The sky over New Caelum looked infected.
Bruised purple clouds hung low over the city, veined with neon contrails from freighters that Jimmy Jones would never, ever be allowed inside unless someone needed ballast. Every streak of pink light overhead was a reminder that somewhere above the trash-choked atmosphere, people with money were eating real food and touching other people on purpose.
Jimmy kicked a rusted panel and immediately regretted it. The panel didn't move. His toe screamed.
"Fantastic," Jimmy muttered, hopping on one foot in the middle of the Great Sump. "Another victory for the human race."
The Great Sump was less a landfill and more a planetary shame response. Old Earth warships, alien megacorp tech, half-melted relics from civilizations that had collapsed spectacularly—all of it piled together into a toxic canyon that smelled like burning plastic and regret. This was where Jimmy lived. This was where Jimmy thrived, if you defined thriving as "not dead yet."
His stomach growled. Loudly. It was an aggressive sound, like an animal threatening violence.
"I fed you three nutrient bars today," Jimmy whispered to his gut.
The gut growled again, longer this time, as if unimpressed.
Floating beside him was Sparky: a lunchbox-sized drone made of scavenged parts, peeling chrome, and sheer resentment. One glowing red eye swiveled toward Jimmy.
"If you're about to eat garbage again," Sparky said, "I am legally required to pretend I don't know you."
Jimmy wiped sweat from his brow, smearing grease across his cheek. His black hair stuck to his forehead in damp clumps. He was skinny in the way only poverty could sculpt—long limbs, sharp angles, not an ounce of excess anywhere. His flight suit hung off him like a bad decision.
"I'm not eating garbage," Jimmy said. "I'm harvesting opportunities."
"That's what you said before you licked a power conduit."
"It was humming," Jimmy snapped. "That's basically flirting."
They passed a massive holographic billboard flickering over the scrap piles. A Venusian Valkyrie stared down at them, six feet of armored perfection holding a plasma rifle like it was an accessory. Her jaw was sharp, her posture flawless, her chest—
Jimmy stopped walking.
Sparky sighed. "Don't."
"She could crush my head with her thighs," Jimmy whispered reverently.
"She would crush your credit score first."
Jimmy's gaze lingered, hungry in a way that had nothing to do with food. He was eighteen, broke, touch-starved, and painfully aware that the only thing that had held him recently was gravity. The Valkyrie smiled down at him, fake and unattainable.
Then Sparky's sensors pinged.
"Six o'clock," the drone said. "Under the cracked warp coil. Energy signature detected. And before you ask—no, it's not a vending machine."
Jimmy turned.
Half-buried in slag and glowing faintly green was a shard of Aether-Clove crystal. It pulsed softly, like a heartbeat. The light made Jimmy's stomach twist—not nausea. Anticipation.
His mouth watered.
"Oh no," Sparky said immediately. "No. Absolutely not. That is a volatile mana byproduct. Humans are famously bad at processing raw cosmic substances."
Jimmy crouched, fingers hovering inches from the glow. It felt warm. Inviting.
"I'm just going to touch it," Jimmy said.
"You said that about the electric eel."
"That was a misunderstanding."
The hunger surged. Not emotional. Not metaphorical. Biological. His gut clenched like a fist.
He grabbed the shard.
Heat buzzed up his arm. His teeth ached. The smell was sharp—ozone and burnt sugar.
"Jimmy," Sparky warned softly now, "your organs are not rated for this."
Jimmy thought about his life. The trash. The hunger. The fact that no one had ever looked at him the way the Valkyrie looked at imaginary people.
"What's the worst that could happen?" he said, and swallowed the shard whole.
The universe punched him in the throat.
Light exploded behind his eyes. Heat tore through his chest like wildfire. His skin glowed faintly green as his muscles tightened, braided with something stronger than meat. He staggered, gasping, then laughed—deep, shocked laughter.
"Oh," Jimmy breathed. "Oh that's… that's good."
He belched. Green smoke puffed out.
Sparky stared.
"You should be dead," the drone said flatly.
Jimmy turned and lightly tapped a rusted shuttle hull.
The metal caved in like wet paper.
Jimmy stared at his hand. Then grinned.
"I leveled up," he whispered.
Behind them, something hissed.
A Scuttle-Mauler emerged from the shadows—six legs, chitin plates, too many eyes. Its central ocular lens glowed blue.
Jimmy's stomach growled again.
This time, it wasn't hunger.
It was desire.
The Scuttle-Mauler screamed.
It wasn't a sound Jimmy had ever heard before—more like metal tearing itself apart while a radio prayed for mercy. The creature's six legs scraped against the scrap-metal floor as it lunged forward, mandibles snapping, its central eye glowing an angry, predatory blue.
Jimmy froze.
"Oh," he said. "Oh that's… bigger than I thought."
"Fight-or-flight response detected," Sparky said briskly, hovering backward. "Based on your posture, I recommend flight."
Jimmy tried to run.
His foot caught on a twisted cable, and he faceplanted directly into history's sharpest pile of garbage.
The Scuttle-Mauler pounced.
Jimmy rolled on instinct, feeling the heat of plasma scorch the air where his head had been a second earlier. He scrambled up, heart pounding so hard it felt like it was trying to escape his ribcage without him.
"Okay," Jimmy panted. "Okay, okay, okay—"
The hunger surged again.
Not panic. Not fear.
Appetite.
His vision sharpened. Colors deepened. The world slowed just enough to feel manageable. He could see the way the creature's joints locked before it struck, the faint flicker in its eye when it recalibrated aim.
"Oh," Jimmy whispered. "I can see you."
The Scuttle-Mauler charged.
Jimmy didn't think. He moved.
He stepped into the strike and swung.
His fist collided with chitin, and the impact rang through the Sump like a dropped cathedral bell. The creature shrieked as one of its front legs snapped clean off, skidding across the ground in a spray of sparks and alien ichor.
Jimmy stared at his hand again.
Then he laughed. Loud. A little hysterical.
"Did you see that?" he shouted at Sparky. "I hit it!"
"Yes," Sparky said. "I am recording this for your eventual trial."
The Scuttle-Mauler recoiled, eye flickering wildly. It reared back, defensive plates shifting to protect its core.
Jimmy's stomach twisted.
Not disgust.
Craving.
His gaze locked onto the glowing eye.
"Oh no," Jimmy murmured. "I don't like that look."
The thought slid into his mind uninvited and fully formed:
What would happen if I ate that?
Sparky's tone sharpened. "Jimmy. Do not. You are not a space god. You are a malnourished teenager with impulse control issues."
The Scuttle-Mauler lunged again.
Jimmy jumped, grabbed onto the creature's carapace, and was immediately reminded that alien monsters were not designed with ergonomic handholds. He slid, barely catching himself as the beast bucked violently.
"This is a terrible plan!" he yelled.
"You are inside the plan!" Sparky replied.
The Mauler slammed itself into a scrap wall, trying to crush him. Jimmy clung on, teeth rattling, then saw his opening—the eye exposed for a fraction of a second.
He drove his fingers in.
The creature shrieked.
Blue fluid sprayed across Jimmy's face, hot and humming with energy. He gagged, nearly lost his grip, then ripped the eye free with a wet, electrical pop.
The Scuttle-Mauler collapsed in a twitching heap.
Silence followed.
Jimmy stood there, panting, holding the eye in his hand. It pulsed faintly, still alive. Still powerful.
Still food.
Sparky drifted closer, voice low. "You are considering something deeply inadvisable."
Jimmy swallowed.
"I mean," he said weakly, "it worked last time."
"That does not make this a pattern you should trust."
Jimmy looked at the eye. Then at the dead creature. Then at the endless scrap around him—at the life he'd been chewing through without ever feeling full.
"Yeah," he said. "But what if this time it lets me see… more?"
He swallowed the eye.
Pain detonated behind his forehead.
Jimmy screamed as blue light flooded his skull, burning lines through his vision. He dropped to his knees, clutching his face as the world peeled open.
Walls became suggestions.
Metal turned translucent.
He could see through things—layers of scrap, buried conduits, hidden power lines, the faint heat signatures of distant creatures moving beneath the Sump.
"Oh," he gasped. "Oh no. I can see everything."
Including himself.
For a horrifying second, Jimmy saw his own skeleton lit up in blue-white glow, his organs humming with stolen energy. His stomach looked wrong—denser, darker, threaded with something not human.
Sparky hovered silently.
Jimmy's vision snapped back to normal. He collapsed onto his back, laughing and shaking all at once.
"I think," he said breathlessly, "I just unlocked wallhacks."
"You ate a sentient creature's sensory organ," Sparky replied. "That is not a joke."
Jimmy wiped glowing residue from his lips, then froze.
Something moved above him.
A shadow passed overhead—sleek, deliberate. A ship decloaked with a low hum, its hull etched with elegant lines and symbols Jimmy didn't recognize.
A ramp descended.
And then she walked out.
She was tall. Taller than Jimmy, easily. Her body moved with controlled confidence, every step deliberate. Smooth, iridescent skin caught the ambient light, glowing tattoos tracing along her arms, hips, and collarbone—each one pulsing faintly, reacting to something unseen.
Her eyes locked onto Jimmy immediately.
And held.
Jimmy became acutely aware of several things all at once:
He was covered in alien blood.
He was lying in trash.
His heart was trying to escape his chest.
She was very beautiful in a way that felt dangerous.
The tattoos along her neck flared brighter.
Interest.
She looked him up and down, slow and unapologetic.
"…You ate it," she said, voice smooth and accented, carrying authority and amusement in equal measure.
Jimmy sat up too fast. "I can explain."
She smiled slightly.
"I doubt that," she said. "But I'm very interested to hear you try."
Sparky leaned in and whispered, "Jimmy. I believe this is what your species refers to as 'sexual tension.'"
Jimmy swallowed hard.
"Oh," he said. "Cool. Cool cool cool."
The woman's gaze lingered on his eyes—just a fraction too long.
Her tattoos pulsed brighter.
"And I believe," she said softly, "you belong to something much bigger than this dump."
Jimmy's stomach growled again.
And for the first time, he wasn't sure if it was hunger…
…or attraction.