The Hangar Bay was designed to make you feel small.
It was a cavern of brushed steel and artificial light, large enough to house three city blocks. The ceiling was lost in a haze of coolant steam, and the floor was a grid of magnetic rails, guiding thousands of transport pods toward the center.
And in the center, dominating reality itself, was the Gate.
It wasn't just a portal. It was a tear in the universe.
A ring of spinning obsidian metal, easily fifty stories high, held in place by massive gravity-anchors. Inside the ring, the air didn't exist. It was replaced by a swirling vortex of violet and gold energy—a synthetic event horizon that hummed with a sound so deep it vibrated in the marrow of Aryan's bones.
Aryan stood in Line C-4, his hands gripping the railing of the walkway.
The sheer scale of it was hypnotic.
For a moment, just a moment, the skepticism in his heart wavered.
Could it be real? he wondered. Could humanity really have built a bridge to paradise?
"Look at it," whispered the boy next to him.
It was the same nervous kid from the screening line. His name was Rohan. He looked barely eighteen, with messy hair and eyes that shone with unadulterated hope.
"It's beautiful," Rohan said, his voice trembling. "My brother went through last year. He sent a message back. Said the air on Planet-Prima tastes like mint. Can you imagine? Air that doesn't burn your throat?"
Aryan looked at Rohan. He saw the cheap, patched clothes under the grey Guild jumpsuit. He saw the hunger in the kid's cheeks.
"Did he send credits?" Aryan asked quietly.
Rohan blinked. "What?"
"Your brother. Did he send money back? Did he come back to visit?"
Rohan's smile faltered for a second. "No. Not yet. Security protocols, you know? It takes time to get clearance. But he said he's saving up. He's going to buy our mom a flat in the Upper Plates."
Aryan looked away, back toward the Gate.
Security protocols. That was the universal excuse.
Or maybe, just maybe, the dead couldn't send bank transfers.
"I hope you're right," Aryan said. He didn't have the heart to crush the kid's dream. Not now. They were already in the cage.
"ATTENTION PIONEERS."
The voice came from everywhere at once, rolling over the hangar like thunder.
Holographic screens, hundreds of feet wide, materialized in the air above the crowd.
[ DEPLOYMENT BRIEFING ]
[ DESTINATION: THE TRINITY SYSTEM ]
A map of a solar system appeared. Three planets glowed in lush green and blue.
"You are the chosen few," the narrator's voice soothed. "You are headed to the Trinity System. Planet-Prima. Planet-Secunda. Planet-Tertia."
"These worlds have been terraformed. The atmosphere is breathable. The gravity is 1.1x Earth Standard. The beasts have been purged."
Videos played on the screens.
Hunters in shining armor walking through golden fields.
Families living in high-tech colonies, smiling, eating fresh fruit.
It looked like heaven. It looked like everything Sector-4 wasn't.
"Your assignment is simple: Build. Expand. Thrive. The resources you harvest will save Earth. And in return, you will live like kings."
A cheer went up from the crowd. Thousands of people, raising their fists, shouting in relief. Some were crying. They saw their salvation on those screens.
Aryan didn't cheer. He watched the edges of the video.
The editing was too clean. The shadows didn't match the light sources.
Stock footage, his mind analyzed cold-heartedly. That's not a live feed. That's a commercial.
But it didn't matter. The crowd was sold. They were ready to walk into the fire because the Guild told them it was warm.
"BOARDING SEQUENCE INITIATED."
The magnetic rails on the floor hummed to life.
The transport pods—sleek, bullet-shaped capsules made of reinforced glass and steel—began to slide forward. Each pod held one person.
"This is it!" Rohan grinned, clapping Aryan on the shoulder. "See you on the other side, brother! First round of drinks is on me!"
"Yeah," Aryan forced a smile. "On the other side."
Rohan stepped into his pod. The glass door slid shut.
Hiss.
The pod pressurized. Rohan waved through the glass, his face beaming with joy.
His pod slid forward, merging into the stream of metal coffins heading toward the violet vortex.
Aryan watched him go.
Good luck, kid.
"Next!" a Guild Officer shouted.
It was Aryan's turn.
He walked up to the boarding platform.
The Officer manning the console wasn't looking at him. He was a middle-aged man with a bored expression, tapping rhythmically on a datapad. His badge read: OFFICER VANCE - LOGISTICS.
"Wrist," Vance muttered.
Aryan held out his arm. The black bracelet he had been given earlier was scanned.
Beep.
[ ID: CANDIDATE 4921 ]
[ NAME: ARYAN ]
[ CLASS: LABOR / UNAWAKENED ]
[ DESTINATION: AUTO-ASSIGN (PENDING) ]
Vance glanced at the screen. He paused.
He looked at a second screen on his console—a private channel filled with scrolling red text.
Aryan watched closely. He saw the reflection of the text in Vance's glasses.
[ QUOTA ALERT: DISPOSAL SECTOR UNDER-STAFFED ]
[ REQUIREMENT: 50 BODIES ]
[ RISK LEVEL: CRITICAL ]
Vance sighed. He looked tired. He didn't look like a villain plotting murder. He looked like an employee who just wanted to clear his inbox so he could go on lunch break.
That was the horror of it. There was no malice. Just efficiency.
Vance tapped a few keys.
He overrode the "Auto-Assign."
[ REROUTING... ]
Aryan saw the text on the console change.
The destination didn't say Planet-Prima.
It didn't say Trinity System.
It flashed a code that wasn't on the map.
[ DESTINATION: P-404 (UNREGISTERED) ]
[ CLASSIFICATION: HAZARD ZONE ]
Aryan's blood turned to ice.
"Wait," he said, pulling his arm back.
Vance looked up, annoyed. "Problem, 4921?"
"The screen," Aryan said, his voice tight. "It changed. It said P-404. That's not in the briefing. Where is that?"
Vance's eyes narrowed slightly. He hadn't expected the labor-trash to be reading the logistics code.
"It's a sub-sector of Prima," Vance lied smoothly. "A mining district. High resource density. Consider yourself lucky, the bonus is higher there."
"You're lying," Aryan said, taking a step back. "I saw the red text. 'Hazard Zone.' I'm not getting in."
The air around them seemed to drop in temperature.
Vance didn't argue. He didn't try to convince him.
He just pressed a silent button under his desk.
Behind Aryan, two Enforcer Drones dropped from the ceiling.
They didn't fire. They just activated their Shock-Prods. The hum of electricity crackled in the air near Aryan's ears.
"Candidate 4921," Vance said, his voice bored again. "You signed the contract. You took the bracelet. The credits are already in escrow for your sister."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"If you don't get in the pod, you are in breach of contract. The credits are revoked. The medical coverage is cancelled. And you go to prison for fraud."
Aryan froze.
The threat hit him harder than the shock-prods.
Anya.
If he fought, he would be stunned, arrested, and Anya would die penniless.
If he got in the pod, he went to a Hazard Zone. But the money... the money would send.
"It's a one-way street, kid," Vance said, gesturing to the open pod. "Make a choice. Be a hero for your family, or be a convict."
Aryan looked at the drone. He looked at Vance's dead eyes.
He looked at the open glass coffin waiting for him.
He realized then that he had never really had a choice. The moment he walked into the Spire, the trap had snapped shut.
"You people are monsters," Aryan whispered.
"We are logistics," Vance corrected. "Get in."
Aryan stepped into the pod.
The glass door slid shut.
Clank.
Hiss.
The seal locked. The air pressure changed, popping his ears.
He was trapped.
He looked out through the glass. Vance was already waving the next person forward. He had forgotten Aryan existed.
The pod jerked.
The magnetic rail caught it.
Aryan was pulled forward.
He passed other pods. He saw people smiling, praying, sleeping. They were dreaming of Planet-Prima.
He looked at his pod's internal screen.
[ DESTINATION: PLANET-404 ]
[ WARNING: SYSTEM SUPPORT MINIMAL ]
[ SURVIVAL GEAR: NOT INCLUDED ]
He banged his fist against the glass. "Let me out! Cancel the launch!"
Soundproof. Nobody heard him.
The pod accelerated.
10 mph.
50 mph.
100 mph.
The Hangar blurred. The massive obsidian ring of the Gate loomed closer, filling his entire vision. The violet vortex swirled like the eye of a god.
[ GATE SYNC: 10 SECONDS ]
[ PREPARE FOR TRANSIT ]
Aryan gripped the safety harness. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He wasn't going to a colony. He was being flushed down a cosmic toilet.
Anya... I'm sorry.
He closed his eyes.
[ 3... 2... 1... ]
The pod hit the event horizon.
There was no sound.
There was no pain.
There was just a sensation of being stretched—like his soul was being pulled out through his pores.
The world turned inside out.
The white tiles of the hangar vanished.
The gravity of Earth vanished.
For a second, he was nowhere. Just a consciousness floating in absolute darkness.
And then...
CRASH.
Gravity returned with the force of a sledgehammer.
The pod didn't glide to a stop. It slammed into something hard.
Metal screamed. Glass shattered.
Aryan was thrown forward against the harness, the breath driven from his lungs.
The pod tumbled, rolling over and over, smashing through branches, rocks, and mud.
BAM.
CRUNCH.
It came to a violent stop.
Silence returned.
But it wasn't the silence of the Hangar.
It was the silence of a forest.
Aryan hung upside down in the harness, blood dripping from his nose. The emergency lights in the pod flickered red.
[ ARRIVAL COMPLETE ]
[ WELCOME TO: PLANET-404 ]
[ SYSTEM STATUS: OFFLINE ]
He gasped for air, tasting copper.
Through the spiderwebbed cracks of the pod's glass, he didn't see golden fields. He didn't see a colony.
He saw a purple sky, choked with storm clouds.
He saw twisted, black trees that looked like skeletal hands reaching for him.
And in the distance, he heard a howl.
It wasn't a wolf. It was something far bigger. Something hungry.
Aryan reached for his belt knife—the multi-tool he had packed.
The "Golden Cage" had opened.
And it had dropped him straight into hell.