I woke to a face. Not a ceiling, Vex. Eyes sharp, lips firm, one hand pressed to my chest like she was checking for signs of resurrection. She was close. Breath warm. Something floral in it, subtle.
Her outfit was tight, tailored for attention. Her gaze locked with mine as they opened. She didn’t speak. Just a finger to my lips. Something in her gaze, excitement, heat, calculation. Maybe all three.
Dim biolight pulsed through the chamber. Curved walls shimmered with flickering panels. Machinery whispered, the air thick with antiseptic.
I lay on a cold metal slab. Its chill had crept into my spine. I shifted to ease a cramp.
Muffled voices leaked in through the wall, Vulkred’s low grumble, tense, and another: precise, clipped, authority baked in. A door hissed open. Footsteps retreated. Then Vulkred slipped in, tall, bent at the shoulders, eyes darting, face like a half-melted idol.
“Inspector’s gone,” he muttered. “We’ve got a window.”
Vex nodded, already moving. She slid a set of injector keys into the slab’s side port, then pulled the access screen to life. Glyphs skated across it in soft blue.
“Vitals clean.”
“Route to Crypodium is marked,” Vulkred whispered. “Third floor. Terminal inside’s dormant, corpse status means no log-ins. You’ll have to override.”
I sat up, bones crackling. “That I can do.”
Vulkred gave a shrug that might’ve been a nod. “I’ll catch up.”
They helped me down. My limbs sluggish, nerves tingling.
We slipped into the corridor. The air was cold and dry, overcycled. Lights hummed overhead in slow pulses. The tiles underfoot were too clean in places, like someone had tried to erase something messy and failed. You could still smell the bleach fight against old blood.
Vex moved fast, quiet and lethal. I trailed her, still shaking off cryo-stupor and whatever bootleg sedative they’d iced me with.
Around a corner, two attendants loitered outside a sealed door. Academy robes, collars high, eyes smug. One whispered to the other. I caught a word “Deadspec” spoken like currency or a threat.
Vex flicked two fingers. I backtracked into a maintenance alcove. The attendants turned, scanning the hallway, but too slow.
Arvie’s voice bloomed in my skull, dry as rust.
“That was close. I had ten credits riding on you botching it.”
I inhaled slow. A cracked terminal sat beside me, coated in grime. I reached out. The interface flared. Arvie slipped in like a thief with the master key.
“For a blacksite, this firewall’s being held together by hope and spit.”
I tripped the override. The door beside the attendants hissed open. They looked in, confused. We slid past as they entered.
The halls twisted without logic. Signs had been scrubbed, painted over, replaced with blank plates. Each turn revealed more of the facility's decayed grandeur, walls cracked, lights flickering.
The Crypodium didn’t advertise itself. Just a door that looked forgotten. No hum. No glow. Just pressure seals and age. I touched the panel.
Inside, the temperature dropped fast. Harsh blue-white lights flickered overhead. Med-pods lined the walls in recessed alcoves. Some interfaces pulsed faintly. Others sat quiet, sealed in frost. A few had names etched on: Vell-K3, Subject Drought, Reserved.
The door hissed behind us. Vulkred stepped in and sealed it. “Evenin’,” he muttered, like we were here for drinks.
He looked around, then walked to the raised central terminal. A tangle of cables hung around it like roots. He jammed in a data-spike. The screen flared to life in jittery violet.
“It’s secure. Local only. You’ll have to override a pod to accept you. Your code’s DPV-EK0.”
I nodded, connected to the nearest access node. The interface stirred, sluggish. Arvie swept in.
“Their encryption’s a joke,” she scoffed. “But there’s a catch.”
The system unfolded, glyphs peeling back layer by layer. I fast-scrolled, found my tag.
Unclaimed Asset: DPV-EK0. Status: cadaver. Scheduled for transfer.
Arvie hummed. “Pods are hooked to lognet. Wake one up, somebody upstairs gets a ping.”
I swore under my breath. “Found the override, but we’ll trip an alert.”168Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDszfRmNJUz
Vex tensed. “Then we move fast.”
I reached out with my mind. A nearby pod hissed open. Machinery came alive, lights syncing in sequence.
Vex moved to the pod and gestured. “In.”
I stripped and climbed in. The lid sealed shut. Inside, sleek med-arms unfolded. A cranial halo dropped down.
A sharp jab in my neck. Cold fire spread. My mind expanded and contracted at once. Pain lanced, then vanished. Then, a scream without sound. A system booting from somewhere deep.
“Welcome back, darling. Neurolink repair complete. System stability: ninety-eight percent. Fragments... incoming.”
A flicker of light. A memory, half-formed. A word I didn’t catch.
The lid lifted. Vex leaned over me, watching my face.
“You good?”
I smirked. “Define good.”
“Alive’ll do.”
I sat up slowly, exhaling steam. “Then I’m fantastic.”
She grinned, tossing my clothes at me. “Get dressed. We just rang the bell.”
The pod sighed shut behind me, legs stiff, nerves still arguing with gravity. I pulled on the clothes, stitched synthweave.
I caught my reflection in a curved panel: pale, half-dead, half-saint, pupils too wide, a faint scar under my jaw.
I moved to the exit, tugging the collar into place, flexing until the suit sealed across my spine. Arvie chimed in.
“Neurolink’s online. I’m synced, patched, dangerous, and still underappreciated.”
The door slammed open.
Without thinking, I yanked Vulkred into the alcove beside me. The wall was cold through my shirt. His fists clenched.
Boots clacked in. Authority in motion. Then a clipped voice.
“Who authorized pod activity?”
“Oh, by the Divines, I’m so sorry,” Vex purred, smooth as oil. “I was calibrating the pod and I think I tripped a redundant line. You know how unstable these old diagnostics panels are.”
Silence.
I imagined her standing there, posture perfect, lab-coat fitting enough to weaponize her collarbone.
The guard huffed. “That explains the fault spike?”
“Mmm, the ‘fault spike.’” You could hear her smile. “You could write love letters with the errors in this grid.”
Another beat of silence. Then footsteps approached the platform. Gloves rasped against alloy.
We took the chance. Slipped out the door like a sin forgiven.
The corridor outside was quiet. A slab waited just beside the arch. Transit standard, slightly scuffed and greasy.
Vulkred yanked open a side panel. “Get on. Play dead.”
I climbed on. He threw a synth-sheet over me. It smelled like med-rot.
Wheels moved. Cold air licked my fingertips where the sheet didn’t cover. A distant chime. Doors hissing. A medic laughing two halls over. Boots echoing off plascrete. Something squishy under a wheel, Vulkred cursed softly and kicked the slab to one side. The motion jostled my hip against a metal rail.
“Pretty sure we just broke eight safety regs. I’m proud.”
Somewhere nearby, a door opened and a scent drifted in: sour tea and ozone. Two voices, speaking med-jargon, clipped and fast. I felt Vulkred’s sharp intake.
We moved again.
Twice we paused, once for a droid to whirr past, another for a janitor cursing at a vending wall. Then the lift of a ramp. A pressure door hissed. The air changed, warmer, stale.
Vulkred bumped the slab into a lock, just as boots clacked in again.
“I’ve reviewed the cadaver report,” said the inspector. “Its signature was abnormal. Was it confirmed?”
Vulkred didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah. Probably spiked by scavvers. You know how they mess with vitals to up the resale.”
“I’m not signing off on a flagged transfer. That’s on you.”
“Fine. I’ll bury it later.”
Silence. Then a tap on data pad.
“This sets you back two rotations.”
“I’ll live.”
Footsteps retreated. The door sealed.
Vex’s voice filtered in. “Good news?”
Vulkred grunted. “We get to keep the corpse.”
Lucky me.
He pulled back the sheet. His face was drawn.
“Sorry, prince. Gotta make you a corpse again. Dead enough to pass through the gates.” Before I could protest, he flicked a vial the color of antifreeze and stabbed it into my shoulder.
“Sweet dreams.” Vex sneered.
“On the bright side, you don’t have to tip anyone.”
The world folded. Senses blinked out one by one, scent, sound, breath. Somewhere behind the dark, I thought I heard Vex laugh.
Then nothing. Just the faint taste of metal and the words still echoing in my skull: Dead enough to pass.
ns216.73.216.168da2
and then Add to home screen.