“Who’s there?”

Iago raised his handgun, pointing it at the door.

A beep, asking for entrance, had broken the near-total silence of their rented room.

Elliot, sitting on the floor to his left, raised his head. His eyes were wide with alarm, following the weapon in Iago’s hand.

“Go into the bathroom,” Iago said softly. “Don’t come out until I tell you.”

His son said nothing, but rose and moved quickly into the other room.

The walls in here were sound-proofed, the better to suit its normal clientele who wanted no questions asked.

They’d left the Gohhi Main and travelled through three other sub-stations before reaching this one. It wasn’t that far from the main hub, one could only go so far in just a few hours.

He’d hoped it would be far enough to throw them off. But he had been wrong.

Iago rose from the bed, checking his system for information on who was outside; but it only returned static. Someone had disabled the sensors, and his heart hammered as he knew that meant they had come for him.

The Response Team was here to kill him.

And he knew they’d kill him. They’d gun him down and say that later that it had been an ‘accident’ and everyone would accept it because they couldn’t let him live, not knowing what he knew.

There was nothing else it could be, and he would not go down without a fight. He’d just have to save the last bullet for himself, scramble his brain with it, to keep them from peeking inside once he was dead.

They did not deserve the truth.

They had to be protected from the truth.

Anyone who learned it, like him, would ultimately have to die.

They’d aim low to keep his head intact, and that’d leave him with enough time to-

The thought of Elliot came into his mind, and his heart nearly stopped.

If they came in guns blazing, a stray bullet might-

No, no ononono.

With a shaking hand, he lowered the gun.

“I’m opening the door,” he called.

Holstering the weapon and keeping both hands visible, he went over.

Pressing that button, going meekly, was the hardest thing he’d ever had to make himself do.

The door opened.

There was no armed team waiting there, only a lone man.

He was just above average height, his hair blonde, his eyes a piercing green.

His face and demeanor were calm and composed, and as he looked at Iago, he smiled very slightly. It was not mocking, but warm and reassuring.

“Mr. Caraval, I have been sent to fetch you,” he said. “If you would come with me . . . ?”

Iago found himself too stunned to move. His eyes had glazed over, and try as he might, he could not make them focus again.

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“My son,” he found himself saying.

“He will be safe,” the young man said. “I swear it. You can tell him that he can relax and that you will return shortly.”

“Will I?” Iago asked. “Be returning.”

“Of course,” the man insisted gently.

Iago turned. “Elliot,” he called. “I’ll be back in . . . a little bit. You . . . order a treat for yourself. Anything you want, okay?”

After a moment, the bathroom door opened and Elliot peered out.

He saw the fear on his son’s face, his paled skin and hesitant hands. It hurt him so much to know how much this was costing his boy, and he tried to smile as reassuringly as possible.

“Who is that?” Elliot asked.

Iago looked to the man, who smiled. “I am a friend. Now, shall we go, Mr. Caraval?”

The man led Iago through twisting alleys and tunnels, going through an open area with towering structures reaching towards the center of the station, then into narrow halls that seemed built for Beetle-Slugs, where he had to stoop deeply to pass through them.

Through it all, the young blonde man told him about each area – details of its present state or history.

“This area is the poorest on the station. Disease is rampant and hunger common.”

“Does your church feed them?” Iago asked. The man had not said he was a priest, but Iago had seen enough to recognize one.

The man nodded seriously. “We try. Where we cannot fill a stomach, we at least try to feed the soul.”

They travelled further, then; “This area was originally a hospital that served those who suffered from the overuse of drugs. It was eventually shut down for lack of funding and has since become a tenement.”

“Why is this place so poor?” Iago asked.

“While parts of the station still function, radiation rot simply made it more expensive to repair than replace. So it was abandoned, and a new hub was built near this one. Most money then fled.”

The man pointed to one area that looked notably different; the colors of buildings and girders were duller, more washed out.

“That area was a section of one of the first human stations out here, built over four hundred years ago. It was slated to be demolished, but was rescued by those who saw its history as a gift, and used as the seedbed for this station.”

“It can’t be four hundred years old,” Iago had found himself saying. “Humans haven’t been out this far for that long.”

The man only smiled. “If you say so.”

Iago normally could keep track of his location, through training or his system, but he had gotten completely lost. His system had no data, which meant they’d infiltrated it or perhaps the priest had some sort of jammer on him.

Neither of which boded well, but he . . .

He found himself trusting the man.

He did not feel entirely himself. He hadn’t for some time, he knew that. But he could see it now.

The calming presence of this stranger had helped him through some sort of haze or fog that surrounded him.

But, he reasoned, the part of him that knew the galaxy outside of the Sapient Union was full of predators and killers, there were chemical ways to make someone trust you.

He could not let his guard down. Not even if he wanted to.

The man led him into an area that seemed fully abandoned. There were no signs of human life around them. No heat traces, no movement. Nothing.

Yet the air was heavy, dense and damp, and he saw in crevices something akin to dirt, and even a few stunted mushrooms growing in dim corners.

“We are here,” the man said.

They had come to a plain, metal wall with a single crude door cut in it. It was on hinges, and while the young man stepped aside to let him approach, it did not open.

Cautiously, eyeing the man, Iago approached the door.

It shuddered, then began to move. It was heavy, made of a solid piece of metal, and something about it seemed familiar to him.

He felt a shiver go down his spine. He did not know why.

The door opened and darkness yawned behind it.

For a moment, terror rose in his stomach as he thought the door actually opened into the vacuum itself.

But there was no pull from air rushing out, and no stars.

Looking down, he saw floor, and took a step in.

Even with his military-grade augments he could not see much. There were walls, but he could not precisely estimate their distance.

He felt afraid, but Iago had always run towards danger. As a kid of fifteen he’d run into a burning section of a station with only an oxygen mask, braving the flames to drag his little brother out to safety.

At seventeen he’d used the only suit available, damaged and leaking air, to go out and pull back in his schoolmate who had played a prank with an airlock.

At twenty he’d joined the Response Corps, and he’d faced death and danger a thousand times.

But, he reminded himself, he’d been burned badly going into that fire.

His whole body had swollen up from vacuum exposure when he’d saved the kid in the airlock.

He’d been cut and banged up and had his bones broken, his spine twice, and his skull cracked on multiple occasions.

He’d seen the eldritch truth of the universe, not even truly understood it, only known that it was terrible and all-encompassing and it made everything that he had done in life, all that any of them had done or would ever do have no meaning. And because he was too weak he’d broken under it.

But what direction did he know how to go but forward?

He stepped into the dark room.