The shuttle Nyx-7 cut through the void like a scalpel through flesh—clean, precise, inevitable. Inside its sterile hold, Aren Vale sat strapped to the acceleration couch, his light-skinned African American features illuminated only by the cold blue glow of his retinal HUD. At 28, he was the picture of Ascendancy efficiency: high cheekbones sharpened by rationed calories, full lips set in a perpetual line of neutrality, close-cropped hair dusted with the faint silver of early stress threads. His eyes, a warm hazel that betrayed nothing, scanned the prisoner across from him for the 47th time since departure from Lethe-9.
Kael Riven. The file scrolled in Aren's implant: 31 cycles, bio-engineer Class-Alpha, Synapse Score flagged at 42%—dangerously high for a sanctioned citizen. Light-skinned like Aren, but where Aren's build was lean and tactical, honed by zero-g drills and probability simulations, Kael carried the wiry muscle of someone who'd augmented himself in black-market labs. His face echoed the sharp, intense beauty of old-Earth holostars—high forehead, piercing amber eyes under arched brows, a jawline that could cut diamond, and lips that curled into a smirk even under neural restraints. His skin glowed faintly from the living tattoos woven into his dermis: circuits of biolum ink that shifted like liquid mercury, mapping neural pathways or hiding data streams. Right now, they pulsed a subdued crimson, suppressed by the cuffs.
Aren's voice was calm, a low baritone modulated to 62 decibels—optimal for compliance induction. "Prisoner Riven. Confirm identity for transfer log."
Kael lifted his head, chains clinking against the mag-locks. His smirk deepened, revealing a flash of white teeth. "You know who I am, Strategist Vale. Or do you need the AI to whisper it in your ear again? Kael Riven, traitor extraordinaire. Stole the Eclipse Seed. Planning to make everyone feel things. Naughty, huh?"
The words landed with calculated irreverence, but Aren didn't flinch. He noted the micro-tremor in Kael's left eyelid—fear indicator 12%. The man was probing. Always probing.
"Silence protocol engaged," Aren replied, tapping his wrist console. The neural cuffs hummed, injecting a mild suppressant. Kael's tattoos dimmed further, but his eyes locked on Aren's, unyielding.
The shuttle shuddered as it docked with the Halo Ring's outer pylons. Beyond the viewport, the torus station spun lazily against the backdrop of dead Earth—a bruised marble swathed in perpetual storms. The Ascendancy's triune AI—Logic, Archive, Judgment—watched from every angle, its presence a constant thrum in Aren's implant. Synapse Score: 8%. Compliant.
Aren unstrapped, floating in the micro-g toward the prisoner. Routine transfer: escort to Disassembly Bay 14, oversee neural extraction of the Seed data, log the body for recycling. Simple. Efficient.
But as Aren reached for the release on Kael's cuffs, the man leaned forward—just enough for their knees to brush in the confined space. Heat transferred through suit fabric, a spark that Aren's implant flagged immediately: Tactile anomaly. Emotional bleed potential: 4%.
Kael's voice dropped to a whisper, lips barely moving. "You ever wonder what it feels like, Vale? To want something the system didn't approve?"
Aren's hand paused. 0.8 seconds—long enough for Judgment to ping a query. He overrode it manually, a subroutine he'd written himself for edge cases. "Irrelevant query. Stand."
He hauled Kael up, their bodies aligning in the drift. Kael was taller by three centimeters, his breath warm against Aren's ear. "They're lying to you. All of you. Emotions aren't the enemy. They're the upgrade."
The airlock cycled open, revealing the docking bay: sterile white corridors, drones humming like insects, enforcers in exosuits waiting with stun batons. Aren marched Kael forward, grip firm on the elbow. But the touch lingered in his mind—unbidden, unauthorized.
They moved through checkpoints. Retinal scans. Biometric locks. Each step deeper into the Halo Ring's core, where gravity sim kicked in at 0.87g, pulling at boots like regret.
In the lift to Bay 14, alone again, Kael twisted suddenly. His cuffs—supposedly unbreakable—flickered, tattoos surging to life in a cascade of gold. An EMP pulse erupted from his palms, silent but devastating. The lift plunged into darkness. Alarms wailed distantly as backup systems kicked in.
"How—" Aren started, drawing his sidearm.
Kael's grin was feral. "Trade secret. But you? You're the real puzzle, Aren Vale. Black Protocol's golden boy. Openly gay in a world that outlaws longing. How do you do it? Fake it till you break?"
The lift doors blasted open mid-descent—emergency override. They tumbled into the shuttle's maintenance shaft, zero-g again. Kael shoved Aren toward an escape pod, fingers flying over a hacked panel.
"You're coming with me," Kael said. Not a question.
Aren raised the pistol. "Stand down. Odds of escape: 0.02%."
"Calculate this." Kael lunged, not aggressive—intimate. His hand cupped Aren's jaw, thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone. Time dilated. Aren's HUD exploded in warnings: Proximity alert. Hormonal spike. Reclamation recommended.
For the first time in years, Aren felt it—a rush, unfiltered. Want. Raw and reckless.
Then the pod jettisoned.
Alarms screamed across the Halo Ring as the pod spiraled away, thrusters firing on a rogue vector. Ascendancy kill-sats pivoted, locking on. But Kael had planned this: a slingshot burn around Earth's gravity well, flinging them toward the outer fringe.
Aren strapped in beside him, pistol still trained. "This is suicide."
Kael punched coordinates. "Or evolution. Tenebrae. Uncharted. No sats, no eyes. We crash, we survive, we wake the system up."
The pod shuddered under acceleration. Through the viewport, the Halo Ring shrank to a glittering halo, then vanished.
Aren's implant crackled: Defection detected. Synapse Score recalculating… 18%… 25%…
He smashed the override, silencing it. But the damage was done. For the first time, calm felt like a cage.
Hours blurred. Course corrections. Evasive maneuvers dodging interceptor drones. Kael piloted with flair, tattoos interfacing directly with controls—lines of code dancing across his skin.
Aren watched him. "Why me?"
Kael didn't look away from the nav screen. "Because you're the best strategist they have. And because I saw your file. The lover you turned in. Jax-112. Reclaimed for a 22% spike during intimacy. You volunteered to pull the trigger on his memories."
Aren's jaw tightened. "He was unstable. Threat to order."
"Bullshit." Kael's voice softened. "You did it to protect him from worse. From them harvesting him alive. I get it. I designed the suppression virus. Watched them test it on my husband. He forgot me mid-kiss."
Silence stretched, heavy as neutron star density.
The pod's alarms blared: atmospheric entry. Tenebrae loomed—a world of endless twilight, its ocean surface rippling under the shadow of a gas giant that eclipsed its sun. Perpetual night, broken only by biolum storms.
Impact.
The pod screamed through methane skies, hull heating to plasma. Kael wrestled controls while Aren ran crash protocols: foam deploy, vector adjustments.
They hit ocean—hard. Watery abyss swallowed them, pressure crushing. Emergency buoyancy kicked in, pod bobbing like a cork in liquid night.
Darkness outside. Inside, emergency lights flickered red.
Kael unstrapped, wincing—rib cracked, blood trickling from a scalp wound. "Welcome to freedom, Strategist."
Aren stood, legs steady despite the adrenaline. He holstered the pistol. No point now. They were dead without each other.
"First rule," Aren said, voice steady but edged with something new. "We survive. Then we talk terms."
Kael laughed, the sound echoing in the cramped space. "Deal. But fair warning: out here, no AI to tell you what to feel."
He extended a hand. Aren took it. Skin on skin—electric.
Outside, the ocean sang in infrasound, fungal reefs glowing on the horizon. Predators circled, drawn to the heat signature.
Survival began.
Aren's mind raced: inventory supplies—48 hours O2, ration packs for 10 days, medkit, flare gun. Scavenge the pod for hull panels, build a raft. Map currents. Avoid the singing reefs; logs from probe data marked them as neural disruptors.
Kael patched his wound, tattoos weaving regenerative threads. "You're already planning. I can see it in your eyes."
"Strategy is survival," Aren replied.
"But feeling? That's living."
They breached the hatch, flooding the pod with alien air—breathable, laced with spores that tingled on the tongue. The eclipse sky above was a bruised indigo, auroras of methane fire dancing.
Aren stepped out first, boots sinking into the pod's deployable platform. The water was warm, viscous. Something brushed his leg—tentacle? Probe?
He drew the flare gun. "Stay close."
Kael followed, their shoulders brushing. In the dim light, his tattoos illuminated patterns: maps, perhaps. Or memories.
Hours of labor: stripping the pod, fusing panels with emergency welder. The raft took shape—a crude hexagon, 4 meters across, with a mast from antenna scraps.
As they pushed off into the current, Kael sat opposite, knees touching Aren's. "Tell me about Jax."
Aren rowed with a scavenged oar, muscles burning. "Classified."
"Not anymore."
Pause. The ocean lapped, hypnotic. "He was… warmth. In a cold system. We met in sim-training. Shared a bunk during a drill. One night, he kissed me. Implant spiked. I reported it to save him from full Reclamation."
Kael's eyes softened. "You loved him."
"Love is a variable I controlled."
"Past tense?"
Aren met his gaze. The spore-air made everything sharper—colors vivid, heartbeats loud.
"Variables change."
A reef loomed, singing. The sound burrowed into skulls, evoking memories unbidden: Jax's laugh, the scent of recycled air in hidden vents.
Kael gripped Aren's hand. "Fight it. Anchor to now."
Their fingers intertwined. The song faded.
Night deepened—though night was eternal here. They drifted, conserving energy.
Kael leaned in, forehead to forehead. "First night free. What do you feel?"
Aren's breath hitched. "Terrified."
"Good. That's human."
Their lips met—tentative, then urgent. No implant to flag it. No score to fear.
Salt on tongues, spores in lungs. The raft rocked gently.
But in the distance, a kill-sat breached atmosphere, engines glowing like fallen stars.
The hunt Began.