When Air Became Debt

In the immense arc-city of A-7, oxygen isn't a right; it's a currency known as Vita-Credit (or CrediVita). Every inhale has a cost. For Kaelen, a boy from the Middle Rings, that lesson was a deadly one: he watched his mother's meter drop to zero as she begged for an extra breath. The system swallowed his family, exiling them to the rusted tunnels known as the Shells (or Hulls). Kaelen survived, not by luck, but by metal: a clandestine workshop turned him into an Augmented, a cold and efficient man.

Years later, Kaelen-7 is a Pneuma Corp Respirator (or Pneumologist), the enforcement arm that seals the modules of debtors. His life is a routine of death: checking quotas, blocking air connections, and signing the "act of silence." His exoskeleton and his breathing mask are all that he is. However, one day, while sealing a family in the Middle Rings, the daughter strikes his mask, shouting at him: "You don't breathe like us!" That cry, barely a whisper of residual air, plants the first seed of doubt in his core of steel.

The meter flickered with a dry, sharp sound. 


Each pulse was one second less of oxygen in our lungs.


The counter's red crystal projected a mercilessly descending number onto the wall: 


"Please! Just a few more liters… only a few…" My mother knelt before the control module, her nails scraping the metal.


The official from the Chamber of Respiration looked at her with the indifference of someone observing an insect.


"Your vital credit has expired. Standard procedure: immediate disconnection."


I, a child of barely seven cycles, clung to her skirt, trembling with every single beep. My father tried to negotiate, offering himself as an extra laborer in the Rings. But words held no weight against that descending number.


A metallic hiss flooded the room. It wasn't loud, but it embedded itself in my bones. The sound of an empty coffin. The air began to escape the module. The pressure fell. My lungs burned like fire.


"No! He's just a child!" my mother screamed, pushing me toward the door as her face turned purple.


Someone grabbed my arms. I remember white lights, hurried footsteps, distant voices: "Exiles. Shells. Zero value."


I woke up in a different place, my chest split open on a metal table. The air was dense, smelling of rust and grease.


A man with a mechanical eye was adjusting shiny parts onto my body.


"If you want to keep breathing, kid, you'll have to do it like a machine."


That was my second birth. The one who opened his eyes, with an Exoskeleton grafted on and recycled metal lungs, was no longer fully human.


The years dissolved into a succession of dirty jobs and paid quotas. Until the day I agreed to serve the system that killed my family.


Now, I am Kaelen-7, Pneuma Corp Pneumologist.


A module was sealing in front of me. The same metallic hiss, identical to the one from my childhood, enveloped me as I watched a family slump to the other side of the hatch.


They weren't screaming anymore. They had learned that spending air on pleas was useless.


The Vita-Credit counter on their wall flickered at zero.


I slid my authorization card, cold as a scalpel.


Inside my feedback mask, my own breath sounded mechanical, hollow. I no longer even knew if I was breathing out of necessity… or simply habit.


I stared at the red crystal, listened to the muffled thuds behind the seal, and thought:


"In this arc, the price of a single breath is decided by someone else. 


Chapter 1 - Prologue: "Vita-Credit"