Ironhaven City never truly slept.
Even in the deepest hours of night, its lower districts pulsed with quiet movement—shadows trading favors, information, and lives beyond the reach of Federation scanners.
Eren Vale moved through District Seventeen with practiced familiarity, keeping his hood low and his pace unhurried.
This wasn't the first time he had come here.
It was just the first time he came with a decision already made.
The place was called Dock Nine, though no official map acknowledged its existence.
Abandoned cargo platforms hung over a black artificial canal, their lights long since broken. Old freight containers had been welded together into makeshift shops, clinics, and meeting rooms. The air smelled of oil, ozone, and desperation.
This was where people came when the Human Stellar Federation said no.
Eren stopped in front of a container marked only by a flickering white line.
He knocked twice. Paused. Then knocked once more.
The door slid open a crack.
A single eye studied him from the darkness.
"You're early," a rough voice said.
"Didn't want to be late," Eren replied.
The door opened wider.
Inside sat a broad-shouldered man with cybernetic fingers drumming softly against a metal table. His hair was cropped short, his gaze sharp and assessing.
This was Jax Morren.
They'd grown up in the same district. Scrapped together. Worked the same dangerous jobs. The difference was that Jax had chosen the black routes long ago.
"You sure about this?" Jax asked quietly. "Once you step through, there's no complaint office."
Eren nodded. "I know."
Jax leaned back, exhaling slowly. "You get caught, I don't know you. You die in there, I don't bury you."
"Fair," Eren said.
That earned a short laugh.
Jax tapped the table, and a dim hologram flickered to life.
A distorted gate symbol rotated slowly.
"Wild gate," Jax said. "Unregistered. Unstable. First Sanctuary access, but the entry vector's off. Federation doesn't manage it because too many people never come back."
"How many?" Eren asked.
Jax hesitated. "More than half."
Eren didn't react.
Jax studied him more carefully now. "You don't look scared."
"I am," Eren replied. "Just not enough to stop."
Another pause.
Then Jax nodded. "Entry fee's low. But there's a condition."
"What kind?"
Jax's expression darkened. "You're not the only one going in."
The underground transit hummed as it carried them far below Ironhaven's surface.
Eren stood in silence among six other figures.
They didn't speak.
They didn't look at each other.
Everyone here understood the rule—names were liabilities.
At the end of the tunnel, the platform opened into a cavernous chamber. Cracked pylons surrounded a twisted structure of light and fractured geometry.
A wild Sanctuary Gate.
It flickered irregularly, its surface unstable, like shattered glass trying to hold a reflection.
A man stood near the gate, arms crossed, flanked by two heavily armed hunters.
He was tall, lean, and smiling.
Too easily.
"Harlan Voss," Jax muttered under his breath. "Black-market gate broker."
Voss's eyes swept over the group and stopped briefly on Eren.
Just long enough.
"Listen up," Voss said lazily. "Once you're inside, you're not my problem. You die, you die. You live, congratulations—you're profitable."
One of the hunters laughed.
"Entry window opens for ten seconds," Voss continued. "Miss it, you don't get a refund."
The gate flared brighter.
Jax leaned closer to Eren. "Last chance."
Eren looked at the fractured light.
At the instability.
At the unknown waiting beyond it.
Then, deep inside him—
CORE-0 ANALYSIS
Dimensional instability detected
Survival probability: Incalculable
Recommendation: Proceed
Eren exhaled slowly.
"I'm going."
Jax's jaw tightened, then he reached out and clasped Eren's shoulder once. Hard.
"Come back alive," he said.
Eren didn't answer.
The gate roared.
And as the ten-second window opened, Eren stepped forward—
past the Federation's reach, past legality, past the life he had been denied—
and into the Sanctuary.
The light swallowed him whole.