I woke up, half buried in freezing sand. Little specks of heat pattered against my head, burning splotches of pink onto my face. My mouth was gritty and dry, and I could barely feel my fingers. As I painfully pulled my eyes open, I saw endless black. No moon, no stars, no light but the pieces of falling ember hovering down from endless smoky clouds.

Mindlessly, I pushed my left arm out of the sand and slowly moved my achy body. I thought the sand was freezing, but the air was even worse. Sub-zero winds flowed across my nude body as the fiery rain hissed against my back. I would have been concerned about my lack of clothing, but something else needed even more attention.

As I finally dug myself out from the sand, I could feel a throbbing pain in my right shoulder. My right arm was limp, so I began to pull that side from the sand. The problem was, nothing came out but half a humerus with stringy tendons hanging limply. I immediately gasped and sat back. Once my mind realized I was missing my arm, I finally became aware of every nerve in my body screaming at me. The pain flushed through me, and I nearly passed out as all the air left my lungs in a shriek.

My entire body was pale and deprived, like I had been starved and devoid of sunlight for years. Everything felt weak, and my legs barely listened as I tried to stand. I had no idea where I was, and no memory of how I got there, but my instincts told me to run like my life depended on it.

My surviving arm clutched to the bloody stump as I ran through the magma rain. There were no city lights. No planes flying. No cars, or buildings, or streets. Most importantly, I missed something more than my arm.

It felt like my lungs were full of gravel, and I could barely squeak out a shaky moan, but I called to the nothingness all the same. “Logan! Logan!”

To be honest, I had no clue who this Logan guy was, but some piece of consciousness tucked away was loathing at his absence. I stumbled forward like that for what felt like an eternity, stupidly shouting out for no one to hear.

Hours, days, minutes, years, seconds, centuries. Time passed in such a way that I could never hope to keep track, but I continued to wander. Whatever hope I had for finding Logan was gone, and the pain in my missing arm never stopped pulsating up my entire body.

Finally, I saw something emerge from the smoky and barren distance. It was a metallic monolith, constructed by mile-wide sheets of chrome, stained black and grimy from the ash. My heart beat for the first time in forever, and I moved as quickly as I could to the structure.

The closer I got, the more I could hear a deafening hum come from inside it. It shook my core, and it vibrated the sand so much I began to sink.

Still determined, I trudged through the desert and got nearer. The black pillar wasn’t just vibrating but humming. It sounded like the bass of a cello slowly being played. The musical sound grew louder as I crawled on my hands and knees. Eventually the vibrations thundered so much that I was swimming through the sand as best I could with one arm, but it was no use. I was swallowed by the freezing grains of time, and my world became black. Nothing but the humming of the metal structure to keep me company as I drifted deeper and deeper, unable to suffocate on the sand that filled my throat and lungs.

Events after that became foggy. Distant, like too much time had passed to recall my thoughts. The sound that echoed through my mind was lost, and eventually, I woke up once more.

My eyes fluttered open from the dream. Luckily, I was shrouded in warm blankets and fluffy pillows. My metal arm reached up and rubbed my eyes with its thumb and forefinger. I always appreciated sleeping in my soft bed after years of cots and bunks, but I could do a second lifetime without dreaming and be happy.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t the first time I had that dream, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Something in Fat Tuesday’s flight deck was beeping, which either meant we had a new job or we were about to explode. In either case, I wanted to know.

I rolled out of bed and started to rummage through the pile of clothes thrown on a nearby chair. As much as I usually liked to spend a half hour getting dressed and preening myself, I opted for a pair of my old military sweats. I felt like I got hit by a train, most likely because of the whole dynamite fiasco only a few days earlier. Once I got my clothes on, I squeezed my metallic fist and extended it once more. Still worked like new thanks to the titanium. Tanked gunshots a plenty, and would’ve survived the laser shot from a week ago too if it hadn’t pierced the joint.

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All those nice thoughts didn’t take my mind off the dream, though. My right shoulder began to ache as the phantom pain started to kick in. The more I focused on it, the worse it got, so I opened my bedside table and pulled out a small wooden box full of pills. I didn’t normally need meds for my prosthetic, but after dreams like those, the tremors would get so bad I needed them. The arm started to rattle as it involuntarily shook.

One pill down, one more for good luck. After a few minutes, things were back to normal.

With that all sorted out, I lumbered out of my room to hear the flight deck still beeping away. At least at that point, it couldn’t have been spontaneous combustion. As the hatch to my room pulled open, I saw Logan in the kitchen morosely sipping a cup of coffee. He looked up at me, muttering “You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit.” I mumbled back. “Did you see what that notification was?”

With that, Logan sighed. “It’s him.” I rolled my head back in exhaustion when he said it. The last thing we needed after that disaster of an outing the previous few nights ago was a call from Mr. Meadows. Logan, steely as always, continued. “As much as I also want to ignore it, I’d rather not him make any more surprise visits. Besides, it’s got a crypto attachment. You want the keys, you got to open the message.”

I sighed. I wished we weren’t in the same orbit as the federation outpost so we wouldn’t be able to receive radio. In any case, that wasn’t reality. Reality was, we had a voodoo lunatic waiting for us to write back. “Alright, let’s go see what that sonbitch has to say.”

Logan met up with me in the hall as we continued down, I tried to grab his cup of coffee, but he offered me no caffeine to get through this. I went into the flight deck first and slid into my pilot’s chair, with Logan leaning on the back to see the dingy embedded monitor.

I flipped a switch, and the beeping stopped. It was quickly replaced by mechanical clicking and whirring, booting up the OS. The dusty and black screen flickered as the LEDs shined. As we waited for it to boot, I groaned, “When we paid so much for an inner system communications array, I was hoping it’d be giving us a head start on bounties, not being used as Meadows’ dog collar.”

Logan took a sip of his drink while still waiting on the screen. “Yeah, well, we were dealt a bad hand. What do you want me to say.”

Green text started scrolling up the screen, but it was still just part of the minutes-long startup. Dealt a bad hand, I thought. I wasn’t sure if all this was bad luck or just desserts, but Logan and I learned long ago to stop having that conversation.

Finally, a menu popped up. There were only a few options for it, like text messages, voice messages, and attachments. I clicked the tiny keyboard below the screen and selected attachments. If Logan said there was crypto, I wanted to see that first.

The file opened, and there was a rather large key waiting for us. About two hundred dollars’ worth. “God damn...” Logan muttered.

“Well,” I said, “I’m still not looking forward to reading his message, but this certainly makes it a little easier.”

I quickly backed out and went to the text messages menu. Only one was there, and it was sent from an anonymous sender, which meant only one thing.

Once clicked on, green text filled the monitor. It was definitely from Meadows, and it looked like he finally got a lead.

“Hello boys,” it read. “Hopefully, you are compelled by my attachment to open this message, although be aware that money is not for spending willy-nilly. I’ve found us our first step to the end, my friends, and it happens to be an influential technician stowed away from the government. Along with that sum of money, I have cordially invited you to the Las Platillo entertainment space station, where I expect the two of you to meet me in a day’s time. That cash should be enough to deal you in. Once you’re there, meet me in the gambling hall. Do not give blood, no matter how much they press.

See you there, or you’ll be seeing me.

Your dearest friend,

Mr. Eloi Meadows.”

Well, shit. After a year of waiting, it looks like the bastard finally caught smoke. Logan was the first to speak, saying “You read all that?”

“Yeah, I did.” I replied.

“How are we sure he isn’t just pawning us off to some new master? Get us off his backs?”

I shrugged. “Not a lot of choice if he wanted to, but I don’t think so. As much as I’d like to wring his neck, we’re still useful to him… And he’s still useful to us.”

With a sigh, Logan finished his cup of coffee. “And you’re sure you aren’t just saying that because you get to go to a casino?”

I would’ve given a sarcastic response, but my mind was still a cloud from that morning. That dream reminded me what our main goal was, and why we didn’t kill Meadows as much as we might want to. “It’s definitely a perk, I’ll give you that.”

My brother paced back into the hall, leaving me alone with the vastness of space outside the window. “Well, guess I better get dressed. We’ve got an outing to attend.”

No response came from me. The coin floated below us as we hovered in its gravity. For a while, it felt like home. For a while, we were able to forget about what happened, and what was to come.

Oh well. I thought. Can’t run from hell forever.