Ashton Etrigan

  Age: 28

  Current Mass: 68 kg

  Mental Status: Nervous

  Physical Status: Tense

  Nathaniel Parks wasted no time once my arms and legs were freed from their bonds. He lightly pressed around my chest and neck, then I felt him grab around my wrists and ankles. He also carefully pressed a thumb under my chin, but he removed it once my lack of a pulse became evident. The whole process made me incredibly uncomfortable, but I did my best to endure it without giving away that I was awake. Or at least I hoped so.

  Whatever sedative the guards had given me was apparently not enough to affect me, but right then I wished it would at least help calm me down. Being examined like some prime cut of real meat was not my idea of a good time.

  Mr. Parks finally stopped prodding at my chest and stepped away. I tried to carefully flex my hands, feeling out what I was actually lying on. It was a bed of some kind, that much was obvious. It had raised edges on either side, made of some smooth material, and tiny cushions under a blanket beneath me. Some kind of medical bed then. Em could probably tell me what kind. I really wished she was there with me to explain in her chipper voice the boring details of hospital beds.

  “Is everything in order?” asked Captain Greaves. His easy tone was punctuated by a drag of smoke, recognizable by the immediate smell. I very much did not like Captain Greaves anymore.

  “It appears so,” Mr. Parks answered in a disapproving tone. “However, I will refrain from making an official statement until our own medic has had a chance to look at him.”

  Great, more doctors…

  “Also, what’s the deal with the helmet?” Mr. Parks added.

  Helmet?

  He must have meant the thing covering my eyes. I had thought it was some sort of black face cover, but apparently it was more than that. I remembered the scientists had talked about using neural monitors. That meant brain stuff. The helmet was probably a brain scanner, or something.

  “I can’t give you the details of an ongoing investigation, but I assure you, it was for our protection,” said Captain Greaves.

  Bullshit, I thought to myself. He was just using what happened to Frank as base for a lie. It wasn’t as if I could do it on command. That murderous asshole wouldn’t be speaking so calmly if I could, helmet or not!

  “I have a hard time believing those words, considering your own actions, which you have yet to explain, Captain.”

  Fuck yeah, rip him a new one!

  “You are welcome to file a complaint with The Guard Internal Affairs, Mr. Parks, but for now I am unable to divulge the details of my current investigation.”

  Oh, eat a whole bag of balls!

  I was beginning to get fed up with Captain Douchebag. He scared the daylights out of me, but if I ever got a chance to I would love to give him a proper kick in the dick. Mr. Parks seemingly agreed with my sentiment, judging by the annoyed snort he made.

  “Fine. We’ll do it your way. Bureaucracy suits me perfectly.” Mr. Parks’s voice was getting more agitated as he spoke.

  “Now get that damn helmet off, and have someone carry this man out of this… hole!” Patience had apparently run out, and hot anger was at last audible in the lawyer's voice. It worried me that he’d lost composure. It was like when Em and I argued as kids, and I lost my cool because I didn’t know how to properly communicate. It felt a lot like losing. But it also gave me a strange sensation of hope. Until his outburst, Nathaniel Parks was almost too professional to be human. His anger washed some of that image away, revealing an actual human being. It made him feel real.

  It was also the first time I’d heard the place we were in actually being described. Hearing it being referred to as a ‘hole’ had me worried. To me that word meant this place dark and hidden. Somewhere secret. I suddenly appreciated Mr. Parks's presence very much. I didn’t know where he would take me, but it was probably better than a hole, even if he was as angry as he sounded.

  Someone’s device beeped, and the sound of footsteps came from somewhere nearby. Captain Douchebag must have called someone, for there were suddenly a bunch of hands on and around me. I quickly closed my eyes, trying not to squeeze them. A few seconds later I felt a tugging on my neck as hands lifted my head and pulled off whatever machine they had me strapped to. I did my best not to react to anything, especially the sudden light that hit my eyelids. After so long in darkness, the light stung my eyes even through the skin.

  It took all my willpower to just stay limp while the many hands grabbed and lifted me from the bed and sat me down into some kind of chair. It supported my neck with some kind of headrest, so I thankfully didn’t have to let my head slump forward.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you tonight, Mister District Attorney?”

  Captain Greaves was back to his overt politeness, but there was another layer to it. It was as if the captain was being overly compliant, almost mockingly so. My eyes were still closed, yet in my mind I could still see the tiny smirk he no doubt showed Mr. Parks.

  “You can lead the way out of here,” huffed the annoyed attorney. “I will handle the transport of my client myself, thank you,” he continued quickly, and I felt someone grab the back of my chair, and start to turn me.

  The sudden jolt of movement took me by surprise, and I felt like I was going to fall off. I started to stiffen my legs, then remembered that unconscious people don’t usually do that. I let my legs go limp again, and allowed my body to slump forward, trying to mentally brace for the impact against the floor. It never came.

  “Careful there,” said the captain, suddenly way too close. The eternal hum in my ears rose in volume, as he held me where he’d caught me, his hands braced against my abdomen. I’d fallen nearly all the way down, so I hung limply in the air, trying my best to fight both the hum and the urge to get up and run as fast as I could away from the terrifying man.

  “Wouldn’t want to accidentally injure your precious client,” he said as he pulled me back up and sat me carefully down in the chair again.

  “Here, I’ll strap him in- don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.”

  The captain put a belt around my waist, carefully reaching around my back to fasten it securely. He was so close I could feel his breath on my skin, and parts of his equipment poked into my shoulders.

  “It’s not like you can feel anything right now anyway. Right, Ashton?”

  My own name, whispered so close to my ear, was like being impaled by an icicle of pure fear. Had Captain Greaves noticed me faking unconsciousness? Every process in my body was momentarily paralyzed, as my instincts to hide took over. On the off chance he didn’t know, I put every effort towards not moving a molecule.

  My breathing slowed to a crawl, and every miniscule twitch of muscle ceased. Sensation in fingers and toes stopped. My arms grew heavy, and my legs got cold. At the same time my brain felt like it was turning off, until almost every possible thought was drowned in darkness. Even the hum, always audible in the background of my ears, disappeared entirely, and for the first time since I woke up at the hospital the world was completely silent.

  Time passed by as if trying to escape the pull of a black hole. Seconds stretched into weeks, and the captain's hands around my back were like immovable boulders weighing me down. In reality he probably had his hands around me for less than ten seconds, but in my frozen horror it felt like I was trapped for a very long time.

  “That’s enough. Step away from my client, please.”

  Mr. Parks’s warning to Captain Greaves was quiet. No trace of the angry tone from earlier. Whether it came from professional courtesy, or fear all his own, I couldn’t say. Nonetheless, the words brought me out of my paralyzation, and I carefully let go of the air I’d been holding on to. Footsteps clacked on the floor, then my chair pushed forward, slower this time, and we started moving.

  Along the moving chair, my body slowly restarted, feeling like an old engine that just had its powercell replaced with a brand new one. The hum reappeared in my ears, keeping a low volume as the rest of my brain went through an electric bath. I swear I could almost count the bursts of firing synapses, and the sense of weight gradually lifted as the chair picked up speed. Warmth spread from my stomach into my limbs and face, and I could smell the scent of a comfortable bonfire at the end of a late summer evening, only coming from inside.

  It was like waking up with a pot of the greatest coffee ever brewed already in your stomach, and a low, groaning sound, typically only heard from solar farmers after a long day, forced its way out through my lips. I immediately clamped my mouth shut, praying to whatever power would listen, that no one had heard me.

  “Please stay calm, Mr. Etrigan,” I heard the district attorney whisper from above me. “Everything is going to be fine as soon as I get you out of here.”

  He spoke calmly, as if he wanted to reassure me. He also never stopped pushing the chair, despite the slightly labored breath. When I thought about it I also realized that Mr. Parks hadn’t been there when I was ‘sedated’, and the captain had never volunteered that info either. Maybe I could get away with pretending like I was just finally waking up.

  “What’s going on?” asked Captain Greaves from a few steps behind.

  “Nothing,” replied the district attorney.

  “Ah, good. If he starts waking up, please let me know. We had him sedated earlier. For our own protection, of course.”

  Fucking shit. Someone would now have to ask me about that, and I had no answers to give them. Captain Asshole really knew how to fuck everything up for me.

  “Your protection, of course,” the attorney said, slowly repeating the captain's words. No one said anything after that because we reached a stopping point, and a buzzer sounded. We were in front of an elevator. I cracked an eye open just enough to catch a blurry glimpse of a pair of metal doors sliding open. Mr. Parks pushed me in, then turned me around. The elevator felt pretty spacious by how easy Mr. Parks manipulated my chair. I risked another look, and was puzzled to see a pair of dark green boots standing outside the open door.

  “Now what,” asked the attorney, clearly running out of patience.

  “Oh, I just remembered I still have a few things to process down here,” Greaves answered nonchalantly. “You two can go ahead. My team is waiting for you topside.”

  “Must I remind you you are currently detained, Captain Greaves?” Mr. Parks stuck out an arm to stop the automatic doors from closing. “You are coming with us.”

  “Actually, Mr. District Attorney and Legal Executive of Lodestar Labs…” the captain let the words hang in the air. He sounded like he was smiling.

  “Hmph. Fine, do as you wish,” said the attorney, clearly agitated by whatever the captain had left unspoken. He let go of the door and pressed a button on a panel I couldn’t see.

  “I’m glad we could come to an agreement,” Captain Greaves said, right as the elevator dinged, and a mechanical voice warned about the doors closing. This was my last chance. I faked another groan, then turned my head up and peeked up at the captain's face.

  The first thing I noticed was how young he looked. He had smooth skin and neatly trimmed beard, nothing like I’d imagined him. Instead of the stereotypical buzzed haircut, he had tufts of long, black hair cascading down from the back of his head, where it was tied up in a loose ball. He also wore a black vest with lots of pockets over a dark green shirt, and he had two orange stripes on his shoulders.

  Something about him gave me a strange sensation of familiarity, but I couldn’t explain where from. Then I noticed his eyes. They were looking directly into mine, shimmering silver.

  “See you around. Sooner or later.”

  Captain Greaves gave me a polite smile, then the elevator doors closed. The mag-cell buzzed to life, and the elevator rose. Mr. Parks said something, but I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear anything at all. It was all drowned away in the wake of the Hum.

  ???

  “Are you hungry? Can I get you anything to eat?”

  I was sitting in a lush seat inside of a luxurious black car, with tinted windows, carpeted floor, plenty of space and even a small table with a mini fridge inside. Mr. Parks sat opposite me in his own reclined seat, scrolling through something on a tablet connected to an outlet in the car.

  “I’m fine,” I lied, doing my best to keep a neutral face. “I don’t know- I mean, I don’t really have an appetite anyway.”

  I hadn’t meant to lie, I was actually pretty hungry. The question just caught me by surprise, so I just said the first thing I could think of to avert his attention. I took a sip from the small coffee in my hands and smiled at the attorney, as if to say ‘This is more than enough.’ He gave me a slight nod, then tapped his tablet a few times.

  “You sure? Because I haven’t eaten all night myself, so I thought I’d make an order to pick up on the way.”

  He turned the tablet around and showed me a menu of a restaurant I didn’t know, with an almost finished order of food for at least three people. I looked at him, confused.

  “It’s a lot, but I’m ordering for the driver and my assistant as well. It wouldn’t make a difference if I added a couple more things, you know what I mean?”

  He smiled at me as I read the screen. I could feel my mouth starting to water, and my tongue passed over my teeth despite my attempt at trying to seem unaffected by the options I read on the menu.

  “I don’t- I- Uh, I wouldn’t want to be a bother…” I stammered, trailing off before I said something weird to the man who’d rescued me from turning into a science project.

  “Nonsense,” Mr. Parks said as he turned the tablet back, smiling to himself, and tapped the screen a few more times.

  “We’re going to take care of you, Ashton. That’s our main priority.”

  It was the second time he’d said that, and I still had trouble trusting him.

  “Anyway, I just duplicated my own order, so I hope you like Santa Fe Chicken and beer.”

  I had no idea what Santa Fe was, but I thought that if it resembled the chicken soup thing from Frank's office, maybe this guy was okay to trust after all. Just a little.

  ???

  Memories from before the car were blurry. Things happened fast once me and Mr. Parks exited the elevator, and I wasn’t really paying attention to anything around me. There were guards and doctors, as well as people dressed in those stiff suits you see on news streams. I was in my chair, no longer pretending to be passed out, but also not really reacting to anyone, despite several people trying to talk to me.

  In the elevator ride, right after the doors closed and we started ascending, Mr. Parks had told me repeatedly to stay quiet and not answer any questions, no matter what. He’d said a few other things as well, and I’d nodded along to it, but I hadn’t really heard it. Sure, the Hum was somewhat to blame for that, but my attention was still locked on the image of Captain Greaves’s eyes, right before the elevator closed. His silver colored eyes. Looking right at mine.

  Apart from myself, no one I had ever met had silver colored eyes. At least not visibly. There was a rumor that all of the highest ranking government officials were born with silver eyes, and some even with gold. Sure, the king did possess slightly golden irises, and there had been people with silver and gold eyes in the past, but that was decades ago. Basing a person's potential on their eye color was no longer acceptable behavior in modern society.

  Still, seeing another person with the same eyes as mine… it shook me. Despite the emphasis our society put on the skill and merit of any individual, schools still taught the Iris Hypothesis in Ethics and History classes.

  “Are you alright, Mr. Etrigan? Can you walk?”

  The sudden voice right next to my ears jolted me back to the present, and I looked around to see us closing in on a pair of glass doors. Around us was the bustling crowd of guards, medics and those stiff reporters I mentioned earlier, most of whom were trying to shove a microphone towards my face.

  The speaker turned out to be Mr. Parks however, who seemed to be completely ignoring the attention from the plethora of recording devices pointed our way. I tried to twist my head to get a good look at him, but he’d risen back up, and I could only see his chin without having to turn around completely. At least it was a clean shaven chin.

  We reached the glass doors, and I could see a long, black car parked in the closest spot. Mr. Parks let go of my chair to step past me, and opened the double doors before he turned around and offered me a hand. I looked up at him and nodded. Tensing slightly, I grabbed his hand and let him pull me up from the wheelchair. My feet hit the cold floor, and I wobbled slightly as I struggled to find my balance. I had apparently been off my feet for longer than assumed.

  I eventually got all the way up to a standing position, and let Mr. Parks open the glass doors. A cold wind blew through the opening, and I instantly started freezing. I realized I wasn’t wearing much clothing, just a pair of tight pants that stopped above the ankle, and an equally tight tank top. I looked around at the people gathered by the door, trying to find something.

  “What happened to the doctors?”

  “What makes you so important to Lodestar?”

  “Why does The Guard want to keep you prisoner?”

  I ignored their questions, and finally found what I was looking for. In a dark corner leading out of the room into a hallway, I saw a woman in black and green, with a harsh face and rusty hair. On the floor next to her were parts of a tarp, covering something long and bulky. The wind from the door reached the corner, lifting the tarp. I saw a face under there, covered in specks of blood, with a dark hole in the forehead.

  I turned back to Mr. Parks, and stepped out into the cold air. Shaken by what I’d seen, I stood there, wishing I knew why these people wanted me, and why others would go to such lengths to keep it secret.

  The car slid smoothly up to the curb, soundless apart from the slight ‘whoomf’ of the grav-mag engine. Streaming reporters shouted more questions at both me and Mr. Parks, but he stoically ignored them as the side doors opened. He climbed inside, disappearing out of sight. I hesitated for a moment, feeling the rough ground beneath my naked feet, wondering what would happen if I followed him.

  I could run. If I wanted to escape, this was the moment to do so. Between the Guard and Lodestar Labs, my chances with either were entirely unknown. They might have even sabotaged each other, giving me a chance to actually get away.

  But where would I go? I had no idea where I was, and no idea what time it was other than that it was dark outside.

  The building behind me was not one I immediately recognized, being sort of squat, with a wide, rather than tall structure. The immediate surroundings were equally unhelpful. It looked like an abandoned production district, with coils of pipes and gravel roads leading to small steel sheds around the main building.

  Looking back to the car, I set aside my scepticism and climbed into the dark cabin.

  “Whew,” sighed a surprisingly relieved sounding Mr. Parks, right as the door closed on its own behind me.

  “For a second there I half expected you to make a run for it. I’m glad you didn’t, though, you are very important to us.” The man leaned forward and pressed a button on the side of the door, and a pair of lamps flashed to life on either side of the spacious cabin. I sat down in a deep, black chair, opposite Mr. Parks. Between us was a small, square table with several cup holders around its edges, as well as other differently sized indentations. The table had a solid base, and a door on two sides.

  “Excuse me for a second,” Mr. Parks muttered, and turned around in his seat. He knocked on the wall behind him, which turned out to be a thick window.

  “We’re ready now. Take us home.”

  The shadow of a man behind the window nodded, and the car started to move.

  Mr. Parks turned back to me, then opened the little door on his side of the table and pulled out two cups. He handed one to me. Steam rose from the cups, and the familiar smell of coffee hit my nose. I took the offered cup and pressed it to my lips. The delicious liquid washed over my tongue, and a comfortable warmth spread into my chest.

  I’d drunk half the cup before a worrying thought hit me. What if this was another attempt to somehow sedate me? I quickly lowered the cup while pretending to have burned my tongue, trying my best to feel anything out of the ordinary. Nothing immediately stood out, apart from the spike in volume from the Hum.

  I need to find a way to control when that happens, I thought to myself while fanning my supposedly burned mouth.

  “Oh, sorry about that, I should have warned you,” said the attorney apologetically. I looked at him in the light of the cabin, seeing his features properly for the first time.

  He was a bit younger than I’d expected, but not by much. I’d say he was around forty years old.

  He had visible wrinkles around a pair of brown eyes, and at the corners of his mouth. His hair was dark, almost black, but signs of gray curls were increasing around his temples. His skin was also dark, like the color of thick cocoa. He wore an expensive looking suit jacket and pants, both dark blue, with a loose fitting gray shirt underneath. He had no neck- or bow tie, but a couple of metal cufflinks were stitched to the cuffs of his sleeves. They glinted in the light, like real metal, not the cheap plastiron that most people could afford.

  He also kept a very clean face. No trace of any facial hair, but his skin was still smooth, except for his eyes and mouth. The man clearly took good care of himself. With sharp features around his jaw and chin, and the soft expression in his eyes, he looked handsome, kind and smart. Like someone you could trust.

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  Nope. Not buying it.

  While I was examining him he was calmly looking back at me, watching me pretend to get over my burned mouth. He smiled as I placed my cup into the cupholder on my side of the table, then took a small sip from his own cup, as if showing me how to drink it.

  “Oh yeah, that’s pretty hot” he said, swallowing his own coffee.

  “By the way, it’s totally safe to drink. We have no desire to drug you or anything, and the cups are filled from the same machine. Besides, we have no idea if anything would even work on you anymore, so the whole point of trying is rather moot, don't you think?”

  He swallowed another sip, smiling at me while setting his cup down in his own cupholder.

  “You could have messed with the cup,” I said, keeping my tone flat.

  “Alright, that’s true,” the attorney admitted, then chuckled. “So how about we trade?”

  I frowned, confused.

  A window to my left rolled down as Mr. Parks grabbed his cup and tossed the remaining liquid out of the car. I turned and caught a glimpse as it splashed on the street below the magnetically powered vehicle, disappearing from sight in a blink.

  Mr. Parks pulled his arm back, letting the window close back up, then pulled a small cloth from his pocket. He scrubbed the edges of the cup, then leaned over and plopped it down in the empty holder next to my already half finished coffee.

  I eyed him carefully, then took a small sip from my own cup, quietly declining his offer to trade. I’d already drunk half of it, might as well just stick to what was already tested. Mr. Parks just smiled, showing me a row of perfectly, white teeth, and sat back in his chair.

  “Very well, Mr. Etrigan. I want you to know, I admire your tenacity, but I assure you that you’re completely safe with me.” He pulled another small cup from the little fridge and sat it on the table. Wisps of steam rose from the freshly poured drink. I remained quiet.

  “Okay, I get it. You don’t trust me. That’s perfectly normal, considering the last twenty hours you’ve had. I’d be shocked if you did, to be honest. However, there are a lot of people with a lot of questions for you, and right now I am the only person who can help you prepare for that. And I do want to help, but to do it I also need you to at least be able to talk to me.”

  I considered the possibilities of what the government official opposite me represented. Some of the things he said were undoubtedly true. There were going to be questions, and someone would have to answer. And that would most likely have to be me.

  Then there was the fact that several people had most likely been briefed about what happened with Frank and I at the shop. According to what Mr. Parks said, that had been twenty hours ago. That meant I’d been unconscious for a very long time, which added another layer of worry. To me it had felt like I’d spent around only an hour in the Void with Fornax. Apparently the Void kind of worked like being in a dream or something.

  That amount of time also made it very probable that some of the story had been released to the public. Especially after having my face recorded by over a dozen news streamers back at the ‘hole’, as Mr. Parks had called it. So anonymity was out. That left me with awfully few options. At least the one in front of me hadn’t put me in chains. I made a choice.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay…?”

  “I’ll talk. But you have to talk first. Like you said, I don’t trust you, so you’re gonna have to convince me. I, uh… I have a lot of questions.”

  The lawyer leaned forward and smiled, and the small wrinkles around his eyes and mouth creased together.

  “That’s great! I’ll answer your questions as best I can, but keep in mind that I will not reveal information about other clients or state business. Can we agree to that?”

  That seemed fair to me.

  “Deal,” I said, and took another sip of my coffee.

  “Perfect. I’ll kick things off with an introduction. My name is-”

  “Nathaniel Parks,” I cut him off. “District Attorney and Legalexecutive for Lodestar Labs.” I bit my cheek right after I said it, feeling dumb for blurting out stuff I probably wasn’t supposed to know yet.

  “Hmm,” he said, leaning back into his seat. “Yes, that is correct. Would you like to formally introduce yourself as well, or should I just move on?”

  He seemed to have deflated a little, but the smile never fully left the attorney's face.

  “My name is Ashton Etrigan, but I’d prefer if you just call me Ashton. I’m not really big on formality, if that’s alright.”

  “That’s perfectly fine, Ashton.” Mr. Parks picked up a handheld tablet from a pocket on his chair, and started tapping the screen.

  “Just one thing before we begin. Are you hungry? Can I get you anything to eat?”

  ???

  Talking to Nathaniel turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. He may have dressed like the rich upper class type asshole, and probably worked with a lot of them, but he didn’t act like any of them. He listened to my questions without trying to influence them, and gave me pretty concise answers where he could.

  So far he’d told me how I’d been formally arrested by the Guard at my job, then taken away by a different squad. Frank had given the officers on the scene a statement that had made me out to be some sort of enhanced freak, and told them I’d wanted to kill him with my “secret experimental implants”. Apparently Silas had backed his statement during the arrest, saying he’d been too scared to do anything when I attacked Frank. I didn’t blame him though, Frank was more than enough of a bastard to take advantage of someone in an uncertain situation. Besides, Silas had later rescinded the statement under interrogation, according to Nathaniel's report. Not that it helped, the images from the scene were apparently pretty damning.

  There were also a few important details that arose from when the Guard showed up to arrest me. While I wasn’t allowed to directly read the reports the Guard had shared from the scene, Nathaniel pointed out the other crime I’d been accused of after I passed out.

  The stuff I’d eaten out of Frank’s drawer had been real food, grown and harvested by hand, and thus extremely expensive. So on top of the attempted murder charges, I was also charged with stealing and eating a huge amount of the second most precious resource on the planet. The attorney wasn’t exactly pleased about that part, considering there was absolutely no way to disprove the crumbs of evidence all over my unconscious face.

  Due to the severity of these charges and the rumors of my supposed “enhancements”, the case had been kicked up the chain of command pretty quickly. I’d been taken into custody by the first responders, but what happened after that had been redacted.

  “I’m sorry, that’s where my reports ended. Anything that happened between you being taken away and me coming to pick you up is still a mystery to me.”

  Nathaniel reached over and dropped his third coffee cup into the stack in his cup holder. We’d been talking for almost an hour by then, and the night sky had just started to brighten. The attorney was a little bleary eyed after an hour of questions from me, but he seemed to be powering through. Personally I felt wide awake, due to the time I’d been in the Void, as well as my own considerable stack of empty cups.

  “That’s okay. Or- I mean… I’m not okay, I still wish I knew what those people wanted from me. I’m just saying I’m glad I’m not trapped in a room with a bunch of trigger happy soldiers and their scientists anymore. So, I guess… Thank you. For getting me out, I mean.”

  The attorney chuckled and tipped his head to me. He seemed to genuinely appreciate my attempt at making light of a very serious situation. He was about to pour himself another coffee when he suddenly frowned. He leaned back and pursed his lips while studying my face, like he was looking for something that was no longer there.

  “I don’t want to be insensitive here, Ashton,” he said carefully, as if handling glass. “And if it’s too much to handle right now, then you don’t have to answer right away, but… How long were you conscious down there, and what do you remember?”

  I looked down on the carpeted floor of the car, trying to find a way to answer the question. I’d known it was coming sooner or later, and I was okay with reliving those moments while telling someone. There were far darker memories from recent history that made what happened in the hole pale in comparison. I just didn’t know how much of it I should reveal to this man.

  Fuck it.

  “Remember when that captain guy told you they gave me some kind of sedative?”

  Nathaniel nodded.

  “Well, whatever it was supposed to do, it didn’t. I don’t really think it had any effect at all, but I tried to trick them, and I think it worked, or maybe not on the captain guy, because he said something weird to me, and-”

  “Woah, okay, Ashton, hold on a second. Take a deep breath, there you go. Relax, take a moment, and when you’re ready, start from the beginning. The first thing you remember after you woke up.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Take all the time you need.”

  I eyed the man opposite me, wishing I could match his level of composure. Trying to hide my embarrassment, I picked up a used cup and bent down to fill it with more coffee from the dispenser inside the little fridge under the table. It only filled halfway before the small tube started sputtering droplets in a way that felt like it was mocking me. It dried up, leaving me with just above half a cup of drinkable liquid. I sighed and sat back up.

  “After the whole… incident at my job, the first thing I remember is waking up blind.” I took a sip of the coffee, savoring the comfortable heat that spread from my mouth. I let it sink for a short moment before I continued my story.

  “It came as a shock, waking up like that. Not being able to see anything, or move my arms and legs, while a bunch of voices I didn’t recognize were talking about me like I was some experiment. I tried to call for help, but they ignored me. I tried to move, but I couldn’t get free. I guess I panicked, which scared the scientists somehow, so Boss Lady ordered someone to sedate me, but they couldn’t use a needle, so someone grabbed my mouth and made me drink some kind of chemical.”

  I stopped and took another breath, feeling myself starting to ramble again. Nathaniel sat with his tablet, tapping at it in even intervals.

  “Who is this Boss Lady,” he asked as he made another few taps.

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “It’s just the name I gave the lady in charge of the guard before the captain showed up. She sounded kinda harsh, like she’s perpetually angry or something. She’s also the one who ordered someone to inform the captain about it when I woke up.”

  “I see,” said Nathaniel, and tapped his tablet some more. “Did she do anything else?”

  “Not really, she just ordered people around. Oh, she did yell at some people to keep an close eye on me, and stun me if something went wrong! That was after they made me drink the sedative.”

  “Hmm, not a lot to work with there,” Nathaniel muttered to himself. “Was there anyone else who stood out to you before Captain Greaves arrived?”

  I took a second and thought about the scientists, but there was nothing I could point to as a form of identification. Not that it mattered much anymore anyway.

  “There was one woman,” I said softly. “She sounded pretty young, and I got the feeling she wanted to prove herself, or something like that. I think a lot of them were scared of that Greaves guy, and whenever someone hesitated, that woman took over.”

  Remembering her made me uncomfortable. She reminded me about Tyler, who right then was probably back at the gym, or out with her friends. Both strong willed and ambitious. That woman was dead now, along with almost all of those other scientists. I took a deep breath.

  “Okay, I’m choosing to trust you.” My tone was serious. Nathaniel looked at me with curious eyes, but nodded his head.

  “I’m glad to hear that, but what exactly do you-”

  “After the guard gave me the sedative I managed to trick them into thinking it worked. Some kind of machine was measuring something inside me, and I found a way to calm down enough for the machine to convince them I was unconscious.”

  Nathaniel's eyes went to his tablet again as he began furiously tapping the screen.

  “What do you mean ‘something inside you?”

  “Later. Anyway, I tricked the scientists, so when Captain Greaves arrived they told him I was unconscious. I overheard their reports to him about what they’d learned so far, which wasn’t all that much, but then that woman said something I think could be very important.”

  I spoke quickly, trying to get it all out in one go while I still remembered. Opposite me, the attorney was inching towards the edge of his seat, furrowing his brows while he looked back and forth between me and the screen.

  “It was right before Captain Greaves started shooting people.” My fingers flexed uncontrollably as distant booming sounds echoed through my mind. The Hum rose in pitch with every boom.

  “Hey, it’s okay Ashton, stay with me. What did she say?”

  “She told Captain Greaves that they needed to study me. Because I was proof.”

  “Proof of what?” The tablet fell out of Nathaniel’s seat, but his eyes were locked on mine.

  “I don’t think I’m the first one they’ve found. She made it sound like they already have someone else, who is kind of like me. She said I was proof that that other person wasn’t an isolated incident, but before she could say anything else…”

  I trailed off, trusting that an attorney would be able to piece the rest together. Nathaniel sat quietly for a moment, his elbows on his knees while resting his head against the back of his hands. His eyes looked back and forth between random spots on the floor. Whatever thoughts he had, they seemed to be heavy.

  “This is a lot to process. I have a ton of additional questions, but I’m honestly not even sure where to begin. To be honest, most people would have a hard time believing half of what you just said. However, I’m too damn experienced with this exact kind of bull- erm!”

  Nathaniel waved a hand in apology for his slip of the tongue, but I was smiling. I liked it when people spoke their mind.

  “What I meant to say is that I have worked shady cases like this before. I’ve even assisted a hero once or twice, and I can tell you, the amount of red tape around those cases…” He shook his head.

  “Anyway, what I mean is that I need to think through some things. There are a few people I need to call, notes I need to write down. Before that though, are there any more questions you need answers to?”

  My eyes nearly popped right out of my skull, and my jaw practically fell off my face. This guy had worked for superheroes! In court cases! What the absolute fuck was going on!?

  A pair of fingers snapped in front of my face, and my eyes refocused as Nathaniel pulled his hand back from my face. I cleared my throat and tried to compose myself. The last drops of coffee in my cup did the trick, and I prepared to ask my next question, as the Hum rose in intensity along with my excitement.

  “Who-”

  “Nope, sorry. Can’t give you their names, aliases, or even the events relating to the case. Like I said, red tape.”

  I grumbled with dissatisfaction, but there was nothing I could do. It made too much sense to even argue about, so I shoved the thought into a dark hole in my mind where it couldn’t annoy me.

  Actually, that reminds me.

  Sudden uncertainty flushed through me, and the Hum once again changed in pitch, becoming deeper.

  “What kind of place was that building, and exactly how did you know where to find me?”

  It wasn’t that I was scared of ever going back there. There was just this dark potential of what could have been, if not for Mr. Parks’s swift actions. I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to know how bad things could have gone.

  “The building is an old sanitation station that used to handle the harmful byproducts from old electric companies. There used to be many such businesses, but they all became obsolete after the last Blackout. Every power company on the globe is required by law to handle their own waste now.”

  That made sense. There were a lot of superfluous businesses that practically disappeared overnight following each Blackout.

  Many years ago, long before even my parents were born, something had happened to the world’s power supply. Across every major metropolis on the planet, lights had started to flicker and go out, followed by every other electric appliance and plug-in device. Devices powered by portable power cells could still be turned on, but there were no signals. The whole grid collapsed, and society had temporarily broken down.

  Eventually someone managed to find a solution, but it didn’t last long until another Blackout spread across the world. There were a total of four great Blackouts, the last one almost plunging humanity into war over what little electricity still remained at the time.

  Turned out the source of the problem was something that scientists had warned people about for a hundred years, but society was too greedy to listen. In the pursuit of wealth and power, the world had reached a tipping point, where the consumption of energy outpaced our ability to produce it.

  There used to be several global corporations, with properties of all kinds in every country on the globe. They claimed to be too big to fail, and simply ignored all the warnings. As long as they still made a profit, they could just buy from a reserve or file for a government subsidy in the form of access to more electricity. That’s how the rich and powerful survived the weeklong first Blackout, which they themselves indirectly caused, using the stored power to live in relative comfort while the poor fought over reusable batteries and solar panels.

  It took three more Blackouts until enough billionaires died for them to finally start funding a hopefully permanent solution.

  “Sanitation station, huh? Kind of a dumb place to use for secret guard business. Wouldn’t they have to go through a ton of work just to be allowed to hook it up to an active powerline?”

  Part of the answer to the Blackouts was cutting global consumption down to an acceptable level. If you owned or operated a large business, you were only allowed so much power per year. The amount was strictly measured and controlled, and it became illegal to monopolize production.

  To supplement the electric deficit, people invented new ways to make their products. Things like food, clothes, material of all kinds, they were all innovated upon to require less and less energy to mass produce. Costs went down, and profits began to increase. More and more resources went into research and development towards making everything sustainable, no matter how little remained of the natural product. If you wanted to keep making real products, you could, it just required a lot of contracts and money. The same was true for using old buildings, like the sanitation station.

  “It’s true, the Guard would have needed to file some sort of public request for electricity,” Nathaniel said as he gave me a somewhat mischievous grin.

  “However, the absence of any such requests is what allowed us to find you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like I said, I have some experience in this area, and I’ve learned to keep an eye out for suspicious electrical activity when there shouldn’t be any.”

  He pointed down at the floor of the car, pausing for a moment. Then I got it.

  The other part of the solution for the Blackouts was the invention of Grav-Mag technology. By digging large holes under the planet's crust, and by utilizing the constant pressure of the planet's own gravity, aided by the magnetic property of certain metals, they created a force circuit that functioned as a gauss accelerator. These Mag-Wells were incredibly expensive, but could in a pinch be used to generate enough force to convert into functional electric power.

  Over time there were smaller, less dangerous methods to utilize Grav-mag tech, but these wells still existed, albeit in highly secret locations. They were inaccessible by the public and official businesses, and were supposed to be used only in emergencies. Despite generating a great amount of power, there was a terrible side-effect to these gigantic wells. The gravitational pull from inside a well during activation caused fractional damage to the surrounding crust, which not only weakened the mag-well, but also affected the planet's total mass.

  In short, the mag-wells permanently siphoned away Ma?l’s gravity, little by little, to make electricity. It wasn’t sustainable, or even safe. So the wells were decommissioned, except in extreme circumstances. And Nathaniel was implying that one had been used by the Guard, illegally, to study me. I gulped, suddenly feeling very exposed in my little tank top and shorts.

  “Yes, that was pretty much my reaction as well,” Nathaniel said, his tone more serious than before.

  “I don’t know how the Guard gained access to a well, or why they took that kind of risk on you, but lucky for us, my contract with Lodestar allows me at least some insight. We located you with some help from my power lab friends.”

  Nathaniel rubbed his eyes, and sighed. He threw a quick glance at our empty coffee cups and frowned. He seemed like he was done speaking, but I stared at him until he waved his hands in defeat.

  “Alright, I’ll spill. Someone at Lodestar, not naming any names, discovered an irregularity in the grid, and sent the info to us. My team cross referenced the blip with a map of nearby Guard activity, and then we just dropped an anonymous tip to every news streamer we could that something shady was happening at the corresponding locations. The second we saw a stream where the news team was being threatened we knew where to go.”

  I was impressed. I would never have thought to outsource the search like that, but by the way Nathaniel explained it, it sounded like this was something he’d done before. Not sure how I felt about putting innocent people in a potentially dangerous situation.

  “Thank you,” I said after a moment of quiet. “I’m very grateful for your help.” It felt like the absolute least I could say, but I really meant it.

  Nathaniel gave me a tired smile as he shuffled deep into the leathers of his seat.

  “You are welcome, Ashton.” He yawned, long and deep, and stretched his arms above his head.

  “And I’m sorry you had to wait this long. In my opinion we should have reached out the second we knew you survived the tragedy at the Astral Hall, no matter what the doctors at the Andromeda claimed…” he trailed off, his eyes widening at the sudden intensity displayed in my own eyes.

  The Hum had spiked, and specks of fire licked around the edges of my vision. A deep tension tightened in my chest, and the scent of ash and copper made my nose twitch. There was also a creaking sound coming from somewhere nearby, but my mind was too preoccupied by other questions.

  How did Nathaniel know about the convention? He knew I’d been at the hospital after, too. What else did he know? And why had I decided to trust him?

  “Ashton?”

  The Hum pitched up, becoming a whine.

  “Mr. Etrigan, calm yourself!”

  Anxiety turned into anger, and my fingers twitched.

  “Mr. Etrigan, I assure you, we only…” Nathaniel's voice faded away, like a raindrop in a lightning storm. The Hum drowned away nearly all sounds as the slight vibrations from deep in my stomach ceased, and light started to shine beneath my skin. I saw Nathaniel’s face lit up by vastly more light than what the small lamps could ever dream of producing. I saw his teeth, straight and white, as he opened his mouth in a silent shout.

  The Hum rose to a peak, creating a pressure behind my eyes and beneath my skin. It felt like I was going to be torn open from the inside. I tried to hold it in, to push the feeling down. I couldn’t. My vision went, as the brightness made the inside of the car turn completely white. I covered my face, and curled up as tight as I could, trying to hold whatever was happening back. But I was starting to slip.

  LET GO.

  Right as I was about to lose it, there was a pop in my head. The sound echoed through my body like a physical wave, passing over every fibre and muscle in my body, forcing it to relax. The Hum was gone, taken away by the sound, leaving my ears feeling empty.

  As the wave reached my feet, the pressure started decreasing. It was as if something was pulling it back to where it came from, and the process left me feeling like I was physically deflating. Flecks of light danced behind my eyelids as I uncurled, and shakily opened my eyes to the once again dark interior of Nathaniel’s car. My skin was normal again.

  I lifted my hand to rub the last embers of light from my eyes, but stopped and studied the strange object I was holding. After a second I recognized the torn and crushed leather and wood that had once been my right armrest. I had ripped it free from my seat at some point, turning it into an expensive mess of destroyed material. I started to apologise to Nathaniel, but stopped once I looked at his seat. It was empty.

  “Uuh… Hello?” I tried calling out to the driver. I turned to a window and looked out. The car wasn’t moving.

  “Hello?!” I called again.

  “Please,” someone said weakly from up ahead. A hand reached up and grabbed the back of Nathaniel’s seat, followed by the man himself as he rose from his position crouched behind the thick chair.

  “Please do not do that again,” he coughed. One of the lights in the car had gone out, but I still noticed what looked like blisters on his palms. Just like Frank.

  “I’m so sorry! I don’t know how I- I didn’t mean to- I- I-” I stammered, trying to get up and help Nathaniel somehow. He held out a blistered hand, stopping me from moving closer, and pointed at my seat. I sat back down, watching him slowly do the same.

  “I’m sorry, “ I tried again, feeling a crushing sense of guilt at what I’d done. Nathaniel just nodded as he picked up his previously fallen tablet from the floor. It still worked, and after a few taps, it beeped, and the car started moving again. He leaned back as we picked up speed, and started carefully massaging around his eyes. Silence stretched between us as he sat there with his eyes closed, but eventually I cracked, needing some kind of closure to what just happened.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you knew about what happened at the convention?”

  Nathaniel cracked an eyelid open, not pausing his hands. His eye was bloodshot, and I could tell he struggled to focus. He didn’t answer.

  “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but you clearly know something. I’m not a monster, okay? I didn’t do… this, on purpose.” I gestured around me.

  “So I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt people. I just want to live a normal life, away from shit like the Guard, or… fucking lawyers who lie to me. I realize my life is different now. I’m not okay with it, but I understand. Okay?” At some point I started to feel small streams of wetness on my face, and I realized I was crying.

  The tears felt warm. They comforted me somehow. I wasn’t sure how, but just feeling them run down my face was making me feel less scared.

  “You said I could trust you,” I said quietly. “You told me things were going to be okay. And I believed you. You’re going to have to build that back up now, Mr. Parks.”

  I wiped my eyes with my hands, feeling a low heat from the tips of my fingers where they touched the skin on my face. Mr. Parks stopped rubbing his own eyes, looking at his palms as he put his hands in his lap.

  “I…” his voice cracked, causing him to start coughing. He cleared his throat and tried again.

  “If you wish, we can arrange for someone else to represent you, Mr. Etrigan.”

  Mr. Parks’s words came out slow and raspy, but he never looked away from me. His eyes, while bloodshot and sore, were locked on mine with a determination one rarely saw in an injured person.

  “I didn’t mean to trigger such a… powerful reaction, and I will make sure that no one brings up what is clearly a very sore memory for you again. I will inform your new counsel of the situation once we arrive back at-”

  “No thank you.”

  “The- what?”

  “I said no. I don’t want another lawyer.”

  Mr. Parks eyed me cautiously in the dim light of the single remaining lamp. I stared back, wiping the last tear away from my face.

  “You’re sure about this? You really want to work with me after what just happened?”

  “I can. If you still want to as well, I mean.” I was afraid I might have scared Mr. Parks too much to ever even look at me again, but his steely gaze had given me a strange sensation of hope. I didn’t trust him, that was true, but if anyone was going to help me, at least he now knew what he was dealing with.

  “I think…” he started to speak, then stopped. With a sigh he straightened up and stretched, making a series of popping noises with the joints in his fingers. Once finished, he gave me a look that I recognized from Emily. It was one of those looks that said ‘I am going to have to do so much work now, because of what you just did’.

  “Thank you, Ashton,” said the tired man instead of whatever he’d started to say.

  “I realize it may not help, but I didn’t mean to lie to you in any way. I meant it when I said you can trust me, and I will do what I can to make you feel like you can rely on me.”

  Mr. Parks coughed again, but held up a hand before I could say anything.

  “However, hrmm! That trust needs to go both ways. I can’t tell what I just witnessed, and in all honesty I am a bit shaken by whatever happened. It doesn’t have to be now, but very soon I need you to tell me and a few of my associates everything you can about what happened at the conv- erm, pardon me, that day. Is that something we can agree on?”

  He held out a hand, palm up, waiting for my response. I looked at him, weighing my options in my head. I reached out, and gingerly took the waiting hand in mine, doing my best to avoid touching the blisters.

  “I can work with that,” I told Mr. Parks.

  “Very well,” he said, and locked my hand in a firm grip, and shook it hard despite the pain it had to have caused him.

  “Now, if it’s all the same to you, I am going to sleep. The food is prepaid, just pick it up when we get to the restaurant. My driver will let you know when we arrive. Good night, Mister Etrigan.”

  “Uh, yeah… Good night.”

  I’d completely forgotten about the food. A rumble from inside made me suddenly aware of the sounds around me. The Hum was also back, having reappeared sometime after my meltdown, but back to its low base volume and pitch. I was hungry.