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Leia woke to someone counting backward.
Ten.
The voice was calm. Almost bored. Cold pressed against her spine, and something hard pinned her shoulders to a metal slab.
Nine.
She tried to open her eyes. Her lids trembled. Wouldn't lift. A chemical taste coated her tongue. Every breath scraped through her throat, carrying bleach, rust, and the stink of meat left too long under plastic.
Eight.
Her fingers twitched.
A sharp tone chirped near her right ear.
Seven.
Leia dragged in a breath. The capsule answered with a hiss.
Six.
Her eyes opened.
White light burned across her vision. Condensation blurred the transparent lid inches above her face. Beyond it, shadows moved behind milky glass. One paused. A hand lifted. Black polymer gloves.
Five.
Leia slammed both palms against the lid.
Nothing moved.
Four.
Her heart kicked hard enough to hurt.
Three.
The voice stopped.
Two.
A red symbol flashed in the corner of her vision. Reflected in the glass. Or projected straight onto her eyes. She couldn't tell which.
ONE.
The capsule unlocked. Mechanical clack.
Leia shoved upward. The lid rose three inches, then jammed. Cold air flooded her face. She twisted sideways and drove her elbow into the gap. Pain flashed through her arm. The lid lifted another inch.
A gloved hand reached through.
Leia caught the wrist and bit down.
The glove split. A shout burst from the other side. The hand jerked back. She drove both knees into the lid. Metal shrieked. The seal tore open.
She rolled out.
Her bare shoulder hit concrete. Nausea followed, carrying fragments she couldn't place: rain on a highway, a red delivery bag, a boy laughing under a broken streetlamp. Then the images snapped apart like glass under a boot.
Leia pushed herself up.
The room was long. Low. Lined with capsules.
Dozens of them stood in rows under buzzing fluorescent tubes. Some open. Most weren't. Pale faces floated behind cloudy lids, mouths slack, skin marked with black barcodes. Tubes disappeared into their throats and chests. Gray vapor crawled along the floor.
At the far wall, a stainless-steel door stood half open.
A man in a gray coat stared at her. Blood dripped from his bitten glove.
His face went white.
"That's not possible."
Leia tried to stand. Her legs folded. "Where am I?"
The man didn't answer. He looked past her. Toward the capsule she'd escaped.
A blue panel glowed above it.
LEIA MORN.
DECEASED.
PROCESSING HOLD: 00:03:48.
Her gaze locked on the word.
Deceased.
The man stepped back.
Leia grabbed the capsule edge and hauled herself upright. Her body felt hollow. Weak. Borrowed. She was wearing a thin gray shirt. Bare feet. No ID band. No weapon. No memory of dying.
"What does that say?" Her voice came out raw. "Why does it say I'm dead?"
The man's eyes flicked to the emergency panel beside the door.
Leia saw it.
"Don't."
He lunged.
She moved before she understood how.
Her body folded low. One foot slid through the vapor. Her shoulder struck his ribs. They crashed into the wall. He gasped. Leia seized his wrist and twisted. His knees buckled.
For half a second, she held him there. Cheek pressed to cold metal. Her grip impossibly precise.
Then the lights flickered.
A black line pulsed under the skin behind her left ear.
Pain detonated inside her skull.
She released him and staggered away, clutching her head. The room tilted. Something hummed in her bones. Thin electronic vibration behind her eyes.
A voice spoke directly into her mind.
COVENANT ENGINE: BOOT SEQUENCE INTERRUPTED.
Leia froze.
The worker stared at her like she'd become something worse than a corpse.
"What did you do to me?" she whispered.
The voice ignored her.
BIOMETRIC INTEGRITY: 31 PERCENT.
NEURAL LINK: DAMAGED.
PRIMARY USER CONFIRMED: LEIA MORN.
The worker crawled toward the door. "You were tagged for disposal."
"By who?"
"You can't be awake."
"By who?"
A distant alarm pulsed. Red light washed over the room, turning the faces in the capsules into masks.
The man scrambled through the doorway.
Leia followed.
The corridor was narrow and wet. Pipes crowded the ceiling. Drains ran along both walls. White arrows pointed toward PROCESSING, INCINERATION, TRANSFER. A security camera rotated above the intersection, lens glowing blue.
The instant it saw her, a mechanical voice announced, "Unauthorized biological activity detected."
Leia ran.
No shoes. No map. No idea where the exits were. Her feet slapped through chemical runoff. Behind her, boots thundered. More alarms joined the first, rising into a metallic scream.
"Seal Morgue Four!"
Leia glanced back.
Two armored figures stormed into the corridor. Smooth black masks. Chest plates marked with a silver eye. One raised a weapon like a compact rifle.
The wall beside her exploded.
Ceramic fragments cut her cheek. She ducked and sprinted through a service hatch marked BIOLOGICAL WASTE.
The hatch slammed shut.
Darkness swallowed her.
She pressed her back against the door, breathing through her teeth. The space smelled like oil and wet dust. Pipes rattled overhead. Beyond the walls, the militia shouted and struck the hatch with armored fists.
Leia touched the cut on her cheek. Her fingertips came away red.
Not a dream.
Not a hospital.
She looked down at her hands. A faint blue pulse moved under the skin of her left palm, matching the rhythm in her skull.
Then she heard it.
A voice. Thin. Distorted. Leaking from a maintenance speaker above her.
"—if anyone receives this, don't answer the network. Don't use the public channels. They're listening to everything."
Leia stopped breathing.
The voice crackled, broke apart, returned.
"Nolan, repeat your identification."
A boy answered. Young. Tired. Trying not to cry.
"Nolan Morn. Technical wing, sublevel twelve."
Leia's hand rose to her mouth.
Nolan.
The memory came back hard. A narrow apartment under a maglev line. A boy with dark curls leaning over a dismantled drone. Grease on his nose. A grin showing one crooked tooth.
Her little brother.
The recording continued.
"Subject Morn, confirm the courier's death."
Static hissed.
Nolan's breathing became audible.
"Leia is dead."
The words punched through her harder than the bullet had hit the wall.
"Date stamp?"
"November seventeenth, twenty-one forty-two."
Leia looked toward the sealed hatch.
A panel on the wall flickered. Its damaged screen showed the facility clock.
November twelfth.
Twenty-three fifteen.
Five days before the recording.
Her pulse stumbled.
The speaker clicked again.
Nolan whispered, "She can't be dead. She promised she'd come back."
The recording ended.
Leia stood alone in the dark. One hand pressed to her chest. The other curled around nothing. Her lungs pulled in shallow, shaking breaths.
Five days before.
The city had declared her dead before Nolan made the recording.
Or the recording was out of sequence.
Or someone had built a lie around her body and expected her never to wake up.
The militia started cutting through the hatch.
A bright line of heat appeared along the metal seam.
Leia backed away and found a ladder descending through an open shaft. Below, darkness dropped toward lower levels. Above, the corridor filled with red emergency light.
Her mind said stay hidden.
Her body chose the ladder.
She climbed down as the hatch burst inward.
A gloved hand shot through. Fingers snapped around her ankle.
Leia kicked. The grip tightened.
She kicked again, catching the soldier's wrist against the ladder rail. Armor cracked. The hand released.
Leia dropped the last six feet and landed in a crouch.
Pain shot through both knees. She rose anyway.
The lower level was a cavern of machines. Conveyor belts carried sealed black bags under hanging scanners. Robotic arms lifted the bags and fed them into roaring steel mouths. Heat rolled through the chamber, carrying the bitter smell of burned plastic.
At the center of the floor, a transparent display projected a list of names.
LEIA MORN.
STATUS: DECEASED.
DEBT BALANCE: 184,620 CREDITS.
The number meant nothing for one second.
Then a second line appeared.
LIABILITY TRANSFERRED TO NEXT OF KIN: NOLAN MORN.
Leia's stomach turned.
A door opened on the opposite platform.
Three militia soldiers stepped out, weapons raised. Behind them came a woman in a dark command coat. Silver hair cut close to her skull. The insignia on her collar was larger than the others: a black eye surrounded by a broken circle.
She studied Leia without surprise.
"Leia Morn. You're making this administratively difficult."
Leia backed toward the conveyor. "Where is my brother?"
The woman's expression barely moved. "Your brother is not your concern."
"He's the only thing I remember."
"Then you should be careful. Memory is expensive here."
The soldiers advanced.
Leia's fingers brushed a metal control box. A red emergency lever sat under a plastic cover.
The woman noticed. "Don't."
Leia smiled, though her throat was closing. "You keep saying that."
She smashed her elbow through the cover and pulled the lever.
The conveyor belts screamed to a stop. The robotic arms froze. A stack of sealed bags toppled from the line and struck the nearest soldier, knocking him into the furnace rail.
The other two fired.
Leia dove.
Blue light burst across her vision. For a heartbeat, the bullets slowed. Each round shining like a tiny falling star. She saw the angles. Saw the gap under the conveyor. Saw the exact instant to move.
Her body rolled through as the bullets tore sparks from the floor.
She came up beside the furnace controls and drove a fist into the emergency release.
The steel mouth opened.
A blast of heat punched across the chamber. Soldiers staggered. One screamed as his weapon melted against the rail.
Leia ran for the nearest exit.
Behind her, the silver-haired commander shouted, "Do not let her reach the city grid!"
The exit door was locked.
Leia struck the panel once. Nothing.
Twice. The casing cracked.
The hum in her skull grew louder.
COVENANT ENGINE: POWER RESERVE CRITICAL.
She gripped the panel with both hands. "Open."
The machine stayed dark.
COVENANT ENGINE: INITIALIZATION REQUIRES A VALID PROMISE.
"What?"
Her heart lurched.
COVENANT ENGINE: FIRST COVENANT REQUIRED.
Behind her, boots struck metal. The commander was coming closer. Leia could see her reflection in the exit door: blood on her cheek, hospital clothes hanging from her thin frame, eyes wide with a terror she refused to name.
A thin line of blue text appeared across her vision.
MAKE A PROMISE.
The commander's voice cut through the smoke.
"Leia. Kneel, and I may preserve what remains of your mind."
Leia placed her palm against the locked door.
Nolan's voice echoed in her memory.
She promised she would come back.
The black line behind her ear pulsed once.
Then the Covenant Engine displayed a second warning.
VALID PROMISE MUST BE BINDING.
INVALIDATION WILL RESULT IN CARDIAC TERMINATION.
Leia's breath caught.
The commander raised her weapon.
"Last chance."