Christopher's hands shook as he pushed another pair of Adnorm capsules past his lips.
They clattered down his throat like stones.
They barely hit his stomach before the visions started again—shards of color, phantom limbs, voices that weren't voices.
His breath stuttered.
His mind wasn't his mind anymore.
Mac Erbinger's dying flesh felt like a prison cell made of bone and fever.
Christopher staggered to his feet, knocking over a chair, clutching the wall as the corridor swayed.
Christopher (muttering):
"Not again… please… please… I'm losing it—losing myself."
He reached the door and slapped the emergency open panel.
A cold line of light cut across his face as the door hissed open.
Two CORETECH security operatives stood guard.
Black armor.
Glowing visors.
Silent obedience.
Christopher stepped toward the nearest one.
His voice was a trembling growl:
Christopher:
"Give me… your gun."
The guard hesitated, visor flickering with confusion.
Protocol said no.
Christopher's position said yes.
Finally, reluctantly, the guard unclipped his sidearm and handed it over.
Christopher stumbled back into the room, weapon shaking in his grip.
He paced.
Gasping.
Sweating.
Screaming inside.
The pain was carving into him—nerve by nerve.
He pressed the muzzle to his temple.
Tears slid down his cheeks.
Christopher (whisper):
"I can't… I can't take this—this disease—this body…"
And then—
A sharp digital crackle echoed in the air.
A familiar voice burst through like a slap.
CREST:
"You're pointing it the wrong way, monkey. If you want to end it, yoy should at least take off the safety,"
Christopher froze.
His eyes widened with desperate relief.
Christopher:
"You…? Where have you been!? Please—please—get me out of this body! This body is killing me!"
CREST : Not my problem right now, Just heads up, monkey, keep away from wonder drug, adnorm. Something's gone on it, Counterfeits infiltrated the market, Bineth is working on it.
Christopher:
"They're the only thing keeping me sane! Please you got to do something ... I'm begging you… help me."
The voice softened.
Just a little.
CREST:
"Listen carefully, monkey. Congratulations—your numbers are skyrocketing.
Your vitals, your cognitive spike, your neural patterning—off the charts.
You stay alive until tomorrow, and I'll figure out something to ease your pain."
Christopher swallowed hard.
Christopher:
"Tomorrow…? What's happening tomorrow?"
CREST:
"Stay. Alive. Until then. And stop taking Adnorm."
the channel clicked dead.
Silence swallowed the room.
Christopher let the gun slip from his hand.
It clattered against the floor—the loudest sound in the world.
He sat down.
Back against the bedframe.
Body trembling.
Eyes glassy with equal parts agony and hope.
Christopher (a whisper, cracked and tired):
"Just… till tomorrow."
The lights flickered above him.
Outside, the storm winds over the lunar horizon began to rise.
The world was shifting.
Outside Babel City – Lunar Outskirts
Moon Base: Abandoned Industrial Sector
The night above the moon's horizon was a vast black scroll, stitched with cold, ancient stars that shimmered like ink droplets on parchment. The abandoned crane tower—rusted, skeletal—rose from the grey regolith like the fossil of some forgotten machine-kami. At its peak, seated casually on the metal arm as if he belonged among dead giants, Chávez smoked in silence.
The lunar wind didn't exist, yet a faint hum—air recyclers from the distant domes—trembled through the steel. It carried an eerie rhythm, like the heartbeat of a sleeping world.
Far below, tunnels carved from old mining days yawned open, waiting. The maze of excavated shafts had long been deserted, but tonight they seemed to breathe—patient, ancient, as if listening.
A soft clank echoed behind him.
Sebastien climbed up the ladder, his movements slow, deliberate, like a man hauling more weight in his soul than in his limbs. He joined Chávez on the narrow beam, boots settling with a metallic tap that faded into the silence.
They didn't speak.
This kind of silence was old—like two rōnin sharing their last view of the world before dawn.
The stars shimmered above them, cold and merciless. The machines below—old lunar loaders and mining bots—sat abandoned in shadowed nests, dark eyes facing the tunnels. Dust draped everything like a ceremonial shroud.
Finally, Sebastián broke the quiet.
His voice was low, as if afraid to disturb whatever spirits lingered here.
Sebastien:
"When I leave… Firefly will begin transmission. The box won't be a secret anymore."
Chávez exhaled slowly. The smoke curled upward in delicate spirals, turning silver in the stark moonlight.
He didn't reply immediately. He watched the smoke rise until it thinned into nothing—like a man contemplating the fate of his own soul.
Then he nodded.
A tired, heavy nod.
Chávez:
"Just make sure… Bineth burns, we will keep to the end of our agreement."
Sebastien gave a soft huff of laughter—warm, nostalgic, painfully human in this cold mechanical graveyard.
He stretched, vertebrae cracking lightly.
Sebastien:
"The meds won't hold much longer. And I'm coming up short on the next antidote."
A small shrug.
"So… this is probably goodbye,"
Chávez offered no grand gesture, no heroic last words. Just a quiet grunt of acknowledgement—simple, stripped of everything except truth. The kind warriors give each other when they've walked through too many storms together.
Sebastien climbed down slowly. His silhouette descended the crane like a ghost drifting away. With each step, the distance between them felt heavier, final.
When he reached the ground, he didn't look back.
Chávez remained seated on the beam long after the last echo of Sebastien's footsteps faded into the tunnels. He drew his final drag of the cigarette, tasting the bitter heat, the faint metallic tang of lunar dust on his tongue. The ember glowed like a dying star between his fingers.
Then—
He flicked it.
The tiny spark tumbled downward, spinning into the endless pit beneath the crane. The darkness swallowed it whole. No light. No sound. Nothing.
A soft phrase crossed his mind—something his grandmother once whispered during storms back on Earth:
"Hoshi wa mi te iru."
The stars are watching.
Tonight, they felt like judges.
He straightened his back, resting his elbows on his knees, gazing into the moon's horizon where Babel City's glowing arc faintly pulsed like a heartbeat against the void.
Tomorrow would carve new scars into the world.
Tomorrow would choose who lived, who vanished.
But tonight—
Tonight was still.
A single man sat atop a metal relic, waiting for destiny to find him.
A silent oath hung in the air:
SONS OF WAR HQ – DREAM CITY
The heart of Dream City pulsed in the distance—an ocean of chrome and circuitry lit by perpetual twilight. From the observation deck of SONS OF WAR HQ, the skyline looked almost alive: aerial trains snaked through holo-advertisement clouds; drones shimmered in the electric haze; distant lightning crawled across the storm barrier like veins of silver fire.
Inside, the war room thrummed with quiet urgency.
A cathedral of machinery and ghost light.
Rows of crystalline consoles stretched beneath a vaulted ceiling of moving data—streams of binary rain falling like prayers from some invisible god. Every sound—the hum of quantum cores, the faint rhythm of cooling fans, the pulse of neural cables—formed an uneasy heartbeat that filled the room.
At the center, Firewall hunched over his desk, his gloved fingers dancing across holographic projections. He was a ghost in neon, his face reflected in thousands of shifting codes. Feline, the sentient AI, hovered beside him—her avatar a lattice of soft light and geometric shapes, constantly morphing with her thoughts.
FELINE: "Decrypting file clusters: priority alpha through gamma. Estimated data weight—nine terabytes and climbing."
FIREWALL: "Good. Filter by outbound communications, moon-bound registries, and any hidden signature from B-Block's grid."
Around them, the rest of the team watched as the files unfolded like mechanical origami—encrypted layers peeling away, revealing fragments of messages, images, and movement logs.
Midas stood with his arms crossed, his golden cybernetic eye scanning each new line of decoded text. Sakarah, eyes sharp and tired, sat beside a holo-map of the city, tracking routes and probability arcs. Cox paced between terminals, barking orders to relay units across the districts.
John watched in silence, his jaw tense, his thoughts far away—back to the fight with Echo, the last survivor of Chavez's squad. The man's body had burned, armor melted, memory chip fused to dust. A dead trail. A dead end.
And yet, the war room buzzed with a single truth—Echo wasn't the end. He was the beginning.
Firewall paused as a crimson warning flashed across his lenses.
He swore under his breath and expanded the hologram.
FIREWALL: "Hold on. Got something here—a moon-bound carrier. Registered as a medical supply ship, but the flight path's wrong. It launched from B-Block's airfield six hours ago—no lunar pass, no orbital ID, no city clearance."
Midas stepped forward, frowning.
MIDAS: "Smuggling channel?"
FIREWALL: "Not even that. It bypassed all orbital checkpoints—used manual thrust navigation. Only someone suicidal could pull that off."
Feline's voice glided in, calm and eerie.
FELINE: "Cross-referencing purchase history… a cryo-tube injector was bought in B-Block just before the ship departed. Matching DNA residue traces confirm it—B-Block personnel handled the device."
Sakarah's brow furrowed.
SAKARAH: "Cryo injector? That's not medical cargo. That's containment."
John's eyes flickered toward her, realization dawning like a blade of light.
JOHN: "Then they're moving something—or someone."
The sound of alarms interrupted them.
The holo-walls flared red as emergency news feeds broke through the encrypted channel.
Images of fire—massive, roaring—filled the air. The DOA HQ tower, once proud and unshakable, was collapsing under a crimson sky. Firefighters and drones scrambled across the scene, their voices lost in static. Smoke rolled upward like a second atmosphere.
FELINE: "Breaking broadcast… DOA Headquarters engulfed in flames. Primary casualties include multiple high-level officers. Commander Atsumori—presumed dead. Witnesses confirm Pluckett entered the building moments before total collapse. Current status—unknown."
The room fell silent.
Even machines seemed to hold their breath.
John's hands clenched at his sides.
Cox reacted first—snapping back into motion, voice like a whip.
COX: "Firewall, get a transport team on-site—now! Pull any surviving drones from District III and reroute them to rescue ops. I want full surveillance on that tower!"
FIREWALL: "Already on it!"
John turned away, his reflection distorted across the glass panels.
He moved toward the exit, his voice low and rough.
JOHN: "I'm going, midas and sakarah can stay. If Pluckett's in there, I'll find her. Keep me updated the second you locate Chavez."
He paused at the threshold, head slightly bowed. For a moment, the city's lightning painted his features in cold light. His lips parted as a memory whispered through him—words from Imagawa, old and echoing.
JOHN: "When the storm comes… find Haven."
He said it aloud without meaning to. The words hung in the air like a spell.
Cox frowned.
Sakarah tilted her head.
But Feline's eyes—if they could be called that—flickered with sudden intensity.
FELINE: "Keyword string detected. 'Haven.' Accessing archived data… correlation found in classified lunar records. Initiating cross-reference."
As John vanished down the corridor, the others leaned closer to the glowing screen.
Cox folded her arms.
COX: "The storm hits tomorrow. It'll scramble comms, flights, even defense grids. Someone's counting on that chaos. We need to be ready."
She stepped aside, muttering something about command calls, and left.
That left Midas, Sakarah, Firewall, and the AI.
Minutes passed in focused silence.
SAKARAH: "Feline, search the archives again. Cross-project listings, old terraforming programs, anything tied to the word 'Haven.'"
FELINE: "Processing."
Data cascaded down like falling stars. The holographic room pulsed in steady rhythm with her calculations. Then a ping echoed.
FELINE: "Found something. Project Haven—initiated seventy-two years ago, after Bithetre mining ceased on the lunar colonies. Classified under abandoned urban excavation operations."
Sakarah leaned forward.
SAKARAH: "Locations?"
FELINE: "None within Babel City. But… eighteen sites beyond the safe zones. Outside the domes. Lunar dust belts. Old habitation zones—derelict and unmonitored."
Midas gave a slow, knowing smile.
MIDAS: "That's a lair, alright. But which one?"