Boomer sat cross-legged on the floor of his apartment, fingers pressed to his temples, trying to shut out the noise. It wasn’t real noise—not in the physical sense—but it may as well have been. The world outside was silent. The rumble of a generator in the distance. The hiss of a car rolling down the street. The muffled echo of music from the neighbor’s backyard.
But inside his head? Chaos.
It never stopped. Ever.
His psychomancy was always on, a ceaseless flood of thoughts, emotions, and fractured memories that weren’t his. It wasn’t like tuning a radio—there was no dial to adjust, no switch to flick. He heard people even when he didn’t want to.
A man walked past him on the street. Should’ve gone to Vancouver like I wanted to this weekend, what the hell use am I here?
The blonde woman at the food bank that morning. I hope he doesn’t notice the bruise, I hope he doesn’t ask, I hope I hope I hope—
A kid playing around outside the resource centre the night before. I bet if I threw a rock through that window nobody would know who did it.
And those were the mild ones.
The second people realized he could hear their thoughts, they spiraled. Some panicked. Some tested him, thinking absurdities just to see if he’d react. But most went straight to the things they didn’t want him to know.
He’d met with his boss the day before only to hear him thinking about how much money he’d embezzled from the gas station over the years. His co-worker imagining a knife in her boyfriend’s throat. Even a casual acquaintance whose harmless secrets weren’t so harmless after all.
People were so much worse than they pretended to be.
And some things couldn’t be unlearned.
He needed control.
He needed to filter the noise, organize it—contain it in a way that made sense.
The idea came to him earlier that day. A mind palace. He remembered where he’d first heard the term, on some BBC show he watched as a teenager. But he’d been curious enough to look it up. It was a visualization technique. A way to take the abstract mess of thought and order it into a structure. Most people had to train for years to make one work.
But for Boomer?
It happened instantly. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was the fact that he had psychomantic abilities, or if he was just that good, but the shift was dizzying. One second, he was in his apartment. The next, he was somewhere else.
Inside his own mind.
It felt real.
The air was thick with the scent of old paper and dust. The walls stretched impossibly high—dark brick, like the backstage of an abandoned theater. Rows of industrial shelves loomed overhead, packed with books, VHS tapes and DVDs, and old CD jewel cases. They seemed to shift in his sight.
Posters from his childhood covered the walls. Band logos, cult-classic movies, comic book spreads—the things that made him him. A tangle of power cords and headphones snaked across the floor. A CRT television hummed in the corner, flickering static.
This place was his.
And then—he saw the hallway. A hallway of doors lit by loud flourescent that seemed to stretch into infinity.
Some of the doors stood open, leading into rooms filled with old memories—his grandfather’s laugh, the taste of cheap gas station coffee at midnight, the first time he’d heard music so good that he felt something awaken in his bones.
Some doors, however, were locked.
Others still were chained. Bolted.
Those, he avoided. He knew what was behind them. Knew what they held. The things he didn’t want to relive.
Boomer turned, testing the space, and found himself back in the main room.
A projector flickered to life on its own. The Matrix played, every frame in perfect clarity, every line of dialogue crisp.
He wandered past a pile of books and plucked one free. Dune. He flipped through it. Every word, perfectly intact in his memory. He grabbed another. The Brothers Karamazov. He hadn’t actually read that one, just skimmed it in high school. Sure enough, the cover was pristine, but inside?
A few intact passages, but mostly blank pages.
Everything he had ever experienced was here in perfect detail. Every thought. Every feeling.
Even the ones that weren’t his.
Boomer exhaled, running a hand through his hair.
At least here, he could make it make sense.
Then—
Knock knock.
Boomer jolted, and the entire mind palace flickered like a bad signal. Reality snapped back into place, and suddenly he was sitting on his floor again, the sound of the neighbor’s music drifting through the window. His heart pounded.
Someone at the door.
Except he already knew who.
"Lily," he muttered.
He could sense her—her mind like a familiar voice humming in the background. Worry. Concern. A little annoyance.
He pulled himself up, shaking off the disorientation, and opened the door.
Lily Rasmussen stood there, arms crossed, dark eyes studying him like he was a problem she meant to solve.
"You good?" she asked, head tilting slightly.
Boomer smirked, leaning against the frame. "Define good."
She rolled her eyes but stepped inside anyway, brushing past him. "Eleanor asked me to check on you. Said you might need some support."
Boomer sighed, running a hand down his face. "Great. So I’m a project now."
"You are the only person who can do what you do," Lily said. "And that’s gotta be insane to deal with. So, I figured..." She hesitated. "If you need help figuring this out, you can practice on me."
Boomer’s eyebrows shot up. "You volunteering?"
"With conditions," she said, giving him a pointed look. "No weird shit. No making me do anything. Just reading, if I let you."
Boomer blinked, surprised at how much tension left his shoulders. He wasn’t alone in this.
"I wouldn’t even know where to start on making you do anything,” he said. “But, deal."
A thought sparked—an idea he needed to test. His excitement flared.
"Alright," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Let’s try something."
Lily eyed him warily. "That sounds ominous."
Boomer grinned. "It’s not. Probably. Just sit on the couch."
Lily hesitated, then flopped onto the couch, arms crossed. "All right. Now what?"
Boomer sat across from her, closing his eyes. He focused, trying to pull her thoughts toward him. Nothing happened.
After a beat, he cracked an eye open. "Okay, so think about something. That might help."
Lily frowned. Boomer could tell she was trying not to think of anything too personal, but her mind eventually settled on Terra.
She’s worried about her.
Boomer slipped back into the palace.
And there, in the middle of the vast, surreal space, sat Terra Murphy—not the real one, but a projection of her. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding a game controller, though the screen in front of her was blank.
"And then Kayla just would not shut up," the projection said, voice animated. "I swear to god, if I hear one more thing about her 'brand,' I’m gonna—"
Boomer clapped his hands in delight. "Holy shit."
"Where the hell are we?" The voice came from behind him, and it made him jump out of his skin. He whipped around, startled.
Lily stood in the mind palace beside him, looking around in a mixture of wonder and confusion. She cast her gaze back to him. “What did you do?”
She shouldn’t have been there.
Boomer panicked, and the entire palace collapsed.
They snapped back to reality so fast it felt like hitting concrete.
Lily groaned, rubbing her temples. "What the fuck was that?"
Stolen story; please report.
Boomer stared at her, wide-eyed. "You saw that?"
"Yeah," she said, shaking her head. "I was there, Boomer. The weird-ass space, the… the… Terra hologram—all of it."
Boomer blinked, then worked his jaw trying to find something to say, but couldn’t avoid the reality that he was grinning like a kid who just found out he could fly. "That’s so cool,” he exclaimed.
Lily shot him a flat look. "Cool? Dude, you just yanked me into your brain or something."
Boomer grabbed a notebook, flipping it open and scribbling notes. "Okay, okay, but like—you were fully aware in there, right? Could you control anything? Were you yourself?"
Lily sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Yeah, I was me. I was just... there."
Boomer looked up, eyes alight. "You cool trying that again?"
Lily exhaled, then gave him a look.
"Fine," she said. "But if I get stuck in there, you owe me, like, so many sandwiches."
Boomer grinned. "Deal."
----------------------------------------
The generator’s low, steady rumble filled the holding area with a monotonous vibration, a faint pulse that seemed to worm its way into the bones. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed faintly, flickering now and then, their harsh white glare pooling in uneven patches on the scuffed tile floor. The air smelled faintly of sweat, disinfectant, and the coppery tang of blood—a mix that made the small interrogation room feel as oppressive as the weight of the situation itself.
Andrew Johnson stood just outside the door, arms crossed, his broad shoulders almost filling the narrow hallway. His gray eyes scanned the peeling paint on the opposite wall, though his focus remained on the muffled conversation behind him. Sergeant Boone’s voice carried in a low rumble, accompanied by Shelly Littleton’s occasional murmurs of agreement or concern.
Boone stepped closer to Andrew, his tone gruff but measured, like a hammer kept just shy of striking. “Listen, Andrew,” he began, his dark eyes narrowing slightly, “I don’t give a damn about where we are or who’s watching—war crimes are war crimes. Torture’s off the table.”
Andrew turned his head slightly, his jaw tightening as he listened.
Boone continued, gesturing toward the door with a sharp tilt of his head. “You want to lean on him? Fine. Rattle him, scare him—hell, cuff him upside the head if you think it’ll loosen his tongue.” He straightened, his expression hardening. “But if you cross the line? If I get so much as a whiff of you doing anything we’ll regret later... I’ll haul you out myself.”
Andrew nodded, his jaw tightening. “Understood. I’ll get what we need.”
Boone’s eyes narrowed, studying Andrew for a moment before giving a terse nod. “Alright. He’s yours.”
Andrew pushed open the door, stepping into the room. The air was thick with sweat and tension. Varin Hatsch sat at the metal table, his wrists bound in front of him. The Vectoran scout was younger than Andrew expected—early twenties, maybe—with sharp features marred by grime and pain. A bandage wrapped hastily around his side bore a dark stain of blood.
“Varin Hatsch,” Andrew said evenly, pulling out the chair opposite him and sitting down. He folded his hands on the table, his movements calm and deliberate. “Scout for the Vectoran Empire. That’s you, isn’t it?”
Varin’s pale eyes flicked up to meet Andrew’s, his lips pressing into a thin line. He didn’t answer.
Andrew tilted his head. “I’ll take the silence as a yes. Let’s keep things simple, shall we? I’m Sergeant Major Andrew Johnson, and I’m here to ask you some questions. You’ve got questions too, I’m sure. Here’s the deal: you answer mine, and I’ll answer yours. Truth for truth.”
Varin’s laugh was weak, bitter. “And if I don’t?”
Andrew leaned back in his chair, letting the silence stretch just long enough to feel heavy. Then he spoke, his tone low and cold. “Oh. Well, we’ll kill every last Vectoran in the Disputed Lands.”
Varin’s breath hitched. Andrew didn’t give him a chance to recover.
“Let me tell you a story,” Andrew continued, his voice steady but edged with steel. “Where I come from, we fought a war—a big one. Went on for years. Even when we thought it was over, other nations just kept jumping in. So, to end that war, my people created a weapon. A bomb. Do you know what bombs are, Hatsch?”
Varin raised an eyebrow, then slowly nodded.
“Well this bomb was… big. Probably about the size of this room. We dropped the bombs on two different cities. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ever heard of them?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Over 200,000 people dead. In minutes. Imagine a weapon so powerful it turns sand to glass and etches the shadows of the dying into the stone itself. That was eighty years ago. Now we make them small enough to to carried.”
Varin swallowed hard, his face pale.
Andrew gestured to the scout’s injured side. “The rifle that shot you? That’s just a tool for hunting. We’ve got weapons back home that fire dozens of rounds just like the one that hit you per second. And that’s not even scratching the surface of what we can do.”
“You’re lying,” Varin whispered, his voice trembling.
Andrew’s eyes locked onto Varin’s, unblinking. “You’re a scout, Hatsch. A good one, I bet. Which means you can spot a liar. Look into my eyes and tell me I’m lying.”
Varin hesitated, his gaze searching Andrew’s face for any crack in his façade. Finding none, he slumped slightly, the fight draining out of him.
Andrew leaned forward. “You’ve already asked your first question. My turn.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out a photocopied map of the Disputed Lands. Unfolding it, he slid it across the table. “Your main camp. Anastae, is it? Where is it?”
Varin stared at the map, his jaw clenched. Minutes ticked by in tense silence before he finally raised a shaky hand, pointing to a spot inland from the southern coast, nestled between two marked Free Folk villages.
Andrew studied the map, his eyes narrowing. “You’re telling the truth,” he said, his tone flat but resolute. He folded the map and tucked it away. “Your question.”
“What... what’s going to happen to me?” Varin’s voice was barely a whisper.
Andrew’s chest tightened, the question striking deeper than he expected. For a moment, the room around him blurred, the hum of the generator fading into the background. Another face rose unbidden in his mind—a man, gaunt and desperate, his voice trembling as he asked the same question.
It had been in Kandahar, during one of the more grueling missions of his career. The man had been young, barely old enough to shave, dragged from the ruins of a firefight he had lost two men in. Andrew could still see the terror in his wide, bloodshot eyes, the way his hands shook even when cuffed. The memory unfolded with brutal clarity: the sweltering heat of the interrogation room, the sweat trickling down Andrew’s neck, the stench of fear mingling with the acrid smoke of a nearby explosion.
“What’s going to happen to me?” the prisoner had asked then, in halting English. Andrew had answered—not with the calm reassurance he might offer now, but with a soldier’s cold pragmatism. “That depends on what you tell us.” And when the answers came too slow, when the frustration boiled over... Andrew shook his head, trying to push the thought away. He hated remembering how that conversation had ended.
He blinked, grounding himself in the present, in the fluorescent-lit cell, in Varin Hatsch’s pale, pain-stricken face. Andrew forced himself to draw a slow breath, steadying the knot in his chest.
“It depends,” Andrew said finally, his voice softer now, stripped of the harsh edge it had carried just moments before. “On you.” He leaned forward slightly, his expression resolute but not unkind. “There’s a way this ends with you walking free. But not until we’ve dealt with your people. Not until the folks here are safe.”
Varin looked away, his expression unreadable.
Andrew cleared his throat, his tone sharpening again. “What can you tell me about your General? Ajjiro Ryde, right?”
The scout flinched at the name, his hands curling into fists. A flicker of fear crossed his face, barely suppressed, and when he finally spoke, his voice was tight, low. “I’ve only seen him once,” Varin admitted, his gaze dropping to the table as if speaking the name too loudly might summon the man himself. “But everyone knows him. You don’t serve in Vector’s army without hearing the stories.”
He paused, his breath shaky, as if weighing whether he should continue. Then, as if compelled by some mix of fear and respect, he went on. “He comes from the Emerald Canopy. People from the Eastern Province are always hardy, but the Lord General was something else entirely. I can only speak what the rumours say. He was picked on by soldiers at the garrison there. By the time he was thirteen, he had killed every last one of them. When he was arrested, he caught the eye of the previous General. Instead of putting him to the Reaving, instead he sponsored him as an attendee of the Hall of the Swan at the Academies.” He paused, considering his next words. “When he returned, he served as a career officer before being assigned to the Imperial Guard. From there he was elevated to Lord General, the Sword of the Emperor. But don’t think he was elevated arbitrarily. He’s... brilliant. Ruthless. He sees soldiers like pieces on a chessboard, always thinking ten moves ahead. And if a piece needs to be sacrificed—” He swallowed hard. “He doesn’t hesitate. Not for a second.”
Varin’s fists tightened, his knuckles turning white. “You don’t cross him. Ever. Not unless you’ve got a death wish. The Emperor himself trusts him more than his own blood. And his soldiers...” Varin’s voice faltered, his eyes narrowing as if recalling a bitter memory. “They worship him. Not because they like him. Because they fear him. He makes you believe there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to win. That if you fail, you’ll wish you’d died on the battlefield.”
Andrew studied the scout, watching the tension ripple through his frame. There was more, he could tell, but whatever it was remained locked behind the fear in Varin’s eyes.
“He’s a man to be reckoned with,” Andrew said evenly, filing the information away. “But every man has a weakness. And Ryde’s no different. You ever hear whispers about that?”
Varin shook his head quickly, almost reflexively. “If there are weaknesses, no one’s foolish enough to talk about them. Ryde doesn’t let anyone see cracks in his armor. Not in his strategy, not in himself.”
Andrew leaned back slightly, the edge in his gaze softening just enough to signal a shift in tone. “Alright. Your turn.”
Varin hesitated, his voice quivering when he finally spoke. “Where are you from? How did you get here?”
Andrew allowed himself a small smile. “That’s two questions,” he said, his tone light but firm. “But I asked you two as well, so I’ll be a good sport.” He shifted in his seat, leaning forward slightly. “We’re from a place called Earth. It’s a planet—like the one we’re on now, but different in almost every way.”
Varin’s brows furrowed, confusion flickering across his face. Andrew pressed on. “On Earth, there are no Magi, no currents of magic flowing through the land. Everything we’ve built, everything we’ve achieved, came from hard work, ingenuity, and what we could pull from the earth itself. We learned to shape stone into tools, melt metal into machines, and harness the power of fire, water, and lightning—not with magic, but with knowledge.”
Varin blinked, his expression shifting between skepticism and fascination.
“We divided ourselves into nations,” Andrew continued, his tone growing more deliberate. “Some ruled by kings, others by councils or presidents—leaders chosen by the people. And we’ve always fought, for as long as we’ve existed. Sometimes for land, sometimes for power, sometimes because we just didn’t understand each other. We’ve waged wars that killed millions, but we’ve also built alliances that lasted generations. Where I come from, peace and war have always been two sides of the same coin.”
Andrew paused, giving Varin a moment to process, then gestured vaguely at the air around them. “As for how we got here? That’s the part we can’t explain. One moment, we were in our town, Ladysmith. A place by the sea, quiet and peaceful for the most part. And then... the Blacklight came. It tore through everything—our skies, our homes. When it was gone, so was Earth. And instead, we were here.”
He leaned back slightly, watching Varin’s wide-eyed expression. “Imagine waking up in a world that shouldn’t exist. A place of magic and ruins, armies and empires. That’s what happened to us. We’re strangers here, just trying to survive.”
Varin’s lips parted, as if to say something, but no words came. His gaze was locked on Andrew, the weight of the story pressing down on him.
“It sounds... impossible,” Varin whispered at last, his voice barely audible.
Andrew’s smile faded. “Where I’m from, we had a saying: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Maybe what happened to us was technology we don’t understand. Or maybe it was magic we can’t fathom. Either way, here we are.” He leaned forward again, his tone turning deadly serious. “Now, answer this carefully. How do we stop the Vectoran forces in the Disputed Lands?”
The room seemed to grow quieter, the generator’s hum fading into the background as Varin sat in heavy contemplation. His eyes darted to the floor, his breath shallow as if he were bracing himself for the weight of his own words. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the burden of a man who had seen too much, lived too long under the shadow of an empire.
“Complete defeat,” Varin said, his tone heavy with resignation. “That’s the only way. You’d have to break us entirely—burn our banners, scatter our armies, raze our strongholds. Nothing less will stop us.”
Andrew said nothing, letting the words settle between them. He noted the tremor in Varin’s hands as they gripped the edge of the table. It wasn’t just the pain in his side or the stress of the moment. This was deeper. This was fear.
Varin’s gaze slowly rose to meet Andrew’s, a flicker of defiance struggling against the fear. “But know this,” he continued, his voice low and intense. “Vectorans don’t forget. Any humiliation, any loss, will be repaid in time. If you leave even a shred of pride, even a glimmer of hope, we will use it. We will wait years. Decades. Centuries—if we must. But when we come back, we’ll make your people suffer in ways you can’t even imagine.”
For a moment, Andrew said nothing. The fluorescent light above flickered once, casting fleeting shadows across his face. Then he smirked, a slow, deliberate curl of his lips that didn’t quite reach his eyes. The gray depths of his gaze gleamed with something cold, something resolute.
“Then we’ll make sure there’s nothing left to repay,” Andrew said, his voice calm, almost conversational, but laced with a deadly certainty. “Every empire thinks it’s eternal, unbreakable. I’ve seen the aftermath of ‘eternal’ empires. The ruins, the silence, the grass growing over the crypts. My world is a graveyard of fallen empires. So, Varin, If that’s what it takes to keep my people safe, then I’ll see to it personally.”
Varin’s breath hitched, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and dread. Andrew leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, his presence looming larger now, more unyielding. “Your empire isn’t that special, Hatsch. It’s just another name in a long list. And if they think they can take what’s ours, then I’ll make damn sure they’re a name no one remembers.”
Varin’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. He opened his mouth to respond, but no words came. The cold intensity in Andrew’s eyes made clear there was no bluff, no bravado. This man had seen the cost of war, and if it meant survival, he would pay it again without hesitation.
The generator’s hum seemed to grow louder again, filling the silence that hung between them like the final note of a symphony.