A chill, dry air filled the space, smelling of ozone and synth-leather. My hands, shackled to a cold alloy table, ached. Bright, harsh light spilled from an overhead rig, reflecting off the mirrored wall opposite. Behind the polished surface, I knew someone watched. Always someone watching.
“Misunderstanding. That’s what this is,” I croaked, the words tasting like ash. A tremor ran through my jaw, betraying the ice in my gut. “I didn’t hit him. Not with a pipe, not with anything. I just… I found him.”
Silas, the Chrome Baron, sat opposite me. Late thirties, maybe early forties. His face, surgically smooth, showed no lines of worry or warmth. Silver-rimmed optical implants glowed faintly. He wore a suit that seemed to absorb light, a silent void in the stark room. A tendril of smoke curled from the synth-cigar between his fingers.
He tapped ash into a small, chrome tray. “My brother was trying to bury someone alive, you claim.” His voice was a low hum, flat and devoid of inflection. “And he was interrupted.”
“Exactly. Not by me. By the guy he was trying to put six feet under. I only stepped in to patch the survivor, the one getting buried.” A desperate plea, even to my own cynical ears. My heart hammered against my ribs, a drumbeat in the quiet room.
“What’s the problem with burying someone?” Silas asked, a ghost of a smile touching the corner of his lips. It didn't reach his eyes. “My brother gets… territorial. He doesn’t like interruptions.”
“I’m telling you, it wasn’t me. The man who was being buried, he lashed out. A piece of scrap metal. Fast. Efficient.” My mind raced, searching for any angle, any thread of logic that would make sense to this stone-faced man. “I was just there. Wrong place, wrong time. Self-defense, really. On the part of the victim.”
Silas leaned back, the synth-leather of his chair creaking softly. “My brother has excellent reflexes. He’s not blind, not deaf. Someone approaching from behind? Unlikely he wouldn’t react.”
Bile rose in my throat. “But… it was already happening. The fight. I wasn’t involved in that part.” I swallowed hard, the taste of fear sharp on my tongue. He wouldn’t believe me. He didn’t want to. No witnesses, no evidence. Just me, and his critically wounded brother. My life, my clinic, everything I’d built on the fringes of Neo-Kyoto, felt like it was crumbling around me.
He watched me, unblinking. The glow from his optical implants seemed to intensify. “So, you’re an accomplice? To the man who put my brother in a critical state?”
“What? No! I don’t even know him! Never seen him before in my life.” My voice cracked, raw with rising panic. This man, this Baron, held my fate in his perfectly manicured hands. He looked as relaxed as if he were waiting for a table at a high-end sky-restaurant.
Silas pushed his chair back, slowly rising. He moved with a predator’s grace, settling into a low crouch that brought his face level with mine across the table. His gaze, devoid of emotion, pierced through me. “Kaelen Voss. I don’t care about your story. Or your innocence.”
His voice dropped, a dangerous whisper. “Someone hurt my brother. Someone put him in this state. And someone is going to pay.”
*Coma. He’s in a coma?*
“Whether you wielded the pipe, or if you merely facilitated the true culprit’s escape, it’s irrelevant to me,” Silas continued, pushing his synth-cigar into a small, portable ash tray shaped like a stylized skull. “But there’s a deal to be made, if you’re smart. Play along, and you walk out of here.”
“A… deal?” I whispered, my throat tight.
“Precisely.” He stood, pulling a sleek datapad from an inner pocket. “You will find the true perpetrator. The one who actually struck my brother down. Bring him to me. Until then, you will continue to care for my brother. Your clinic. Your expertise. All at my disposal.”
My restraints released with a soft click. My wrists screamed in protest as I rubbed them, raw and red. Silas slid the datapad across the table. A contract. Pages of corpo-speak and legal jargon scrolled across the screen. My name, my clinic’s designation, and a clause about “asset forfeiture” caught my eye. No choice.
My finger, trembling slightly, pressed against the screen. A quick flash confirmed the signature. Just like that, my life was no longer my own.
Silas turned, a dark silhouette against the mirrored wall. His voice, crisp and final, echoed as he reached the door. “Don’t let him leave Neo-Kyoto. And don’t let him die.”
The door hissed shut, plunging the room into shadow for a brief, terrifying moment before the lights flickered back on. His words, a chilling promise, branded themselves into my mind. I was a hostage, tethered to a man I barely knew, responsible for another man I didn’t know at all, all while being hunted by a ghost. A sharp, burning fear, fresh from the encounter, flared.
---
Empty. The word screamed in my head. The sub-level chamber, my private sanctuary for a critically injured man, was vacant. Just the humming med-array, the IV drip suspended mid-air, a faint scent of synth-antiseptic. He was gone.
A cold wave of terror, far worse than the creeping dread that usually rode my shoulders, hit me. That day with Silas, the cold dread of his voice, the threat of being ‘torn apart’ or ‘dumped in a drum of cement’ – it all rushed back. My body, despite the years, remembered the tension, the suffocating fear of those moments. The metallic tang of fear, sharp and distinct, filled my senses.
*He will kill me.* The thought was a claw to my throat. Silas would find out. He would come for me. I had to find him. I had to.
Swiveling, my eyes frantically scanned the shadows. A shifting form by the door. Not a trick of the low light. A dark mass, too large, too sudden.
Impact. A hard shove sent me stumbling. The medical tray, a forgotten weight in my numb fingers, clattered to the synth-floor, vials and instruments scattering. The clang echoed, shrill and deafening.
He moved, a dark blur. The injured man, the one I’d spent months stitching back together, the one whose life now dictated mine, surged forward. He couldn’t be stable, not after so long, but his movements, though uneven, carried a surprising momentum. Knees bent, a slight sway to his shoulders, he closed the distance. Too fast.
Strong arms wrapped around me, pinning mine to my sides. He twisted, using my body as leverage, shoving me forward onto the examination bed. The mattress absorbed the shock, but my left cheek smacked hard against the synth-leather surface. My breath hitched, knocked from my lungs.
A heavy weight settled on my back, pinning me. My arms, trapped, strained against his grip. Legs, strong and unyielding, locked around mine, effectively binding me. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest, but I was caught. Immovable.
Through my thin clinic scrubs, I felt him. Raw muscle. A heat radiating from his body. The sudden, invasive intimacy of his weight, the unfamiliar male presence, was a stark, brutal shock. A hard ridge, undeniably male, pressed into my lower back, a grim, physical reminder of the sheer, primal power now holding me captive. He was awake. And he was strong.