Time/Date: Early Afternoon, TC1853.01.01Location: The Forgotten Fringe → Abandoned Hovel
The Forgotten Fringe stretched beyond The Threshold's organized chaos like a fever dream made manifest. Here, the empire's careful urban planning didn't just fray—it collapsed entirely into a maze of rusting shacks and leaning hovels, where iron walls had buckled and collapsed into one another and roofs sagged under the weight of rainwater from seasons long past. The air was thick with the reek of machine oil and black mold, punctuated by the sharper scents of chemical runoff and human desperation.
Raven picked her way through streets that weren't really streets, more like gaps between the wreckage where scavengers had worn paths over years of desperate searching. Children with hollow eyes watched her pass from doorways that hung crooked on rusted hinges. Their parents were already at work—some in the legitimate salvage operations, others in endeavors that didn't bear close examination.
She searched until she found what she needed: a half-collapsed dwelling tucked between two towering scrap-heaps like a secret shame. It was little more than a skeleton of corrugated metal and rotted planks, its door hanging from a single hinge that screamed protest whenever the wind touched it. One wall had caved inward, creating a triangular gap that let in weak afternoon light. The roof gaped like a broken jaw, revealing patches of grey sky through holes that birds had claimed as nesting spots.
Perfect. Forgotten. Invisible.
The kind of place where the desperate went to die quietly, where no one would think to look for anything of value. Which made it exactly what she needed for work that couldn't bear witnesses.
Five days until Amara's scheme unfolded at the banquet. Five days to prepare the tools that might be the difference between triumph and disaster.
Raven climbed over the broken frame of the doorway, her boots sinking into damp soil mixed with debris that had blown in over months or years of abandonment. Dust clung to the stale air, heavy with mildew and the ghost-scents of whoever had once called this place home. She could see the remains of their occupancy: a broken chair in one corner, scraps of fabric that might once have been bedding, the rusted remnants of cooking pots.
She cleared a patch of relatively dry ground with her foot and settled cross-legged, pulling her haul of legitimate scrap into her lap. The ordinary salvage made decent cover—anyone who glimpsed her through the gaps in the walls would see exactly what they expected: another desperate scavenger trying to squeeze value from the empire's discards.
First came the ordinary pieces: copper wires that gleamed dully in the filtered light, metal plating scored with use but still serviceable, the half-broken battery core that hummed faintly with residual charge. She arranged them carefully, as if preparing to attempt repairs with conventional tools and techniques.
Then, when she was certain no curious eyes lingered outside, when the steady drip of water through the broken roof had settled into a rhythm that would mask any unusual sounds, she reached inward.
Her soul power stirred, faint but steady—a warmth in her chest that had nothing to do with body heat. The seam of reality opened at her will, a narrow slit of silver light that existed in dimensions the naked eye couldn't perceive.
From the tiny soul space, barely forty cubic centimeters of pocket reality, she drew forth the true prizes: three battered communicators and the spare interface screen she'd salvaged from the legitimate piles.
The devices were pitiful things when seen in proper light. One was cracked across its face, the damage spreading in spider-web patterns that made the screen nearly useless. The second had its casing half-missing, exposing circuits clogged with corrosion and components loose in their housings. The third looked like it had been used as a hammer—dented, scarred, and dark as a dead eye.
But as Raven's fingers traced over the damaged components, Merit World #6 flooded back with crystalline clarity. The interstellar colony ship Aspiration, carrying fifty thousand souls across the void to distant Kepler-442b. She had been the ship's AI consciousness then, but more than that—she had been the architect of the vessel itself, designing every system, overseeing the construction of not just the Aspiration but the entire fleet of colony ships and the orbital starbases that supported them.
For thirty-seven years of ship-time, she had interfaced directly with quantum processors and nano-scale circuitry, monitoring every component from the massive fusion drives down to individual sensor arrays. Every technical specification, every engineering principle, every failure mode and repair protocol was burned into her memory.
These primitive communicators were toys compared to the technology she had once commanded, but toys built on the same fundamental principles. Circuit pathways, data transmission, power regulation—the concepts scaled down perfectly.
She closed her eyes, letting her essence thread into the first communicator like a diagnostic probe exploring damaged systems. At once, the device unfolded before her inner vision: a lattice of fractured connections, severed pathways that had once carried data streams. She could see the damage as clearly as if she held a technical schematic—here a circuit burned out by power surge, there a connection severed by impact trauma.
Slowly, with the patience learned from maintaining life support systems across light-years of void, she began the delicate work of restoration. She scraped away green corrosion with a scavenged blade, her fingers guided by muscle memory of repairs performed in zero-g maintenance bays. Then, carefully—so very carefully—she guided a thread of soul power into the damaged pathways.
The work was more exhausting than she'd anticipated. Each pulse of energy sent tremors through her undernourished frame, and within minutes sweat beaded on her forehead despite the cool air. But gradually, connections reformed. Circuits that had been dark for months began to glow with renewed purpose.
The broken screen came away in her hands like shed skin. The replacement interface panel required careful alignment, its dimensions slightly different from the original. Her soul power acted as both tools and catalyst, softening edges here, expanding connection points there, until the new component slid into place.
For a heart-stopping moment the screen remained dark. Then light bloomed across the surface—dim but steady, displaying the device's startup sequence in crisp, clear characters.
One down. Two to go.
But as she reached for the second communicator, pain lanced through her skull like a red-hot nail. Her vision blurred, and she had to grip the ground to keep from toppling over. Blood—she could taste copper on her tongue, feel wetness trickling from her nose.
The cost of pushing too hard, too fast. Her body wasn't ready for this level of soul power manipulation, but she didn't have the luxury of taking her time. In five days, Amara's trap would spring. In five days, she needed to be ready with evidence that could expose the truth.
She wiped the blood from her nose with the back of her hand and picked up the second communicator.
This one presented different challenges. Its casing was shattered beyond repair, exposing half its internal components to the elements. Corrosion had eaten deep into the circuit boards, and several key components were simply missing.
The repair would require more than restoration—she would need to rebuild, to create new pathways where the old ones had been destroyed beyond recovery.
She stripped the device down to its essential components, laying out each piece like a surgeon preparing for complex operations. The spare parts from her legitimate salvage would help, but they wouldn't be enough. She would need to push her power further, to reshape matter at the molecular level.
Another wave of dizziness struck as she began the work. Her hands shook with exhaustion, and she had to stop twice to rest her head against her knees until the nausea passed. But piece by piece, circuit by circuit, the communicator came back to life. New pathways formed where old ones had failed. Damaged components found strength they'd never possessed originally.
When she finally activated the power cell, blood was running freely from her nose and her vision kept swimming in and out of focus. But the device hummed to life with an eagerness that made the pain worthwhile.
The third communicator was easier—mostly cosmetic damage that looked terrible but hadn't affected core functionality. A few minutes of careful work restored the screen, straightened the housing, and cleaned the connection ports. By then, her head was pounding so severely she could barely see straight.
Three communicators. Battered but working. No longer the broken refuse of the salvage yard, but functional technology that could record conversations, store evidence, or communicate across the city's districts without leaving traces in official networks.
But the cost had been severe. As she tried to stand, her legs buckled and she had to catch herself against the wall. The taste of blood filled her mouth, and her soul space felt raw, overextended like a muscle torn by too much strain.
Pathetic, she thought bitterly, pressing a hand to her throbbing temples. Once I designed fleets that could cross galaxies. Now repairing three trinkets nearly kills me.
Yet her fingers tightened protectively on the warm devices. Weak or not, this power was hers alone—an edge no one in this place could guess at, an advantage that would only grow stronger with time and careful cultivation.
She needed to get out of here before the blood loss made her pass out entirely. But first, one final precaution.
Drawing on the last dregs of her strength, she sent out a thin pulse of awareness—not the extensive scan she might have attempted in her prime, but a basic sweep of the immediate area. Twenty meters. Thirty. The effort sent fresh lances of pain through her skull, but she gritted her teeth and pushed to fifty meters.
Clear. No predators lurking in the shadows, no greedy hands waiting to strike. Just the ordinary misery of the Forgotten Fringe.
With a soft gasp of relief, she released the scanning pulse and slumped against the broken wall. Darkness pressed at the edges of her vision, and she had to fight to stay conscious.
The communicators slipped into her salvage pouch, their weight both reassuring and dangerous. Too much value for this place, but not enough to guarantee her safety anywhere else.
Raven tugged her hood low over features that would be memorized by anyone who got too close a look, and whispered into the mold-stale air words that had become her survival mantra:
"Low key. Always low key. Five more days."
Five days to recover from this overextension. Five days to prepare for war. Five days to ensure that when Amara's scheme unfolded, she would have the tools necessary to expose the truth.
The broken hovel released her without ceremony, its shadows swallowing her unsteady footprints as if she'd never been there at all. In her pouch, three repaired communicators waited to become instruments of justice—proof that she could build her own weapons from the empire's discards.
The first step on a road that would either lead to vindication or destruction, with no middle ground between them.