Doc Jiro thumbed the 'end call' icon on his comm, a frown deepening the worry lines etched around his tired eyes. He slipped the device back into his lab coat pocket, a phantom echo of Kaelen's abruptly jubilant voice still buzzing in his skull. Confusing, that. One moment, sheer panic, the next, a gushing torrent of relief.
His patient, Ryu Kai. A miracle, really. Two years flatlining in a vegetative state, then a flicker, a surge, and a full neurological reboot. His neural pathways, surprisingly robust, had responded to initial therapy with almost impossible speed. Muscle atrophy, nerve damage – all receding like a bad dream. He’d moved, walked, even mumbled a few coherent words, a testament to his freakish physical resilience.
Yet, that miraculous recovery had lasted less than a cycle. Twelve standard days now, Kai had been a dead weight. Deep, comatose sleep, the kind that made his advanced life support hum a lullaby. Jiro initially put it down to the residual trauma, a neural circuit burnout after such an extended period of dormancy. Memory gaps were expected. He hadn’t even truly expected a full recovery from the vegetative state, let alone something this… unpredictable.
Something felt off, a loose wire in the carefully calibrated data. Jiro had run every diagnostic, every scan. The initial head trauma was severe, yes, but the current symptoms felt… tertiary. Not direct damage, but an *effect*.
“Can you tell me your name?” Jiro had asked during one of Kai’s brief, disoriented waking periods.
“Can you hear me?” Jiro pressed, leaning closer to the almost-unmoving form on the cot. “Just speak. Whatever comes to mind.”
“Ry…” The sound was a gravelly whisper, barely audible.
A small, hopeful smile touched Jiro’s lips. “Yes, good. Just like that.”
Later, the words had replayed in Jiro’s mind, colder each time. “*Don’t wake up.*” Ryu Kai had repeated it, a plea almost, lost in the hazy consciousness, amidst the humming of life support. The phrase was a burr under Jiro’s skin. He walked down the empty corridor, the slick synth-light reflecting off the polished durasteel floor. His hand went to his chin, furrowing his brow in thought.
*Director Kai must be distraught about his younger brother.* Hiroki Kai, the silent, omnipresent patron. His order to send Ryu Kai back to Kaelen’s grubby, unlicensed clinic in the Outer Rings had been peculiar, to say the least. Larger, better-equipped facilities existed, but Hiroki’s will was absolute.
Not Jiro’s place to question. A hefty monthly stipend for 'caregiver' duties in this remote sector kept his mouth shut. He paused, fingers snapping. “Ah… I forgot to tell her.”
Neurological sequelae. Ryu Kai’s condition wasn’t just simple hypersomnia. Medical designation: Kleinian Hypersomnia Syndrome, though street docs called it “Wraith’s Sleep.” It frequently manifested alongside a cluster of alarming behavioral abnormalities: compulsive overeating, aggressive outbursts, and a hyperactive libido. Jiro shrugged internally. *He’ll be fine for tonight.* Just a day. Nothing serious could happen. A tired yawn stretched his jaw.
---
Kaelen hummed a tuneless scrap of a synth-ballad, a lightness in her step as she climbed the rusty ferrocrete stairs to her clinic. A brutal shift in the Glint District had her feeling wrung out, but a strange giddiness bubbled beneath. She’d dodged a bullet. The desperate lie to Ryu Kai—that she was his wife—had been a volatile gamble, but now, with Doc Jiro's update, it felt like a reprieve. Hypersomnia. Perfect. Any incriminating interactions could be dismissed as fever dreams, the ramblings of a man barely conscious. She was free, for now, from his unsettling presence.
Reaching the entrance, her synth-panel beeped, accepting her retinal scan. The door slid open with a familiar hydraulic sigh. A sense of déjà vu, cold and unwelcome, prickled her skin.
*What the…*
Alarms blared, a jarring, dissonant chime in the pre-dawn quiet. Not the main door. The back entrance. A heavy industrial access panel, reinforced with composite plating, had been wrenched inward. Twisted metal groaned, a gaping maw in the clinic's outer wall. It looked less like it was forced, more like it had been hit by a wrecking ball.
*He’s gone.* The realization hit her like a stun-baton. Her blood ran cold. The euphoria of moments ago dissolved into a bitter acid in her gut.
“Ryu Kai… where did you go?” The whisper felt thin, lost in the chill air leaking into her clinic. For thirty minutes, Kaelen moved through the oppressive gloom of the Outer Rings, her street-issued comm-unit clutched tight. Old, sputtering arc-lights cast long, dancing shadows of sagging power lines and leaning duracrete structures. The temptation to contact Hiroki Kai, Ryu’s elder brother, burned like a chemical irritant. The man who’d placed her in this impossible bind. No. She couldn’t. Giving him any reason to exert more control, to press down harder, was anathema.
Kaelen ran a trembling thumb over her comm-screen, polishing the smudged surface, a nervous tic. Her long, dark hair, usually pinned back, came loose, whipping around her face as she sped up. The air itself felt heavy, thick with the smell of stale rain and fried bio-waste.
“Ryu Kai!” Her shout was raw, drawing barks from unseen synth-dogs tucked into alleyways, their red optical sensors glowing in the shadows. She moved with practiced stealth, eyes scanning every dim recess, every overflowing refuse bin. Her gaze snagged on something. A peculiar track, leading away from the clinic’s rear. Not a simple footprint. A gouge, wide and shallow, like a heavy length of pipe had been dragged, or a massive creature had slithered, leaving a dark, slick trail on the grimy synth-pavement.
*He truly is a mess.* A dry, humorless laugh escaped her lips. This was beyond the pale. She followed the trail, her boots crunching on forgotten shards of ferro-glass. A faint, wet ripping sound carried on the stale breeze. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat of dread. The sound grew louder, more visceral. *Oh, gods no.*
“Ryu Kai! Put that down!” she screamed, the words tearing from her throat.
He squatted in a sliver of gloom beneath a broken neon sign, the flickering light painting his form in stark reds and blues. His head was bowed, jaw working. A mangled synth-rabbit lay half-eaten in his lap, its internal wiring spilling like glistening entrails. His eyes, when he lifted them, were blank, unfocused, devoid of recognition. A sheen of fresh blood coated his lips, dripping down his chin, catching the erratic light.
He groaned, a guttural, inhuman sound, and spat out a chunk of fur and meat. Kaelen gagged, her stomach roiling, bile burning her throat. The rabbit’s neck was twisted at an impossible angle, its cybernetic eye still blinking erratically. Her hands trembled, an uncontrollable tremor that spread through her entire body. She was terrified of this man, who now stood, unmoving, bloodied, a primal horror in the artificial light of Neo-Kyoto.
*Kleinian Hypersomnia Syndrome.* Doc Jiro hadn't mentioned *this* part. Unfocused gaze. Out of touch with reality. This was a nightmare given flesh.
“It must be difficult for you to move right now, Kai,” Kaelen forced herself to say, her voice surprisingly steady, even if her insides churned. “Why did you come out?” She tried to inject a note of concern, her eyes darting, calculating. She needed to gauge his mood, to see if her earlier lie about being his wife could still hold, or if a fresh strategy was needed.
“Let’s go back. You shouldn’t be here.”
Ryu Kai threw the rabbit carcass with a casual flick of his wrist. It landed with a wet thud, scattering a cloud of dust and stray wires. He looked at Kaelen, a slow, predatory turn of his head. His gaze, even unfocused, made the hairs on her neck stand on end. He stepped out of the shadow, into the flickering neon, and seemed to swell. Taller, broader, his shoulders a brutal line of muscle, almost two heads above her. Dust, grime, and something darker – dried blood – streaked his synth-leather sleeves, his pants, his chest. He hadn't just walked; he had *crawled*, dragged himself, through the filth of the undercity.
A sudden gust of wind, smelling of ozone and desperation, stirred the tattered fabric of his clothes, revealing the stark, defined silhouette of his powerfully toned body beneath. For a fleeting, disorienting second, Kaelen’s mind conjured an image from ancient data-logs: the mythical ‘Dragon Blood’ tree, a gnarled, ancient thing with crimson sap. Bloody and raw. Two years ago, she'd seen him first, a broken mess. A month ago, he’d woken, still bleeding through his cybernetics. And now, again, he stood before her, splattered in gore. “Ryu Kai…”
“Name…” His voice was a rasp, a broken grinder.
“What?” Kaelen’s breath hitched.
“What’s your name?” His cold, blank gaze settled on her, unblinking. It was impossible to read anything in those depths, only a primal, unsettling hunger. *Think, Kaelen. Think.* Her mind spun, a thousand scenarios flashing and dying. She was utterly at a loss for words.