The air in Rusthaven tasted of burnt circuits and desperation, a metallic tang that coated Alex Ren's tongue like old blood.
He moved through the under-slums of the O'Neill cylinder, a wraith in worn synth-leather, his boots silent on the grimy plasteel walkways.
Neon signs, advertising everything from protein paste to black-market stims, flickered like dying embers, casting a lurid, unreliable glow on the labyrinthine alleys.
Above, the vast, curved cityscape of Rusthaven's interior was a smear of corroded metal and patchwork repairs, a testament to generations of neglect.
This wasn't just home; it was a cage, spinning in the forgotten black.
Today, the usual oppressive hum of the failing life support system was drowned out by a harsher symphony: the roar of an enraged crowd, the rhythmic thud of United Galactic Federation pacifier rounds, and the shriek of warning sirens. Another food riot. Another Tuesday.
Alex, 22 and honed by Rusthaven's unforgiving hand, was on the hunt. Not for trouble, but for opportunity.
Riots meant chaos, and chaos meant distracted security, discarded tech, and chances for a scavenger like him to snag something valuable.
His fingers, nimble from years of coaxing open sealed containers and bypassing ancient security panels, twitched with anticipation.
He skirted the edge of the escalating violence, a knot of despairing faces pressed against a cordon of UGF Enforcers.
The Enforcers, clad in stark white armor, were monolithic figures, their faces hidden behind impassive visors. Gene Cores, pulsing faintly beneath their chest plates, marked them as Enhanced—the Federation's fist, augmented with abilities the common folk could only dream of, or fear.
One Enforcer, taller than the others, brandished an energy baton that crackled with blue lightning – a 'Static' Core user, by the looks of it.
A flicker of movement near a nutrient paste dispenser – overturned, its meager contents already looted – caught Alex's eye.
A child, no older than six, face streaked with grime and tears, was trapped between the surging crowd and the unyielding UGF line. Her small hands clutched a ragged synth-doll.
Alex wasn't a hero. Heroes died young in Rusthaven, or worse, got someone else killed. His mantra was simple: head down, pockets full, survive. But the sight of the child, her eyes wide with a terror that mirrored his own at that age, snagged something buried deep beneath his cynicism. A ghost of a memory, a flicker of an old, almost forgotten warmth.
Before he could second-guess the impulse, he was moving. He slipped through a gap in the panicked crowd, his lithe frame weaving through the chaos. The air crackled with tension, the scent of ozone from discharged pacifier rounds thick and choking.
"Kid! This way!" he hissed, his voice raspy.
The child looked up, her gaze locking onto his. For a moment, pure, unadulterated fear. Then, a tiny spark of hope.
He reached her just as the UGF line surged forward, Enforcers shoving back the rioters with their shock batons. The tall Static Core Enforcer swung his baton in a brutal arc, not at the rioters, but at the space where Alex now stood, shielding the child.
There was no time to dodge, only to brace. Alex twisted, putting his own body between the blow and the girl. The energy baton slammed into his side with concussive force. Agony, white-hot and blinding, ripped through him.
He felt ribs crack, his breath stolen by a punch of pure, kinetic energy laced with a paralyzing electrical jolt. The world dissolved into a starburst of pain.
He vaguely registered strong hands hauling him away, the child's terrified cry, the shouts of the crowd fading into a dull roar. Darkness pressed in, heavy and comforting.
When Alex's senses flickered back, the first thing he registered was the acrid smell of antiseptic overlaying Rusthaven's usual metallic tang. He lay on a hard, surprisingly clean cot. Wires trailed from his arm to a sputtering, archaic medical monitor that looked salvaged from a pre-Federation cruiser.
He tried to sit up, a gasp tearing from his throat as pain flared anew in his side.
"Easy there, hero." A woman's voice, calm and wry.
He blinked, focusing on a figure silhouetted against a worktable cluttered with jury-rigged lab equipment and glowing data-slates.
Dr. Mara Voss. Rusthaven's resident miracle worker and pariah, a rogue scientist operating an underground clinic that was part scrapyard, part forbidden knowledge.
She was older, maybe late forties, with sharp eyes that missed nothing and lines of exhaustion etched around her mouth. Her grey-streaked hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail.
"The girl?" Alex rasped, his throat dry.
"Safe. Spirited away by some of her neighbors. You bought her the time she needed." Voss stepped closer, a handheld diagnostic scanner whirring softly in her hand. She ran it over his torso.
"You, on the other hand, are a mess. Multiple fractured ribs, severe tissue damage, and… something else."
Her gaze sharpened, fixed on the monitor displaying his vitals. A frown creased her brow. "The UGF Enforcer who hit you… he had a Strength Core, Class Two, and a Static Discharge augment, standard issue. The impact alone should have pulped your insides. You're Unenhanced, correct?"
Alex nodded, wincing. "Last I checked." Born without the credits for a Core, like most of Rusthaven.
Voss tapped a series of commands onto her data-slate. The monitor beeped erratically. "Your cellular regeneration is… abnormally high. And there's an energy signature here I don't recognize. Faint, almost undetectable, but definitely not human standard."
She leaned in, her eyes gleaming with an intensity that was part concern, part scientific fervor. "When that Enforcer hit you, Alex, something happened. Your bio-signs… they're reacting to the residual energy from his Core. Almost as if your body is… trying to understand it. Or… absorb it."
Alex stared at her, confusion clouding the pain. "Absorb? Absorb what? A beating?"
Voss's lips thinned. "His Gene Core imprint, Alex. Or a fragment of it. I've seen whispers of this in suppressed UGF xenogenetic research.
A theoretical mutation… they called it the Absorber Gene." She paused, her voice dropping to a near whisper, laden with a significance that sent a chill down Alex's spine despite his feverish state.
"They theorized it could interface with, even integrate, Gene Core energies. They also theorized it was alien in origin."
She met his gaze directly. "If I'm right, Alex Ren, you're not just lucky to be alive. You're something the United Galactic Federation has spent decades ensuring the galaxy believes doesn't exist."
A siren wailed in the distance, closer than before. Voss's head snapped up.
"And they'll kill to keep it that way."