The Bolt-Hole wasn't much, but it was home. It was a repurposed maintenance shaft buried deep in the underbelly of Axiom Prime's outer sectors, shielded from most patrol scans by a nest of leaking conduits and the general, overwhelming background noise of the city's failing infrastructure. The air was thick with the smell of ozone, cheap nutrient paste, and desperation.
Kaelen slid the rusted panel back into place, the act of sealing himself in bringing a sliver of relief. The immediate danger was past. Now came the paranoia.
He emptied his pockets onto a makeshift table—a slab of composite plating balanced on two stacks of crumbling data-tapes. A few cred-chips, his tools, and the shard.
It sat there, inert and dark, looking utterly innocent. It promised nothing. It explained nothing.
//ANALYSIS_PROTOCOL his mind whispered, a mocking imitation of a real Weaver's thought process. He had nothing to analyze it with. His own senses told him it was a perfect black box. No entry points. No flaws. It was the ultimate piece of junk code; you couldn't even look at it without getting a headache.
His stomach growled, a sharp, physical reminder of more pressing realities. The ten-cred fine he'd avoided would have been a death sentence. As it was, his supplies were running low. He scooped a glob of grey nutrient paste from a canister and swallowed it without tasting it. It was fuel, not food. Another line item in the ledger of survival.
A soft chime echoed from a jury-rigged console in the corner—a proximity alert he'd cobbled together from scavenged parts. Someone was at the outer hatch.
Kaelen's hand shot out, sweeping the shard into a hidden compartment. Old habits. He peered at the grainy feed from a hidden camera. It was Old Man Hemlock, his wizened face pressed close to the lens, one eye magnified to a comical degree.
With a sigh, Kaelen disengaged the locks. The panel slid open with a screech.
"Holding court in the dark again, boy?" Hemlock rasped, shuffling in. He was a fellow scavenger, one of the few who didn't treat Kaelen like a walking bad omen. He carried a small, cloth-wrapped bundle.
"Just admiring the ambiance," Kaelen replied, the familiar sarcasm a comfortable cloak. "To what do I owe the honor?"
Hemlock placed the bundle on the table. Unwrapping it revealed two actual, slightly-withered root vegetables. A king's ransom in the outer sectors. "The Reaver gang is getting bold. Took old Jyn's entire haul from the Western Spire. Left her with nothing."
Kaelen stared at the vegetables, his throat tight. This was how it worked down here. You didn't get gifts. You got investments, or you got payments. "And?"
"And I heard a Syntax patrol was in your sector today. Came back looking confused. Thought you might have… overheard something." Hemlock's good eye, sharp and knowing, fixed on him. "A bit of information for a bit of food. The oldest trade."
So that was it. Hemlock thought he had intel. Kaelen's mind raced. He couldn't mention the shard. That was a one-way ticket to being dissected in some Syntax Lord lab. But he could trade a little truth.
"They were jumpy," Kaelen said, leaning back, feigning a nonchalance he didn't feel. "Their scanners were glitching. Something in that sector messes with their gear. Bad grounding, maybe. A corrupted power conduit. I don't know. They scanned me and got a //TARGET_NOT_FOUND error. Called me 'bad code' and left."
He let the words hang in the static-thick air. It was the truth, just not all of it.
Hemlock's eyebrows rose. "//TARGET_NOT_FOUND? On a living signature? That's… not a glitch. That's a system-level failure." He looked at Kaelen with a new, unnerving intensity. "You're sure?"
"Pretty sure. It was the highlight of my day."
The old man was silent for a long moment, then pushed the vegetables towards Kaelen. "Eat. A system that can't see you…" he trailed off, a grim smile on his face. "Well, a ghost can go places a man can't."
After Hemlock left, Kaelen sat in the dim light, the weight of the old man's words heavier than the roots in his hand. A ghost. He looked towards the hidden compartment where the shard lay.
He had thought of it as a shield. A way to hide.
But Hemlock saw it as a key.
The thought was terrifying. To be a Null was to be nothing. To be a ghost was to be a threat. The Syntax Lords didn't waste resources on nothing. They dedicated entire divisions to eliminating threats.
He pulled the shard out again. It felt colder now. He rolled it between his fingers, his Null-Sense brushing against its perfect, impenetrable surface. What was inside? A weapon? A map? A dead god's last will and testament?
A sudden, sharp pain lanced behind his eyes. He dropped the shard with a clatter, clutching his head. For a fraction of a second, his mind wasn't his own. He didn't see his Bolt-Hole. He saw…
...a field of stars, not in the sky, but underfoot. A silent, vast plain of light. And a single, towering structure of pure logic, a cathedral of code, with a door that was an open, screaming mouth of static.
The vision vanished as quickly as it came, leaving him gasping, cold sweat beading on his forehead. The shard lay on the floor, once again dark and inert.
It wasn't a shield. It wasn't a key.
It was a window. And something on the other side had just looked back at him.
He left the shard on the floor. He didn't want to touch it. He picked up one of the root vegetables and took a bite. It was tough and earthy. Real.
He was Kaelen, the Null. He survived. That was all.
But as he sat in the gloom of his Bolt-Hole, the taste of dirt and sustenance in his mouth, he knew with a cold, certain dread that the calculus of his survival had just become infinitely more complex.
To be continued...