The silence was a weapon. Ren knelt, fighting the nauseating tide of [System Lag], every nerve screaming that he was exposed. The Beta officer, this woman of a higher, more solid reality, stood over him, her hand gripping the hilt of her sword. Her face was a storm of conflicting emotions—fear, awe, and the deep, ingrained prejudice of her caste.
He was a Gamma. A thing. A cog. But cogs didn't erase Aberrations from existence.
He could see the calculation in her eyes. Her training, her entire worldview, told her that an anomaly this profound had to be neutralized. He was a bug in the system, a rogue variable that threatened the very order she was sworn to uphold.
But the memory of the Phantasm's intangible blade was still fresh. She was alive because of the bug.
Her sword slid halfway from its sheath with a soft metallic hiss. Ren's muscles tensed, but he knew it was useless. If she attacked now, he was dead.
"What… are you?" Her voice was tight, strained, the question less a curiosity and more an accusation.
Ren fought to focus, to push through the sensory static. The Flaw demanded an answer, the truth. And the truth, spoken plainly, would be a death sentence. He needed to frame it, to shape it into something she could accept without executing him.
"I don't know," he managed, his own voice sounding distant and distorted to his lagging ears. It was the honest truth. He looked up, meeting her terrified gaze. "When the Fracture started… something woke up. I see things differently now."
He gestured vaguely at the empty space where the Phantasm had been. "I see the… the seams. The threads that hold things together." He chose his words carefully, framing his power as a passive, bizarre sense, not an active, controllable weapon. "It was made of them. I just… pulled."
He let himself sound confused, weak, as if the act was a freak accident of instinct rather than a conscious choice. He needed her to see him not as a rival, but as a strange, unpredictable tool.
The officer, Valeria—her name was stitched on her uniform—stared at him, her mind clearly working through the implications. A tool. A key that could turn locks she couldn't. Her expression shifted from fear to a cold, hard pragmatism. He was no longer just a Gamma, but he was still a resource to be managed.
She sheathed her sword with a decisive click.
"Get up," she ordered, her voice regaining its authoritative edge.
Ren's lag was subsiding. He pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly. He was still weak, but the world was slowly snapping back into sync.
Valeria took a step closer, her gaze intense. "I don't know what you are, and right now, I don't care. You can do… that. I can kill the ones you can't. We're both trapped, and we're both more likely to survive together than apart."
She held out an armored hand, not in friendship, but in negotiation.
"Here's the deal, Gamma. You stick with me. You do your… trick… when I tell you to. In return, I keep you alive. We get out of this sector, and then we go our separate ways. Understood?"
It was a leash, but a different kind. Not one of force, but of mutual desperation. And this time, he had value. He had leverage.
Ren looked at her outstretched hand and gave a slow, deliberate nod. He didn't take it.
"Understood," he said. "My name is Ren."
For a moment, surprise flickered in Valeria's eyes. She seemed to realize she had been talking to a person. She slowly lowered her hand.
"Valeria," she said, her tone clipped. "Good. Now we move. This sector's primary comms relay is three klicks from here. It's our only chance to contact the Core."
She turned, expecting him to follow. A clear objective. A new set of challenges.
Ren fell into step behind her, two enemies bound by the shared goal of survival. The air between them was thick with mistrust, but for now, they were an alliance. He was a weapon, and she was his wielder.
But Ren knew something she didn't. A tool can be dropped. A weapon can be turned against its master. And he had no intention of being either for long.