Mars, 2113
Thomas Finn was in a pretty bad situation. And it was entirely his fault.
A young man, around his late twenties, stepped into his small, gray, colourless apartment. The entire thing probably totalled three hundred square feet—enough room for a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom, along with a small aluminum table in the center of the apartment. He was wearing a baggy blue T-shirt and a pair of black sweatpants with holes in the knees, which exposed his shockingly pale skin. He was built like a lamppost, towering over most modern people at a height of six feet seven inches, but his stature wasn’t entirely uncommon in the Martian underground, what with the decreased gravity. The man had shaggy black hair, which collected into five points and hung down over his face, and he brushed it away from his permanent purple baggy eyes as he made a cup of tea on the electric kettle that plugged into his gray kitchen island. Through the window in front of him, he could see dozens of Neonight City’s buildings—black skyscrapers that stretched from the base to the ceiling of the rocky cavern in which it was situated. Some didn’t quite go that far; some even hung from the ceiling, and the collective effect resembled that of stalactites and stalagmites. The structures glowed with bright purples, yellows, and greens. To an outsider, it would seem beautiful, but this man lived there, and there wasn’t anything beautiful about the way Thomas lived his life.
Sighing, he sat down at the table, and a small holographic screen was projected in front of him, floating in the air. Instantly, it lit up with footage of the red and stormy Martian surface as a soothing voice filled his ears. “Civs,” it said calmingly, as the footage changed to what looked like a subterranean stone temple with strange ornate designs covering its sprawling main chamber as humans were shown walking through it, clearly tiny in the face of its size. It was an alien temple. “The remains of an ancient civilization that dwelled below the Martian surface long before humanity even arose have given us an incredible gift.”
“Boring,” he said, and the hologram disappeared as he stood up. “Who the fuck is this documentary for? Is there really a single person on Mars who doesn’t know what a Civ is?” The man picked up his teacup from the electric kettle and blew on it. “Like, it’s not a hard concept either. Long before humanity, there was an alien race that lived on Mars and developed incredibly advanced technology, and now humanity uses this technology to gain incredible abilities. That was one sentence, and they needed some old guy to tell people in pretentious language something everyone already knows and is easy to explain? They’ll just put anything on TV nowadays.”
The bad situation that Thomas was in proved complex, four-dimensional in nature, spanning time, space, and his interior world. But the most pressing matter was the fact that his lungs were bleeding, he had murdered a police chief, hated his job, and was addicted to drugs. And that was tonight.
* * *
This is how things went down.
“Your mark has been tracked to the following location, Thomas.” A male robotic voice buzzed to life inside of Phantom Limb’s head as a glowing dot appeared inside of a black, metallic building a few hundred yards away. It was a digital waypoint that led into an apartment building, set up by the computer inside of his head in order to help direct him to his target. This was known as a Unit. But Phantom knew exactly where he was going already. It would be dangerous not to.
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He also knew that the building would likely be swarming with police attempting to protect Phantom’s mark from the swift death he had been hired to carry out. He was standing on the rooftop of another black rectangle, whose metallic finish shone in the vibrant purple light of the city, going about its business even in the dead of nighttime. The concept of “nighttime,” however, didn’t really apply to Neonight City. It had been constructed underground, deep below the surface of Mars, a few decades ago, in order to avoid the hassle of building large domes with synthetic atmospheres on the surface. For this reason, Neonight ran in perpetual nighttime.
Phantom Limb placed his black duffle bag on the ground in front of him and removed from it a three-dimensional metallic handprint that glowed a pink colour as he placed it over his face. Instantly, dozens of lines of thick black tape covered his face and neck, extending from the mask’s interior and wrapping his head in a tactical shadow. He took out a few more of these purple handprints and placed them over his other body parts, wrapping himself in protection. He put a lot of effort into his outfit, which his boss would condescendingly refer to as a “costume.” She didn’t like the name either. Phantom Limb’s real name was Thomas Finn, which was fine for normal life but not for his job. At least that’s what Thomas thought. She thought it was professionally irresponsible to make himself so easily distinguishable—so easily recognized in a line of work where quiet secrecy wasn’t just necessary but crucial. Yet, Phantom Limb didn’t care and stepped into the persona each night for one simple reason: he thought it was cool.
User: Thomas Finn/Phantom Limb
Civ: Phantrana
The user is able to create ghostlike copies of their body parts, which can act autonomously or be used to add energy to the user’s matching body part, severely increasing its strength for a short while. The user can also pull their limbs towards them or pull themself towards their limbs. Creating one of these copies causes major pain to the tissues being cloned. As such, the greatest limitation on the user’s strength is their own pain tolerance.
Phantom Limb’s right hand burned with searing pain as he clenched his fist. Suddenly, a purple floating copy of his right hand phased its way out of the black tape on his hand and began hovering in midair. Thomas had been hopping from rooftop to rooftop, trying to get as close as he could to the target apartment, but all he needed was a view of the window and he could get that with just one more jump. The rooftop Thomas needed to get to, however, was both seventy feet away and made of easily breakable glass.
The voice piped up again. “Sir, I highly advise that you find an alternate route to your target.”
Thomas didn’t respond. Instead, he took a few steps back and sprinted towards the building’s edge. Before he plummeted to his doom, however, a glowing purple light appeared and disappeared on his right foot as a feeling of burning pain filled it. Instantly, his leg was filled with energy and force, and as he jumped off the black edge, a shockwave of air flew from beneath him while his body filled with newfound strength. Beneath him, people walked on the streets of Neonight City while Thomas flew through its skies and ultimately landed on the rooftop seventy feet from where he had originally been. And then, unsurprisingly, the roof shattered, cutting the majesty of human flight short as it turned into a humiliating human fall. Right into the rooftop pool of a luxury apartment building which was now filled with glass . . . and also a soaking wet man covered in black tape. Thomas swam to the edge of the pool and climbed out, just barely managing to swim over to the other side with the many heavy guns he had holstered on his waist. He pulled one out from its holster, a silver shine covering its exterior and a thumbprint scanner on the back Thomas could place his thumb on to mentally fire from his Unit. Luckily, there was nobody he would need to use it on.
“Unit, perform a vital scan,” he said, picking pieces of glass out from the folds of his suit as he walked toward the door.
“You are bleeding in twelve places,” it responded. “Two of them are potentially dangerous.”
“I was hoping I was just soaking wet from the water. But overall, I consider this a success!” Thomas responded, clenching his teeth in pain and feeling a horrible searing jab in one of his left ribs as he opened the metal door to reveal a dark stairway before stepping down into the void.
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