Instead he looked inward. To identify what Maria's words had touched. Anger? No. Shame? No.
Desire.
That was it.
The screams had to be heard. The screams he harvested had to tear through the upper tier's lavender. The Empire's citizens had to realize how thin the membrane was beneath their peace. Only then would it mean something. Only then would there be a reason to endure the pain.
"Where is the Data Rat?"
Maria's mouth curved.
"The Central Processing District. Directly below the Empire's heart, nested inside a labyrinth where sewage lines and data cables are tangled together."
"Distance."
"Six hours on foot from Sector Seven. Twelve if you avoid the Purification Corps' patrol routes."
Ian's teeth grazed.
Twelve hours.
Twelve hours of the phantom pain eating him alive. The iron skewer scraping the inside of his bones for twelve unbroken hours. Without screams. Without anesthetic.
"A faster route?"
"There is."
Maria answered.
"But there are screams on that route."
Ian's eyes locked onto Maria.
"Purification Corps Outpost Three. Sitting on the shortcut to the Central Processing District. Twenty-six personnel. Heavy armament."
Maria's voice dropped to near-whisper.
"Pass through them, and it's four hours."
Four hours.
Twenty-six screams.
The phantom pain throbbed once more in his left femur. The sensation of a wound that didn't exist ripping open. The pressure of something trying to claw its way out from inside the bone.
And.
Heat bloomed at his fingertips.
Faint. Not yet fully formed. The air around the fingers gripping the clamp shimmered. But it was a beginning. The body remembered. That heat surged when it moved toward screams. That pain was briefly forgotten when the hunt began.
"Outpost Three."
Ian said.
"Lead the way."
Maria knelt. Again. Her forehead touched the concrete.
"It is an honor, Your Honor."
Behind him, Viktor's moan reached his ears. Small and wet. The sound of despair leaking from a throat. Ian did not turn. He felt the eleven sets of breathing trembling with fear at his back, but those breaths no longer belonged to his world.
"Stand."
Maria stood.
"Let's go."
Ian's foot moved.
One step.
The phantom pain lanced through his entire left leg. His knee threatened to buckle. It didn't. The heat stopped it. The heat that had bloomed at his fingertips traveled up his arm to his shoulder, down his spine to his leg, pressing the pain down.
Not fully. Not yet.
But soon. Soon, twenty-six screams would ring.
Second step.
Ian's lips parted. Not a word. A breath. Rough air hissing between teeth. No taste in his mouth. No blood-iron, no brine, nothing. But it didn't matter. Taste was unnecessary. Only one thing was needed.
Screams.
Third step.
Maria went ahead. Her back disappeared into the darkness. Ian followed. The rusted door of the factory groaned open.
Behind him, Viktor's voice.
"Ian…!"
Ian did not stop.
"Please…!"
Did not stop.
The iron door shut.
Eleven sets of breathing were sealed away.
In the dark, Maria's voice echoed.
"This way, Your Honor."
Ian's heat split the darkness.