Chapter 1: The Fixer's Price
Tim Bradford's eyes snapped open to a world of searing white light, the kind of unrelenting glare that felt like it was trying to burn the retinas right out of his skull. The air was a suffocating, dry heat that felt alien, not the humid stickiness of a hot day back home, but a brittle, arid furnace. He was lying on his back on coarse, reddish sand that scratched against his skin through a thin, unfamiliar shirt. A thin layer of dust covered his clothes, the same chalky grit he could taste on his tongue. His head throbbed with a dull, insistent ache, a low, rhythmic pain that beat in time with the heat shimmering off the horizon. He blinked slowly, trying to bring the world into focus, his vision swimming with sunspots. The smell was the first thing to truly register: a mix of baked earth, sun-bleached rock, and something else—a faint, metallic scent that he couldn't quite place, but which felt unsettling.
Then, a new kind of pain arrived—the surreal kind. A clean, clinical interface, like something out of a futuristic sci-fi movie, blinked into existence right in front of his eyes. It was a heads-up display, but it was inside his mind, not projected on a screen. He tried to blink it away, to rub his eyes, to find any kind of rational explanation, but it remained, stark and unblinking against the blinding sky. He felt a cold dread seep into his bones, a feeling more terrifying than any adrenaline-fueled chase.
"What the hell is this?" Tim thought, the words a silent scream in his own head. "Am I hallucinating? Did I get hit by a car? Is this a concussion?" He tried to swat at the holographic text, but his hand simply passed through the empty air where it seemed to be. The unreality of it was a crushing weight. He sat up, his movements clumsy and disoriented, the world tilting slightly on its axis. He felt a wave of dizziness, the desert floor swaying beneath him as if he were on a ship at sea. His stomach churned with a sudden nausea. The view that greeted him was a panoramic, endless desert dotted with scraggly sagebrush and jagged, unforgiving rocks. A hazy line of mountains was barely visible in the distance, swallowed by the heat haze. This wasn't San Diego. This wasn't anywhere he knew.
His uniform, his badge, his gun, the familiar weight of his equipment—all gone. He was wearing a thin, beige button-down shirt and cheap jeans that were already stained with reddish-brown dust. He looked down at his hands, then at his reflection in a small, convex piece of metal on the ground, a part of a broken car. The face staring back wasn't quite his own—it was younger, smoother, with a different haircut, but the eyes, the sharp, wary set to the jaw, that was all him. A stranger's face, but his own soul looking out from behind the glass. He had no memories of how he got here. The last thing he could recall was a routine traffic stop, a moment of blinding light, and then… this.
He didn't respond. He just sat there, the desert wind a hot, dry whisper against his ear, kicking up small eddies of dust. He felt a deep, profound violation. His identity, his past, his very sense of self had been stripped away and replaced with this terrifying, alien reality. "Who are you? What are you?" he said, his voice a dry rasp.
"Debt accrual?" he muttered, his voice barely a whisper. "What debt? What are you talking about?"
He stood up, his legs wobbly, and stumbled toward a distant, two-lane road that cut a lonely scar through the landscape. The sun was a hammer on his skull, and he felt the first beads of sweat trace a line down his temples. His mind reeled, trying to make sense of the nonsensical. He prodded the System again, a silent interrogation that felt less like a conversation and more like poking a beehive with a stick. The responses were as terse and technical as before, without a hint of emotion.
"I'm Tim. I'm a cop. Where am I? What's going on?"
New Mexico. The name resonated with a hollow ache. He discovered a sub-menu in the heads-up display, a section labeled ABILITIES. It was a list with a single, glowing option: [CLEAN-UP KIT]. Next to it, in stark, red letters, was the cost: [SP: 500].
"What's SP?" he asked, the words feeling ridiculous as he spoke them into the empty desert.
He blinked. The irony hit him like a physical blow. He, a cop, a man who had dedicated his life to cleaning up the streets in a completely different way, was now being told he had to "fix" things for a system with a ten-million-dollar price tag.
"So you're telling me I have to become some kind of… criminal handyman to pay this off?" he said, a bitter laugh escaping his lips.
He kept walking, his body protesting with every step, the sun high overhead, beating down on him with a merciless ferocity. He was a phantom in a new body, a walking paradox. His old life, with its clear lines of right and wrong, its strict protocols and black-and-white rules, felt a million miles away. His uniform, his badge, his partner—all of it was gone, reduced to a fading memory. The System's countdown on his debt repayment ticked ominously in his peripheral vision, a constant, low-grade hum of pressure, a buzzing mosquito he couldn't swat away. He glanced at a passing car, a dusty minivan packed with a family, its occupants laughing and singing along to a radio song. They were oblivious to the inner war raging within him, to the phantom cop stumbling through the desert, haunted by a debt that wasn't his and a job he never asked for.
He finally reached the cracked asphalt of a dusty road. His throat felt like sandpaper, and his lips were chapped. A sun-faded sign, its paint peeling, stood crookedly by the shoulder. "Albuquerque: 20 miles." He had to choose. He could sit here and die of thirst, clinging to the ghost of his old life, or he could move forward, a grim determination setting in. He looked at the glowing screen of the System in his mind, its stark interface a silent promise of a different kind of life—a promise that felt more like a threat than a gift. The sun was beginning its slow descent, casting long, menacing shadows across the sand. The air was still hot, but the light was turning a sickly orange, and the world felt less like a desert and more like an alien planet. He had to get to Albuquerque. He had to start. The alternative wasn't an option.