The frost outside seeped through the warped floorboards, but Berya barely noted the temperature. The old Berya would have dissolved into hysterics or fainted. This Berya merely calculated the logistics. “Karsik?” Her voice, sharp and low, cut through the oppressive silence of the tiny apartment. No response, just a ragged cough that brought more crimson froth to his lips. His pale gray eyes were half-lidded, unfocused. The Vanguard uniform, usually pristine, was a shredded mess across his chest, revealing angry, lacerated skin. Berya knelt, her mind already assessing. This wasn't a job for the district medic. His wounds were too deep, too specific. And Karsik Tarsin, even in this state, wouldn't be found here by chance. He was hiding. That meant *she* had to hide him. A resource, she realized, a liability, a complication. But also… a tool. His status, even disgraced, held sway. She reached out, her fingers brushing the cold metal of his arm. No pulse check. She knew he was alive; the weak tremor in his hand, the shallow rasp of his breath, confirmed it. Her gaze swept the cramped room. A tattered sleeping mat, a rust-stained washbasin, a single, flickering electro-lamp. Hardly a field hospital. Her mind, however, offered another solution. She closed her eyes for a fleeting second, accessing the factory in her mind. The glowing dials hummed, the conduits pulsed. She needed medical supplies. Fast. And sterile. [Input: Scraps of torn cloth, distilled water, salvaged antiseptic fluid] [Processing…] [Output: Sterile bandages (x5), medicated salves (x3), wound-closure patches (x2)] Her hand, still outwardly empty, felt the familiar phantom weight of the items. She opened her eyes, retrieving a roll of thick, sterile gauze from a nearby, grimy shelf – a trick of perception she was rapidly mastering. She tore away his uniform jacket, wincing at the sight beneath. A jagged, angry gash ran from his shoulder to his ribs, but beneath it, almost hidden by the blood, was something else. A faint, internal glow pulsed, a network of intricate, mechanical lines beneath his skin, radiating from a central, almost circular device embedded in his chest. It looked like a miniature, living gear assembly, subtly shifting under the strain. Karsik’s eyes fluttered, locking onto hers. A flicker of something, surprise? Recognition? Before she could decipher it, he ground his molars together and his hand clamped down, covering the glowing anomaly. “Don’t,” he rasped, his voice a gravelly whisper. “Don’t look.” Berya scoffed, her pride pricking. “As if I care about your anatomy, Commander. You’re bleeding all over my floor. Do you want to live or not?” Her fingers, deft and unhesitating, began to clean the wound, ignoring his attempt to hide the glowing scar. His silence was infuriating, but she was used to men who thought they could keep secrets from her. She pressed a medicated salve generously onto the laceration, then applied a wound-closure patch that sealed the edges with a faint, almost imperceptible hum. Karsik watched, his expression unreadable, a mixture of pain and a strange, wary curiosity. He probably expected her to swoon, to cower, to demand explanations. She gave him none. “Stay still,” she commanded, her tone flat. “You’ll ruin the stitches.” She wrapped the bandages tightly, securing them with a firm knot. The twins, sound asleep in the adjoining cubicle, remained undisturbed. Just as she finished, a series of insistent, heavy thumps rattled the apartment door. A voice, coarse and demanding, echoed from the corridor. “Tarsin! Open up! I know you’re in there, you foolish little widow! Got your ration tickets, do we?” Berya’s lips thinned. The voice belonged to the corridor's self-appointed extortionist, a thickset ruffian whose greasy collar reeked of stale grease. The previous tenant had surrendered food chits at every knock. Not anymore. She looked at Karsik, who was slowly pushing himself up, leaning heavily against the wall, his face still pale but his gaze sharpening. “Stay,” she ordered, a warning in her voice. He hesitated, then subsided, clearly conserving energy. Berya moved to the door, her hand hovering over the latch. The brute wanted to plunder her stores? A demonstration in property boundaries was long overdue. [Input: Scraps of salvaged high-tensile wire, discarded electro-coils, insulation fragments] [Processing…] [Output: Stun-wire snare (x1)] She felt the tangible presence of the item, a coiled length of thin, almost invisible wire, humming with static tension. It was designed for containment, not harm. Perfect. With a practiced, fluid motion, she carefully opened the door a crack. The intruder shoved against it, sneering through cracked teeth. “About time, you pathetic thing! Hand over the tickets! And don’t think of hiding them like last cycle!” Berya stepped back, allowing the trespasser's own bulk to carry her past the threshold. As a scuffed work boot slammed onto the floorboards, Berya flicked her wrist. The filament snapped taut around the intruder's ankles. Before the woman could register the trap, Berya yanked the end, securing it to the sturdy doorframe. Static discharged into the wire. The intruder rigidified mid-stride and pitch-poled forward, face cracking into the floor with a dull thud as the charge locked her joints. Her thrashing was immediate, desperate. “What—what is this?!” the woman shrieked into the dust. “Let me go, you witch!” Berya stepped over her without a trace of hesitation. “You wanted inside. Now stay.” She drew the filament taut, keeping the target's calves pinned until the convulsive thrashing stopped. Footsteps shuffled in the corridor. Other residents, drawn by the commotion, began to emerge from their doors, their faces a mixture of fear and morbid curiosity. They usually steered clear of the loud bully, but none turned away from the spectacle. And there, in the deepening shadows at the end of the corridor, a figure stood, almost merging with the brutalist concrete. Yulic. His usually obsequious face was unreadable, but Berya saw the subtle movement of his hand as he pulled a small, worn datapad from his coat. He was taking notes. For Madam Morza, no doubt. Let him. Let her. Let them all see what happened when they underestimated her. Berya stood over the grounded thug, her gaze sweeping over the onlookers. Her lips curved into a cold, satisfied smile. This was just the beginning. The small, bitter triumph felt like a potent elixir, a promise of the empire she would build, brick by painful brick, humiliation by public humiliation. Suddenly, from the cubicle where Karsik lay, a ragged, wet cough echoed. A terrible sound, like tearing cloth. Berya’s focus snapped inward, to the factory in her mind. And there, on the main console, a pressure gauge, previously holding steady, violently spiked into the red, the needle trembling erratically. Just as Karsik coughed again, a spray of black blood splattering against the wall in the next room.

Stun-Wire and Scars