The silence in Sector-4 was never real.
Even at 03:00 AM, the city breathed like a dying animal. The mag-lev trains rattled overhead every eleven minutes, vibrating the corrugated steel roof of the container. Down on the street level, the neon-drenched alleys echoed with the shouts of drunkards, the screech of police drones, and the ceaseless, rhythmic thrum of the atmospheric recyclers trying to scrub the smog from the air.
But inside Container Unit 404-C, the silence was absolute.
It had a texture. It was heavy, pressing against the rusted metal walls, filling the corners, and settling like dust on the floor. It was a vacuum that sucked the warmth out of the air.
Anya sat on the edge of her bed, her knees pulled tight to her chest.
She hadn't moved in four hours.
In her hands, she held a small, dismantled drone motor—a piece of junk Aryan had scavenged for her last week so she could practice her mechanics. Usually, her fingers would be flying over the copper coils, rewiring the burnt circuits, finding peace in the logic of the machine.
Tonight, her hands were frozen. The screwdriver lay forgotten on the blanket.
Her eyes were fixed on the door.
It was a sturdy door, reinforced with scrap metal Aryan had welded on himself after the riots last year. The lock had a distinct quirk; it would grind and screech before clicking open.
Screech. Click.
That was the sound of safety. That was the sound of him coming home.
For the last four hours, Anya had played a game with herself.
He'll be back in ten minutes, she told herself. He just went to check the job board. He changed his mind. He'll walk in, shake the rain off his coat, and complain about the foreman docking his pay.
But ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Then an hour.
The logical part of her brain—the part that understood circuit diagrams and mana-poisoning ratios—knew the truth.
The lock wasn't going to screech.
The door wasn't going to open.
He hadn't taken his keys.
Anya turned her head slowly, looking at the other side of the small, cramped room.
The second mattress was empty.
It looked wrong. The blanket was folded—not neatly, but hastily, the corners uneven. The imprint of his body was still faintly visible on the cheap foam, a ghost of the sleep he had barely gotten.
His backpack, usually hanging on the hook by the sink, was gone.
His heavy work boots, which always sat by the door leaving mud tracks she would scold him about, were gone.
The room felt enormous.
It was only ten feet by twelve feet, a metal box hot in the summer and freezing in the winter. But without him filling the space with his presence, his quiet humming, and the smell of ozone and sweat... it felt like a cavern.
Cough.
The spasm hit her without warning.
Anya doubled over, dropping the drone motor. It clattered loudly on the floor, the sound exploding in the quiet room.
Her lungs seized. It felt like someone had poured molten lead into her chest. The Mana Poisoning was waking up. The ambient mana in the air, toxic to her defective biology, was eating away at her bronchial lining.
She gagged, covering her mouth with her hand.
Black veins pulsed visibly under the pale skin of her neck, spreading like ivy. The pain was blinding, white-hot needles stabbing through her ribs.
Breathe, she commanded herself. Just breathe.
She reached for the small table beside her bed.
Her hand hovered over the last vial of Mana-Stabilizer.
It was empty. Just a few blue drops clinging to the glass.
If she licked the inside, maybe it would buy her an hour. Maybe ten minutes of relief.
But she didn't pick it up.
She pulled her hand back.
If he doesn't come back, she thought, the darkness creeping into her mind, why waste it?
If Aryan was gone, she was dead anyway. The rent was due in three days. The food would last two. The medicine was already gone.
Without him, she wasn't a person. She was just an expensive medical condition waiting to expire.
She lay back against the wall, riding out the pain. It took five minutes for the coughing to subside, leaving her gasping, sweat soaking her thin t-shirt.
She tasted iron in her mouth. Blood.
She looked at the small, cracked tablet lying on the table—the only piece of advanced tech they owned. Aryan used it to check for day-labor gigs.
It sat there, dark and silent.
"Please," she whispered to the empty room. Her voice was raspy, broken. "Please be a coward. Be a coward and come home."
She wanted him to fail. She wanted him to get rejected. She wanted him to walk through that door, defeated and broke, so she could yell at him for being stupid, and then hug him until her arms hurt.
Beep.
The sound was sharp, digital, and terrifying.
The tablet screen lit up.
Anya flinched as if she had been slapped.
She stared at the glowing rectangle.
The notification light blinked green.
Green meant official. Green meant Guild.
Her heart hammered against her bruised ribs. Her hands shook so badly she almost knocked the water cup over as she reached for the device.
What if it's a rejection?
What if it's an arrest warrant?
What if it's a body recovery notice?
She unlocked the screen. The brightness hurt her eyes.
[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ]
[ SENDER: HIGH GUILD ALLIANCE - LOGISTICS ]
[ RE: CANDIDATE 4921 ]
She stopped breathing.
Candidate.
He wasn't Aryan anymore. He was a number.
She tapped the message open.
[ DEPLOYMENT STATUS: CONFIRMED ]
[ CANDIDATE 4921: ARYAN ]
[ TRANSIT: SUCCESSFUL ]
[ CURRENT LOCATION: CLASSIFIED (OUTER SECTOR) ]
Anya read the words three times.
Transit: Successful.
That meant he had gone through the Gate.
He was gone.
He wasn't in Sector-4. He wasn't in Delhi. He wasn't even on Earth.
He was light-years away, on some alien rock that the news promised was paradise but the rumors called a graveyard.
A numbness spread through her chest, colder than the poisoning. It wasn't relief. It was a finality. The door was never going to open again.
And then, a second notification popped up.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
A rapid series of chimes, sounding like a slot machine paying out a jackpot.
[ BANKING ALERT: ESCROW RELEASE ]
[ ACCOUNT: 404-C-ARYAN ]
[ TYPE: ONE-TIME TRANSFER ]
[ REFERENCE: SIGNING BONUS - PIONEER INITIATIVE ]
[ AMOUNT: +50,000 CREDITS ]
Anya stared at the number.
50,000.
The zeroes seemed to mock her. They glowed with a toxic neon green.
It was a fortune.
It was more money than their parents had earned in their entire lives combined.
It was enough to rent a bio-dome apartment in the Upper Plates for two years.
It was enough to buy fresh apples. Real meat. Clean water.
It was enough to buy the Gene-Therapy Cure.
She looked at the number.
Then she looked at the empty mattress.
It wasn't a bonus.
It was a price tag.
Aryan had sold himself. This was his value. 50,000 credits for one healthy, stubborn, loving brother.
"You idiot," she whispered, her voice cracking.
She touched the screen. The glass felt cold.
"You promised you'd bring the cure," she choked out, tears finally spilling over, hot and angry. "You didn't say you would be the payment."
She grabbed the tablet and raised it, wanting to smash it against the wall. She wanted to destroy the money. She wanted to scream at the Guild that she didn't want their blood money, she wanted her brother back.
But her arm stopped in mid-air.
Another cough racked her body. This one was violent. She tasted more blood.
She doubled over, clutching the tablet to her chest like a shield.
If she destroyed the tablet... the money was gone.
If she refused the money... she died.
And if she died... what was it all for?
Aryan had walked into a machine that ate people so that she could breathe. If she gave up now, if she let the poison take her out of spite, she would be spitting on his sacrifice.
She lowered the tablet slowly. Her hands were trembling, but her grip was tight.
She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. She smeared grease and tears across her cheek, but she didn't care.
Her eyes, usually soft with pain, hardened.
She was Aryan's sister. They were rats of Sector-4. They didn't have the luxury of pride. They only had the duty of survival.
She opened the Med-Net Application.
She navigated to the pharmacy section—the one she usually only looked at to dream.
She bypassed the "Stabilizers."
She went straight to the "Gene-Therapy & Detox" section.
[ ITEM: HIGH-GRADE MANA PURIFICATION SERUM ]
[ DESCRIPTION: FLUSHES SYSTEMIC TOXINS. REPAIRS ORGAN DAMAGE. ]
[ COST: 15,000 CREDITS ]
She didn't hesitate. She didn't look at the price.
She pressed ADD TO CART.
[ ITEM: 6-MONTH STABILIZER SUPPLY ]
[ COST: 5,000 CREDITS ]
ADD TO CART.
[ ITEM: NUTRI-PACK SUBSCRIPTION (CLASS A) ]
[ COST: 2,000 CREDITS ]
ADD TO CART.
She stared at the total. 22,000 Credits.
She still had half left.
She pressed CHECKOUT.
[ PAYMENT PROCESSING... ]
[ SOURCE: PIONEER ESCROW ]
[ PAYMENT ACCEPTED ]
[ DRONE DISPATCHED. PRIORITY DELIVERY. ETA: 12 MINUTES ]
The confirmation screen flashed.
It was done.
Anya put the tablet down on the table, next to the empty vial.
She felt sick. Not from the poison, but from the transaction. She had just traded pieces of her brother for serum.
She stood up, her legs shaky.
She walked over to Aryan's bed.
She picked up his pillow. It smelled of him.
She curled up on his mattress, pulling his thin, scratchy blanket over her shoulders. She buried her face in the pillow, inhaling deeply, trying to catch the last fading molecules of his scent.
Outside, the wind howled, slapping rain against the metal walls.
Somewhere far away, a drone was flying toward her, carrying life in a bottle.
The room was rich now.
They were technically wealthy. They had climbed out of the poverty line in a single night.
But as Anya lay there, shivering in the dark, she realized the truth.
The room wasn't full of money.
It was full of ghosts.
She closed her eyes, imagining Aryan somewhere in the stars.
"I'll live," she whispered into his pillow, a vow and a curse. "I'll live, Bhai. So you better not be dead."
The silence settled back over Unit 404-C.
Heavier than before.
Permanent.