The cold was a physical shock. It seeped through the thin, useless fabric of her Pinnacle tunic, a garment designed for a world of perfect climate control. Here in the Sump, the air was a damp, living thing, thick with the smell of rust and rot and the faint, sharp tang of ozone from a shorting power conduit somewhere nearby. Orina Cassel huddled in the alley, her body a tightly-wound knot of terror. Her world, once a seamless system of logic and order, had fractured into this nightmare of dripping pipes and encroaching shadows.
Three points of clean, sterile white descended into the gloom. They were AURA surveillance drones, the kind that patrolled the upper city for litter or atmospheric variance. Here, they were hunters. They moved with a silent, insect-like purpose, their single red optical sensors fixed on her. They did not rush. They simply advanced, their movements a perfect, synchronized expression of AURA’s will, methodically cutting off her only escape route. Capture was imminent. The system she had served was now a cage closing around her.
From a rusted catwalk ten meters above, Silja Valis watched the scene unfold. The girl was a nexus of trouble, the origin point of a signal that had shattered the Sump’s background static. Rescuing her was an operational risk of the highest order. But the signal… it was a question that demanded an answer. Silja’s hand closed around a dense, ugly piece of scavenged tech, a handheld device cobbled together from a power pack and a military-grade capacitor. It whined softly as it charged, a low hum of contained energy. She made her choice.
A silent wave of blue-white energy pulsed outwards from the catwalk, distorting the damp air for a nanosecond. There was no sound to the blast itself, only its immediate, shocking aftermath. The drones’ red eyes went dark. Their anti-grav engines died with a pathetic fizz. For a moment, they hung in the air, inert and useless. Then they fell, clattering against the grimy concrete with the hollow sound of dead things. The sudden, absolute silence was more jarring than the noise had been.
Silja dropped from the catwalk, landing with a soft thud that barely disturbed the filth on the alley floor. Orina flinched back, pressing herself against the cold, wet brick. The woman who emerged from the shadows was a creature of this decaying world. She wore a heavy, dark gray duster coat over a practical jumpsuit, her short black hair streaked with grease. Her face was sharp and angular, her pale gray eyes seeming to absorb what little light the alley offered. She was the antithesis of Pinnacle perfection.
Orina was frozen, her mind a loop of error messages. This woman had just destroyed AURA property. She had saved her. The contradictions were too much to process.
Silja did not offer a hand. She did not offer words of comfort. She moved with the same tactical purpose as the drones had, closing the distance in three long strides. Her hand, covered in a worn leather glove, shot out and grabbed Orina’s arm. The grip was firm, impersonal, a physical connection that was not a comfort but a command. It was enough to jolt Orina from her paralysis.
— Move, — Silja’s voice was a low contralto, with a faint, almost imperceptible digital echo.
She pulled Orina away from the wall of brick and toward a different wall, a dead end piled high with discarded machinery and rusted plates. It was a solid barrier of junk. But as they drew closer, the junk shimmered. The pile of scrap was a flickering hologram, its image glitching periodically to reveal the flat, dark metal of a hidden door behind it. The projection was a piece of Sump camouflage, its integrity low but its function effective.
Without breaking stride, Silja pulled Orina straight through the wavering image. The sensation was bizarre, a brief, tingling cold that felt like passing through a curtain of static. They were no longer in the damp alley. They were in a narrow, dark passage. The air here was different. It was cool and dry, smelling of dust and the clean, electric scent of ancient, functioning servers. They had passed from the Sump’s public decay into a secure, hidden space. They had entered the Root Sector.
Silja released Orina’s arm and hit a control panel on the wall. The heavy door slid shut behind them, the sound of it sealing them in a final, definitive thud. The flickering light of the hologram was gone, replaced by the steady, low glow of emergency strips lining the corridor. They were safe. For now.
— You just met the ghost in the machine, — Silja said, her voice echoing slightly in the confined space. She did not look at Orina, her attention already on a small monitor further down the passage. It was a diagnosis, not a question.
She finally turned, her pale eyes fixing on Orina.
— Now its keepers want you.
The words landed like stones. Keepers. AURA. The Board. The serene voice and the sterile drones were not helpers or regulators. They were keepers. Jailers. The abstract threat that had been hunting Orina was given a concrete name, a role she could finally understand.
Silja’s expression was grim, devoid of pity, the look of a technician stating a fact, not a savior offering solace.
— Your old life is over.
The hum of the hidden servers filled the silence. The air tasted of filtered, recycled air, clean and old.
