Part I – Lines of Command
Arika POV
The morning market, a block from the medical bay, was already awake.
Stalls stood in an organized rows beneath skeletal awnings, iron griddles warming in place as smoke bled upward and settled into the low haze. Steam drifted between tables stacked with sealed trays and bamboo cups, the air holding that early-hour mix of heat, oil, and damp stone before the sun fully claimed the street.
Early throttlers and night-shift militia spread thin across the open lanes, some standing by counters, others sitting alone at makeshift tables, quick food laid out in easy abundance. Even so, the mood was time-bound—meals taken standing, conversations cut short, glances already drifting toward the next obligation.
It was the pause between shifts, the narrow window where duty hadn't yet tightened its grip. Just long enough for the city to breathe—before it moved again.
Commander Arika queued without ceremony, gathering breakfast for those on early watch—and for the few whose help she owed more than words. The SAI staple came off the griddles in steady waves: skewers of pork-flavored, milk-blended civilized protein brushed with a familiar glaze, smoke curling low as they met heat one last time. Fat bloomed cleanly across the surface, caramelizing at the edges while the centers stayed pale and soft, tearing with the same gentle resistance people still expected.
"Hi, aunty. Could I please have three sets for takeaway?"
"Arika, how are you? Looking much prettier—how long has it been since your last visit already?"
"I'm sorry, aunty. It's been quite busy…" Her face flushed slightly, eyes narrowing.
"I'm just kidding. Here you go, Arika—and I'll give you two extra skewers as well. Come visit whenever you're free, you know. Uncle was just asking about you after hearing your team ran into some strange, suspicious people attacking our trade caravan lately, wasn't it?"
"Thank you, aunty. Yes, I'll visit soon. I'm really sorry for being so busy lately."
"Hey, it's thanks to you that we're safe. No need to apologize. Come back anytime, kay?"
The shopkeeper squinted, smiling wide as she passed over several bags of her signature pork-flavored civilized protein skewers, white sticky rice, and four bottles of baitoey drink.
"How much, aunty?"
"Now don't ask. This one's our treat. You should eat more."
"No, aunty, I can't—seriously, this isn't right. I'll leave two hundred Sedo here if you don't name a price." Arika insisted, lips tensing.
"You're always so persistent with righteousness, Arika. Still the same as you were ten years ago. Alright—one hundred and fifty Sedo is enough. And next time, bring some handsome knights to visit too. I'm bored of the uncle already."
She gestured toward her partner, an elderly man seated at the back of the stall, earplugs in, skewering a fresh batch of mouth-watering pork-flavored protein.
The skewers were set into shallow trays and capped with thin green film, steam fogging the seal as it pressed outward. Sticky rice came packed tight in molded rice-starch sleeves, translucent and faintly scented with rice milk, the material holding warmth without biting into her skin.
Four baitoey drinks sweated in rigid synthesized bamboo cups, pale green and opaque beneath heat-sealed lids. One was already punctured clean through the film with a thin straw, the aromatic scent—pandan and sugar—cutting through grease and exhaust alike. The taste was pure nostalgia, unchanged despite how long it had been.
The boys forgot to talk. Nyla forgot to stop. By the time the food ran low, the thought of where to find more had already settled in.
The two-layer, air-sealed medical bay doors slid open with a soft hiss. Arika passed through the first partition, then the second, and the seals closed behind her—another quiet release of pressure.
No scan sweep.
No notification requesting her sidearm.
Her eyes moved instead. She checked the perimeter, the alcoves, the arm-locker room to her left—dark now. That space was usually attended by the building's autonomous weapons handler, the unit that tagged and received firearms with careful precision, handling each piece the way a museum curator handled irreplaceable artifacts.
It stood empty.
The corridor beyond lay quiet, blue-lit and still, the air too motionless for a space built to move people through it. Whatever usually followed entry—routine, friction, interruption—simply didn't happen. No nurse androids. No cleaning units tracing their endless loops. Not even the pretense of activity.
Empty again.
Arika's thumb brushed her comm without breaking stride.
"Yuri. If you can hear me, respond. Check."
The channel opened. Static breathed once—then nothing.
She waited a beat. Tried again, routing through his unit tag.
"Yuri, this is an emergency. I'm on the first floor of the medical bay. I'm seeing irregularities. Confirm your status. Check."
No response.
The line didn't reject the call. It simply failed to fill it.
Arika lowered her hand. Her pace slowed—not from hesitation, but recalculation.
If Yuri was still within the building, he should've answered, unless he was extremely occupied.
She switched channels, cycling internal frequencies—medical bay operations, reception hot-line.
"This is Arika, Aux-Recon-07. Anyone receiving, respond. Check."
Silence.
"Any personnel in the medical bay, respond immediately. Check."
Not dead air.
A low buzz answered instead—thin, uneven, unresolved.
Arika stopped at the corridor junction and listened. The building's hum persisted—ventilation steady, lighting nominal, power load unchanged. Everything the system cared about was still running.
Everyone else was gone. Something was extremely wrong, and action could not wait.
"Central Security, emergency, Arika 'Aux-Rec-07'— medical bay, required immediate reinforcement and technical officers, if no immediate response, to keep things under control, please response, check."
No voices.
Just the low buzzing again.
She moved down the corridor, comm still live, cycling quietly as she advanced. Her right hand rested at the hilt, thumb hooked along the guard. The bags in her left hand shifted softly with each step—cups knocking once, then settling.
Her vision shifted.
She toggled to ultraviolet.
The corridor inverted—not darkening, but flattening into a washed violet field. Edges softened. Surfaces lost their depth, reduced to contrast and residue as her retinal inlay swept methodically from floor to ceiling.
Patient rooms bled into view one by one. Beds glowed faintly where bodies had been hours earlier, heat ghosts long gone. Along the mattress seams, thin flecks caught the spectrum—blood, old and diluted, consistent with post-operative movement. Nothing pooled. Nothing dragged.
Routine.
Near a dispenser alcove, water stains flared weakly under UV—irregular, splashed, the kind left by hurried hands filling cups without care. Footprints overlapped in fragments, already broken where automated cleaning protocols had begun and then stopped midway.
A ward interrupted, not abandoned.
Still nothing else.
No foreign patterns.
No anomalous residue.
No sign of intrusion that didn't belong in a medical ward under sudden strain.
The violet haze thinned as the scan completed its cycle.
Arika let the mode fall back to normal light.
The corridor returned to blue and silence—unchanged, unanswered.
Then the comm cracked.
"Com…dr…r Arika… con…ecting… from… Me…d… ba—"
The voice dissolved into static.
Arika stiffened. In one smooth motion, she shifted the bags from her left arm to her right, fingers tightening around the rapier's hilt as the weight settled.
"Yes," she said clearly. "Repeat that transmission. I didn't catch any of it. Identify yourself and respond. Check."
Only the buzz answered—thin, uneven, unresolved.
She stayed still, listening, the food suddenly heavy in her grip, the scent of pandan and sugar completely out of place in a corridor that felt like it was holding its breath.