Scene 1 [The Informant and the Escort]
What woke Ian was not a sound.
It was a smell. Not black tea. Gunpowder. And beneath that, ozone. The sharp scent that fills the air when a bio-suppression device is activated. Ian had never smelled it before. But he recognized it. He had read about it. The residual chemical signature of the neural inhibitors deployed by the Empire's Purification Corps during lower-sector sweeps. Equipment capable of paralyzing every motor nerve within a fifty-meter radius in 0.3 seconds.
Ian's eyes opened.
Darkness. The fluorescent lights were off. All three. Even the one survivor. No light inside the room. But beneath the door, light was bleeding in. Not fluorescent light. White, sharp, and shadow-free. Upper-tier light.
Upper-tier light was inside the factory.
It took Ian 1.5 seconds to stand from the wooden crates. Three times his normal speed. His body was heavy. The ozone in the air was already interfering with his nerves. Not full paralysis—distance diluted it. But his extremities tingled, and his fingers would not move at proper speed.
Sound rose from below.
Not groaning. Screaming. The wounded screaming. And over that, boots striking concrete. Steady. Fast. Numerous. Not one pair. Ten. Twenty. More than could be counted. An uncountable number of feet had occupied the first floor of the factory.
Ian's hand found the table. Clean fingers brushed the stack of papers on the cloth. The declaration. His fingers paused on the paper for 0.5 seconds. He didn't pick it up. His hand moved on.
He walked toward the door.
Before opening it, Ian stopped. One second. His hand straightened the collar of his shirt. Adjusted the fold of his rolled sleeves. In this situation. With boots and screaming coming through the floor. This man was adjusting his shirt.
He opened the door.
The corridor was white.
Upper-tier search lights had colonized the interior of the factory. The mold on the walls was visible. The cracks in the ceiling were visible. The water droplets on rusted pipes were visible. Every ugliness this building had harbored was exposed under the light. This building had been a safe house only in the dark. With light, it became what it was—an abandoned factory.
Soldiers were at the base of the stairs.
White combat uniforms. White helmets. White gloves. The Empire's color. The color of purity. That color was holding rifles at the bottom of the staircase. Ten. No—more behind them. A wall of white filling the entire first floor.
Ian stood at the top of the stairs. At the second-floor railing.
He looked down.
The infirmary had been overturned. The wounded had been dragged from the floor and lined up in the corridor. Tarpaulins stripped off. Bandages unraveled. Minho was there. Minho with one leg, propped against the wall. Not sitting—placed there. A soldier had set him against the wall like an object. Minho's eyes were aimed upward. At Ian on the stairs.
Donovan was there. Donovan with no right arm, face-down on the floor. A boot rested on his back. A soldier was standing on Donovan, using the elevation to direct a search of another room.
Ian's gaze swept the first floor. Fast. Left to right. Wounded. Soldiers. Overturned stretchers. Broken bottles of spirits. Puddles of alcohol and blood mixing on the concrete.
Cal was not visible.
Nadia was not visible.
Eli was not visible.
Ian's eyes swept the floor a second time. Same speed. Same range.
Gone.
A minute motion in Ian's jaw. Not clenching. Swallowing. His throat moved once.
"Halt."
A voice from below. A soldier's. Aimed at the stairs. Muzzles turned toward Ian. Not one. Three. Four. Black barrels in white gloves, leveled at the white shirt standing above.
Ian stood. One hand on the railing. Back straight. The posture of a man under aim happened to also be the posture of a man looking down. Ian was surrounded, but because he stood higher, it looked like he was the one surveying them.
Ian's mouth opened.
"Take your hands off the wounded."
His voice had not changed. Tea-temperature. The tone for Minho. The tone for briefings. The same temperature, even toward rifle muzzles.
The soldiers did not move. The muzzles did not lower. The boot on Donovan's back did not lift.
Ian began descending the stairs.
One step. One step. Even pace. The sound of his footfalls differed from the boots. Light. Precise. Even. This man was walking into the center of the Empire's Purification Corps, and there was no hesitation in his stride.
On the third step, Ian stopped.
His gaze had reached the exit. Beside the exit, someone stood with a soldier. Not in uniform. In work coveralls. Familiar coveralls. The kind worn in this factory.
The face was not visible. Turned away. But the build was. Shoulder width. Height. The slight drag of the right leg.
Ian's foot stayed on the third step. 0.7 seconds. For this man, 0.7 seconds of stillness was longer than any pause that had come before.
The person in the coveralls handed something to the soldier. Small. Metallic. Button-sized. Its surface glinted under the search light.
A transmitter.
Ian's eyes held on that piece of metal.
Then the person in the coveralls turned their head. Halfway. A profile caught the light.
Ian knew that face.
Inside Ian's mouth, the aftertaste of black tea vanished. The last trace of the morning's tea evaporated from his tongue. In its place—nothing. The inside of his mouth was hollow. Empty.
Ian's foot moved again.
He descended the remaining stairs. Even pace. His feet touched the first-floor concrete. The edge of a puddle—alcohol and blood.
Ian did not look at the informant.
Did not turn his head. Did not give them his gaze. Did not face the exit. Instead he looked at the soldiers in front of him. At the muzzles.
"Who is the commanding officer?"
One soldier stepped forward from the group. Rank insignia on the shoulder. A gold stripe on white. Shorter than Ian but wider.
"CS-0042. Ian."
The commander read from a terminal in his palm.
"Pure-blood class. Charges: sedition and attempted overthrow of state authority in the lower sectors. Priority arrest target."
Ian's expression did not change.
"Release the wounded."
Ian spoke. To the commander. The arrest target was negotiating terms with the men who had come to arrest him.
"These people are not combatants. They are casualties. Under Imperial Code 117, civilians rendered non-combat-capable are entitled to—"
"You know your law."
The commander cut Ian off. His mouth curved. Not a smile. The expression of someone who enjoyed cutting.
"A man who knows the law, operating outside it. Must be exciting."
Ian did not respond. 0.3 seconds.
"If I come with you, will the wounded be left alone?"
The commander studied Ian. Top to bottom. The white shirt. The crisp collar. The clean hands. Not a bloodstain on him. A man who did not belong in a Sector Seven factory.
"Original orders are full liquidation."
Ian's eyes narrowed. Barely. For the first time in this episode. The muscles around his eyelids moved by half a millimeter—but it was the first fracture to appear on Ian's face.
"However."
The commander waved the terminal once.
"Command wants you alive. Come quietly, and the rest get removed from the kill list."
Ian looked into the commander's eyes. Three seconds. Three seconds to read whether it was truth or lie.
Ian's hands rose.
Both of them. Slowly. To chest height.
"Cuff me."
His wrists extended forward. Clean wrists. Scarless wrists. Wrists that had never been bound, advancing toward steel of their own accord.
A soldier approached. Produced handcuffs. Metal touched Ian's wrists. Cold. The first cold metal Ian's wrists had ever felt closed around them with a click.
Ian's eyes shut once. Briefly. At the instant of the click. Then opened. His eyes were clear. Still. For now.
• •
Ian was led away.
Two soldiers gripped his arms. Ian did not resist. He matched their stride so that being dragged looked like walking. His back was straight. Even while being taken, this man was straight.
He passed the exit.
He passed the spot where the informant had stood. The informant was gone. Vanished into the light. Whether they had chosen not to watch the man they'd sold being taken, or had simply deemed it unnecessary—impossible to say.
Ian's feet crossed the factory's threshold.
Sector Seven's corridor. Rusted pipes. Sewage smell. But the corridor was also lit with upper-tier light now. Portable lamps had been bolted to the walls. No shadows. The corridor Ian walked had no shadows.
Behind him, a sound.
Ian didn't turn.
But he heard it. From inside the factory. Donovan's voice. Cracked and wet, slipping through the closing door.
"Leader—!"
One word. That was all.
Ian's stride slowed by 0.1 seconds.
Then evened out again.
The corridor ended at a vertical shaft. Upward. Toward the surface. Ian's feet found metal stairs. He climbed. One step. One step. The underground air thinned and the upper-tier air thickened. Disinfectant. Synthetic fragrance. The smell of filtered, processed air. The underground smells of iron and blood were pushed out, and the Empire's smell filled Ian's nose.
The light intensified.
Surface.
Ian had reached the upper tier.
Twelve artificial suns poured down their light. Shadowless streets. Citizens in white walked past. Between them, a man in a white shirt was being escorted by soldiers in white combat gear. The shirt was the same white as the city. But the handcuffs on his wrists gave that white a different meaning.
The citizens did not look. Did not turn their heads. Did not spare a glance at the man being taken. In this city, a person being led away was a person who had ceased to exist. Not looking was how one preserved one's purity.
Ian walked. Back straight.
His lips were moving. Soundlessly.
Pain is but a moment. Conviction is eternal.
The declaration's sentence circled inside Ian's mouth. Unable to become sound. Unable to touch the air. Existing only between Ian's tongue and palate. A prayer with no congregation.
For now, Ian still believed that sentence.
Ian's shirt caught the artificial sun and shone.
Clean.
For now.
Scene 2 [The Stage of Dilemma, and Betrayal]
A white room.
The walls glowed. The ceiling glowed. The floor glowed. There were no seams. The corners were rounded. Where wall met ceiling, where wall met floor, curves blended one surface into the next until it was impossible to tell where one ended and another began. The entire space felt like the inside of a single block of light.
There were no shadows.
Ian sat in a chair. A metal chair. Restraint straps on the armrests held his wrists. His ankles too. The handcuffs had been removed. The straps were tighter. Handcuffs had only locked his wrists; the straps locked their rotation.
Ian's shirt was white.
The same white as the room. With Ian seated inside it, his shirt seemed to melt into the walls. He looked like a part of the room. But his collar was standing, the fold of his sleeves was precise, his buttons were done to the neck. The room was trying to swallow Ian, but his clothes were holding the border.
Ian's back was straight.
Strapped to a chair, and his back was straight. He did not lean against the backrest. His core was engaged. Maintaining this posture required abdominal effort, and effort built fatigue, and fatigue should have broken the posture. But Ian's posture did not break. For this man, a straight back was not a matter of muscle. It was a matter of choice.
Ian's eyes were closed.
His lips were moving. Soundlessly. The faintest motion—his tongue tapping the roof of his mouth and falling away. He was reciting the sentences of his declaration. In this white room, all Ian possessed was his body and that sentence.
Tok. Tok. Tok.
Footsteps.
Ian's eyes opened.
A seam in the wall opened. Part of the wall pushed inward. Because wall and door shared no visible boundary, it looked as though the wall itself was opening. From beyond it, a man entered.
Tall. Half a hand's span taller than Ian. Lean build. Wearing a coat. White. The same white as the room. Below the coat, the hem of suit trousers was visible, and shoes. Black leather. The only black to have entered this white room.
Latex gloves on both hands.
The man's face had no features. The absence of features was the feature. Eyes neither large nor small. Nose neither high nor low. Lips neither thick nor thin. A face you would forget the instant you turned away. A face that would never be picked out of a crowd. But inside this room, inside all this white, the man's eyes alone were distinct. A distinctness without emotion. The distinctness of a camera lens.
The Butcher.
Ian did not know this man. Not the name. Not the face. Not even a rumor. This man was the kind who did not become rumor. The people who met him disappeared before rumors could spread.
The Butcher stood before Ian.
At a distance. Two arm-lengths. His eyes swept Ian. Top to bottom. Shirt. Collar. Buttons. Sleeves. Hands. Feet. Then back up. Eyes.
"You're clean."
The Butcher spoke. His voice was flat. Neither high nor low. Like the face.
Ian did not respond. He was watching the Butcher. With clear eyes. Eyes that did not know who this man was, but understood what this room was for.
"CS-0042. Pure-blood class. Ian."
The Butcher was not reading. He had no terminal. He had memorized it.
"Head of operations, Atlas Revolutionary Front, Subterranean Sector Seven. Twelve planned terror operations including the supply-train raid. Forty-one dead. One hundred sixty-six wounded."
The numbers were recited. But the way they left the Butcher's mouth was different. They carried no weight. Forty-one or one hundred sixty-six—on this man's tongue they weighed the same. A man for whom numbers were only numbers.
"Of those, the number carried out by your own hands—"
The Butcher paused.
"Zero."
A minute motion in Ian's jaw. The swallowing reflex.
"You only planned. While others died, while others were maimed, while others lost their arms, you—"
The Butcher's gaze landed on Ian's shirt.
"Drank your tea."
Ian's eyes shifted. Not a tremor—a narrowing. A reaction to the fact that this man knew about his tea.
Calculating the depth of intelligence the informant had provided.
"Let me ask you, Ian."
The Butcher clasped his gloved hands behind his back.
"Pain is but a moment. Conviction is eternal."
Ian's sentence, spoken from the Butcher's mouth. Same letters. Same order. But an entirely different sound than when Ian said it. From Ian's mouth it was prayer. From the Butcher's, an autopsy report.
"Did you mean it?"
Ian looked at the Butcher. Three seconds.
Then opened his mouth.
"Whoever you are—"
Ian's voice emerged. Tea-temperature. Unchanged tone.
"Conviction outlasts pain. Yes. I meant it."
The Butcher's expression did not change.
But his head tilted. Slightly. Two degrees to the left. The motion of someone viewing an object from a new angle. As though appraising a piece in a display case.
"We'll have to verify that."
The Butcher turned. Walked toward the wall. His hand touched the surface; a panel opened. Inside: metal, glass, edged things, round things, thin things. Ian couldn't see all of them. The Butcher's back was in the way.
The Butcher didn't take anything from the panel.
Instead, he pressed a section of wall beside it. A small drawer slid open. Inside was a black panel. Palm-sized.
The Butcher removed the panel and attached it to the wall directly in front of Ian. The click of a magnet.
"Before we begin, there is something I'd like to show you."
A gloved finger pressed the screen.
The wall disappeared.
• •
A screen unfolded.
Ian knew this place.
Not the underground. Not Sector Seven. The upper tier. A public plaza. A location Ian had only seen on operational maps. Two blocks from the Purity Spire. A white ground under artificial suns, shadowless. People were standing on it.
Lower-tier citizens.
Lower-tier citizens standing on the upper tier. That alone was a wrong picture. Lower-tier citizens were people who lived below the surface. People not entitled to upper-tier light. Yet there they stood. Hundreds. Oil-stained coveralls. Bare feet. Grimy hands. Their footprints left dark marks on the white ground.
At the center of the plaza, a pillar had been erected. A speaker mounted on it. Beside the pillar stood a man in military uniform, and before him, a camera.
The uniformed man spoke. The speaker carried his voice across the plaza.
"The Atlas Empire is a merciful Empire."
The lower-tier citizens did not move. They stood with heads bowed.
"The Empire acknowledges the innocence of those among you who were forcibly conscripted by the agitator CS-0042—Ian."
Ian's fingers moved inside the restraints. Barely.
"Therefore: those who personally testify to Ian's crimes will have their residential status upgraded from E-3 to E-2, along with a two-year extension of their residency permit."
The plaza was silent. No wind. Under the shadowless glare of the artificial suns, hundreds of lower-tier citizens stood, and a soldier had spoken the word "mercy," and that word had traveled through the speaker into hundreds of ears.
Two years of residency.
Two years' worth of permission to keep breathing tomorrow.
Ian watched the screen. His eyes were clear. Still.
The soldier spoke again.
"Those wishing to testify, please step forward. State your name and residential registration number, then provide your statement regarding Ian's crimes."
0.5 seconds of silence.
One second.
Two.
Nobody moved. Hundreds standing with heads bowed. Two seconds passed, then three, and still no line formed. The muscle near Ian's mouth nearly—very nearly—lifted. It didn't. But the pre-motion was there. Something close to certainty—that the people he had tried to protect would not sell him—flickered near Ian's lips like a spark.
Five seconds.
One person stepped forward.
The spark near Ian's mouth went dark.
A man. Coveralls. Oil-soaked. Not coveralls Ian recognized. A face Ian didn't know. Possibly from another sector. Possibly someone who had never belonged to Ian's organization.
The man stood before the camera.
"Residential Registration D-4419."
The voice was fast. The pace of someone who wanted it over with.
"The man called Ian came to our sector and told us to fight the Empire. Said he'd cut our rations if we didn't."
Ian's eyes narrowed. Words his organization had never spoken were being broadcast from the screen. A fabricated testimony. There was a script. The man's eyes flicked once toward something below the camera frame—somewhere out of shot. The movement of eyes reading text.
Ian's jaw tightened, then released.
The first person withdrew. A second stepped forward. A third. A fourth. All unknown faces. All unrelated to Ian's organization. All reading from a script. All spitting on a name they'd never met, for two years of residency.
Ian watched.
Back straight. Posture unbroken. Eyes clear. Strangers reading fabricated testimony—for Ian, this was Imperial propaganda. Expected. Analyzable. A processable event occurring outside the territory of conviction.
The fifth person withdrew.
A sixth did not appear.
The line had broken. Behind the strangers, there were no familiar faces. The hundreds in the plaza remained with heads bowed. Motionless.
Tension left Ian's shoulders. Invisible relaxation. But the pressure of the restraints against his wrists eased by a fraction. Not because his fists had loosened—his fingers had unfurled slightly.
The Butcher stood at Ian's side. Watching the screen and Ian's face in alternation. If he had read the tension leaving Ian's shoulders, it did not show—except that his gloved hand drew a small device from his pocket. A single button. His thumb found it.
Pressed.
A new sound burst from the plaza's speaker.
BEEP.
A short electronic tone. Emitted simultaneously from the wrist-mounted residential terminals worn by every lower-tier citizen. All at once. Hundreds of terminals screaming in unison.
The citizens looked at their wrists.
The terminal screens had changed. Not green. Flashing yellow. Warning color. The color that appears thirty days before a residency permit expires.
The soldier spoke through the speaker.
"Your residency permits have been adjusted to thirty days remaining."
The plaza trembled. Not physically. Hundreds of bodies moving at once. Heads lifted. Eyes widened. Mouths opened. Held breath burst free.
"Failure to provide testimony within thirty days will result in automatic permit revocation."
Permit revocation. In this Empire, that was not a death sentence. It was worse. A death sentence kills. Permit revocation erases. Rations cut. Medical care cut. Corridors locked. A person, sealed inside their sector, slowly drying out.
Ian's back was still straight.
But below it, his hands had changed. Inside the restraints, the fingers that had relaxed a fraction were clenched again. Fists. Ian's nails were digging into his palms.
On the screen, a line began to form.
Not slowly. Fast. The number thirty pushed hundreds of backs forward. People walked toward the camera. Heads bowed. One. Two. Five. Ten. The line cut across the plaza.
Ian watched.
Unknown faces. Still. Scripted testimony. Still. Back straight. Still.
The eleventh person stood before the camera.
Ian knew this face.
Nadia.
The woman missing two fingers. The woman who had asked "Isn't that dangerous?" at the briefing. The woman Ian had answered with "Thank you for your concern."
Nadia's eyes were bloodshot. She couldn't look at the camera. Her head was down. Her lips were moving without sound. A soldier beside her whispered something. Her head came up. She looked at the camera.
"Residential Registration H-2203. Nadia."
Her voice was shaking.
"Ian… Ian used us."
Ian's fists tightened further inside the restraints. His nails broke through the skin of his palms.
"Because he was pure-blood… he stayed somewhere safe… and only sent us…"
Nadia's voice cracked. The sound of her swallowing was picked up by the microphone. Then the next sentence came. Faster than before. As though vomiting it out.
"He made us die."
Nadia withdrew. Head dropping. Her three remaining fingers clutching the hem of her jacket. Gripping hard enough to tear the fabric.
Ian's eyes were locked on the screen. Clear. But the nature of the clarity was changing. If the clarity before had been the surface of a lake, this clarity was the lakebed after the water has drained. Clarity without a surface. Clarity where the depth is visible.
The twelfth person stepped forward.
Ian knew them.
Thirteenth. Fourteenth. Fifteenth.
The ratio of known faces was climbing. Behind the strangers, the familiar had begun to queue. People from Sector Seven. People kept alive by the medicine Ian's train raid had secured. People Ian had stayed up through the night studying maps to save. People whose foreheads Ian had stroked while telling them conviction conquers pain.
They were standing in line.
To sell Ian.
When the eighteenth face appeared on-screen, something changed in Ian's back.
It was still straight. But the kind of straightness had changed. If the earlier straightness was choice, this was rigidity. Muscle locking up. Not straight because it was held, but straight because it could not move.
Inside Ian's mouth, something had shifted. The tongue that had been reciting the declaration was motionless. Stuck to the roof of his mouth. Frozen on the first syllable of "Pain is but a moment."
• •
The twenty-third person stood before the camera.
Cal.
Ian's breath stopped. His lungs froze. His diaphragm locked. One second. Then resumed. Inhale. Exhale. But the rhythm had changed. Shallower than before. Shorter.
The glass-shard wounds on Cal's face had healed over. The bandage on his arm had been changed to a fresh one. Cal's eyes were on the camera. Not bloodshot. Not wet. Dry. Completely dry.
"Residential Registration K-0087. Cal."
Cal's voice was flat. Not trembling like Nadia's. The same voice he'd used when describing how Rachel's intestines kept sliding out of his hands. The voice of a man listing facts that leave no room for feeling.
"Ian does not know pain."
Inside the restraints, blood was seeping from Ian's palms. His nails had punctured the skin. Hidden beneath the straps. Invisible. The blood hadn't yet reached the white armrest. It was pooling in the cup of his palm.
"He has never been wounded. Never bled. Never gone hungry."
With each of Cal's sentences, a change was occurring beneath Ian's shirt. His heart rate was climbing. From 72 to 80 beats per minute. To 85. The fabric over his chest began to tremble, faintly. The vibration of a heart striking the ribcage, transmitted through cloth.
"A man who has never felt pain told us to conquer it."
Cal was looking through the camera. As though he knew where the feed was being watched.
"A man who doesn't know what it feels like to have your stomach torn open told us to endure with conviction."
Cal's mouth closed. One second. Then opened again.
"Rachel died in pain. She didn't die for conviction. She died because it hurt."
The light was leaving Ian's eyes.
Gradually. Like a fluorescent tube powering down. Not dimming—changing species. What had been clear was becoming transparent. Transparent meant light was no longer being reflected. Light was passing through his eyes and exiting out the back of his skull. Inside Ian's eyes, there was no one home.
Cal withdrew.
Disappeared from the screen.
Twenty-fourth. Twenty-fifth. Twenty-sixth.
Ian's lips were beginning to crack. Moisture was leaving his body. His mouth was drying out. No saliva. His tongue was cemented to the roof of his mouth. The declaration had frozen on its first syllable.
By the thirtieth person, heat was leaving Ian's body.
From the fingertips. From the toes. The skin of his wrists against the restraints was growing cold. Not the cold of the metal. Ian's skin was matching the metal's temperature. His body was withdrawing its own warmth. The unconscious regenerative ability—a defense mechanism Ian himself didn't know he possessed—had sensed the collapse of his psyche, and was retreating.
The screen continued.
The line did not end.
The Butcher stood beside Ian. Watching Ian's face. Not the screen. The content of the broadcast did not matter to this man. What mattered was how the eyes watching it were changing.
The thirty-fifth person withdrew. The thirty-sixth appeared.
Ian knew them. One of the seven who had sat at the briefing table. The man with the burn scar on his temple.
"Ian tried to prove his ideology with our lives."
Ian's shirt had stopped transmitting the heartbeat's tremor. Not because the heart had stopped—it was still beating. But the beats had weakened. From 85 down to 60. To 50. The heart was slowing. The body was shutting down.
Ian's back—
collapsed.
From the first scene of Episode 1 to this moment, that back had never broken. On the wooden crates. Before the radio. Facing rifle muzzles. With handcuffs clicking shut. Always straight. Now the strength left Ian's lower back. His spine curved. It met the backrest. For the first time.
The sound of his back hitting the chair. A soft thud. Small. But inside this white room, it was the first sound of surrender Ian's body had ever made.
The Butcher's head tilted. Two degrees. Same angle as before.
The screen went dark.
The Butcher pressed the wall panel. The plaza vanished. The line vanished. The people vanished.
White wall returned.
Ian was leaning back. Spine against the backrest. Head tipped forward. Looking at his own knees. At the fabric of his shirt across his lap. White. Clean. His gaze rested on that white cloth.
The Butcher stood before him.
"Ian."
Ian did not look up.
"Your noble conviction. The eternal thing you said you'd die to protect."
The Butcher's gloved hand lowered. It did not take Ian's chin. Not yet. Instead, the Butcher crouched before Ian's knees. Brought his eyes level with Ian's.
"It turns out two years of residency was enough to make it disappear."
Ian's eyes met the Butcher's. He had no choice. The eyes were level. The Butcher's eyes were right there.
There was nothing in Ian's eyes.
No clarity. No haze. No anger. No grief. Light was entering but nothing was being reflected. When glass breaks, the shards still catch the light. But when glass is ground to powder, it reflects nothing. Ian's eyes looked like powdered glass.
The Butcher stood.
Walked to the wall. Opened the panel.
This time, he took something out.
Metal sounds.
Scene 3 [The First Scream]
A saw.
Not long. Thirty centimeters including the handle. Medical grade. Fine teeth—not coarse. Uniform and tight. Not designed to cut through bone but to open flesh. An instrument positioned somewhere between incision and destruction.
The Butcher set the saw on the table. The table was to Ian's right. Within arm's reach. But Ian's arms were locked in the restraints, so the distance was meaningless.
Other objects were placed beside the saw. One at a time. The Butcher's gloved hands retrieved them from the panel and arranged them on the table. Three hemostatic clamps. A suture needle and thread. Rubbing alcohol. Gauze. And a small glass vial filled with clear liquid.
There was a method to the arrangement. Left to right. In order of use. This man's logic extended even to how he organized instruments. No chaos. Saw first. Clamps next. Needle after. The procedure was already finished inside this man's head; the table was simply the external expression of it.
Ian was not looking at the table.
He was looking straight ahead. At the white wall where the screen had been. At the wall where the plaza had vanished. At the wall where Cal's face had existed and then hadn't.
His back was against the chair. Collapsed. The back that would not have touched the backrest if he'd been placed in this chair during Episode 1's opening scene was now curved to match the chair's contour. The chair was supporting Ian. Ian was not using the chair—the chair was using him.
The Butcher finished the arrangement and stood before Ian.
"Now then."
He tugged each glove snug against his wrists. Right hand. Left hand. Precise.
"Let's begin the verification."
Ian did not react. He was looking straight ahead. The Butcher was standing in his line of sight, which meant he was technically looking at the Butcher—but Ian's focus wasn't reaching him. His gaze had passed through the Butcher to the wall and had not returned.
The Butcher's hands touched Ian's shirt.
First button. Below the neck. Gloved fingers pinched the button and drew it through the hole. Second. Third. Fourth. With each button freed, the shirt fell open. Chest exposed. Stomach exposed.
Ian's skin was white.
The same white as the shirt. The same white as the walls of this room. No scars. No blemishes. No trace of injury. Skin that had never been torn. Skin that had never been sutured. Skin that had never been burned by something hot or cut by something sharp.
The Butcher's eyes stopped on that skin.
"Beautiful."
Ian's gaze did not move.
"Forty years without a mark. In Subterranean Sector Seven. During a war. Remarkable."
The Butcher returned to the table. Picked up the saw. Held it up as though checking the weight. Light bounced off the teeth and fell onto Ian's chest. A small point of light trembled on Ian's ribs.
The Butcher stepped to Ian's left side. The hand holding the saw descended.
The teeth made contact with Ian's chest. Left side. Ten centimeters below the collarbone. Between two ribs. The cold of the metal transferred to skin. Goosebumps rose on Ian's flesh. Reflex. Cold metal touching bare skin triggers goosebumps. Not consciousness—the skin's own memory.
Only then did Ian turn his head.
Slowly. From straight ahead to the left. He looked at the saw resting on his chest.
Then looked up at the Butcher.
Something had returned to Ian's eyes. Not the thing that had vanished while watching the broadcast. Not light. Something older than light. Comprehension. The understanding of what was about to happen. The thing this man had spent his entire life handling through books and maps and declarations—the word pain—had shed its letters and now lay on his flesh in the shape of metal.
Ian's mouth opened.
"—Wait."
His voice had changed. For the first time. Not tea-temperature. Not briefing-tone. Not the softness he'd used on Minho. The end of his voice was rising. By a fraction. 0.3 octaves. A voice that had only ever descended was now climbing.
"I have information. Interior blueprints of the Purity Spire. Imperial guard rotation schedules. The lower-sector communications network—"
"Thank you, but."
The Butcher cut Ian off. The way he cut was different from Cal's or the commander's. Gentle. Polite. Closed like a door.
"I'm not an interrogator."
The saw began to move.
Slow. The Butcher's hand pushed it forward. Three centimeters. The teeth bit skin. The skin did not tear—it parted. Each tooth scraped across the surface in sequence. The first tooth opened a wound; the second widened it; the third deepened it.
Blood came.
Red. Vivid. A red line drawn across Ian's white skin. Like a red pen across white paper. With the same precision Ian's own hand had used to write lines on his declaration, the Butcher's saw was inscribing a line on Ian's chest.
Ian's body reacted.
Not by will. Spinal reflex. His body tried to distance itself from the saw. His back pressed deeper into the chair. Shoulders rose. Neck muscles contracted. For the first time in his life, Ian's body was trying to flee from pain.
But the restraints held. Wrists. Ankles. No range of movement. Ian's body had nowhere to flee, and the body that could not flee began to tremble in the chair.
The trembling was small. Still. A vibration that started in the fingertips and climbed through the arms to the shoulders. Not enough to clatter his teeth. But Ian's jaw was clenched. Teeth locked together. Locking teeth was to block sound.
The saw advanced another three centimeters.
It reached the subcutaneous fat. Fat was softer than skin and more sensitive. More nerve endings. The sensation of teeth grinding through fat was qualitatively different from grinding through skin. The pain shifted from sharp to hot. From being torn to being burned. The color of pain changed.
Sound left Ian's mouth.
Not a word. A breath. Air hissing between teeth. The same involuntary inhale as when a hand touches a hot surface. Ian's jaw had been locked, but the lock had been forced open by the pain.
"Ah."
Short. One syllable. The first involuntary sound to ever leave Ian's mouth. Until now, everything that had emerged from Ian's mouth had been language. Structured sentences. Calculated words. Never once had a sound without meaning escaped him.
It just had.
The Butcher's saw paused. Not stopped—suspended. A 0.5-second hold, as though logging Ian's syllable. Then it resumed.
It reached the fascia.
The intercostal muscle between the ribs. The muscle that contracts and relaxes with each breath. The teeth bit into the fibers. Fibers snapping did not feel like tearing, or burning. It felt like being ripped. The resistance of cloth being pulled apart in two directions, happening between Ian's ribs.
Sound climbed from Ian's throat.
"nngh—"
Longer. The single syllable stretching into a sustained sound. Ian's teeth clamped down. Bit the sound. Tried to swallow it. His throat moved. Swallowing once. Twice. Three times. But the sound was rising faster than he could swallow.
"nngh——hh—"
Ian's head snapped backward. Over the headrest. The white ceiling light poured down onto his face. Under that light, Ian's face was contorting. For the first time. Ian's face had always carried composed expressions. The smile. The listening posture. The look of certainty. All constructed. What was happening to his face now was not constructed. Muscles were contracting on their own. The skin around his eyes scrunched. The corners of his mouth pulled down. Furrows dug beside his nose. His face was crumpling toward its own center.
The saw reached the rib.
The vibration of metal meeting bone would have traveled up through the handle into the Butcher's hand. Simultaneously, the vibration traveled through Ian's rib to the spine, up the spine to the skull. Bone resonating. Not from outside—from within. Hearing his own bone being scraped, inside his own skull.
Ian's mouth opened.
Wide.
His jaw dropped. His neck muscles went taut. His vocal cords began to vibrate. The 0.3 seconds it took for the vibration to travel through the mouth and exit the body—in those 0.3 seconds, Ian's eyes closed and opened once. The last gate opening.
"AAAAAAAH——!!"
The first sound to fill this white room. The walls could not absorb it. The seamless curved surfaces bounced it back, and the reflected sound hit another wall and returned. Ian's scream came back to Ian. The sound from his own throat, received by his own ears.
Ian had not known he could make a sound like this.
The most primitive sound a human throat can produce. No words. No sentences. No meaning. Pain passing through the vocal cords had been unable to maintain the shape of language. The tongue that had written declarations, the tongue that had savored the aroma of black tea, the tongue that had pronounced "Pain is but a moment" was now thrashing on its own to shape a scream.
The Butcher did not withdraw the saw.
He held it in place—neither withdrawing nor advancing. Saw still touching bone. While Ian's scream filled the room, the Butcher watched Ian's face. Observing. How the mouth opened. How far the eyes shut. How high the veins in the neck rose.
The scream broke off.
Out of breath. Every molecule of air in his lungs had been converted to scream. Ian's body inhaled. Reflex. Violent. The ribs expanded to suck in air, and the expansion moved the tissue touching the saw, and the movement created new pain.
Breathing was agony. Not breathing was death. Trapped inside a cycle where survival required suffering.
The inhale completed. The scream erupted again.
"AA——!! AH——!!!"
Shorter this time. Fragmenting. The vocal cords could not sustain the pitch. The throat—a throat that had never screamed—was tearing under its first scream. Unprepared.
The Butcher's saw moved again. Forward. Three centimeters. Teeth carving a groove into the rib's surface.
Ian's body writhed in the chair. Restraints bit his wrists. The skin peeling beneath them went unfelt—the chest's pain obliterated the wrists' pain. Ankles twisted inside their cuffs. Toes curled. Ian's entire body was thrashing to escape the single point where the saw met flesh. Not will. Body. Ian's mind had already gone offline. The part that issued commands had shut down. What remained was the spinal cord, the muscles, the nerves—the primitive flight response, nothing more.
"How does it feel?"
The Butcher's voice threaded between screams.
"Is it a moment?"
Ian could not answer. The region of the brain responsible for producing answers had been overrun by pain. The only thing leaving his mouth was screaming, and screaming was not an answer.
• •
The Butcher withdrew the saw.
Slowly. Teeth dragging through the interface of flesh and bone created new friction—friction in the opposite direction. Ian's body shuddered once more. When the saw was fully out, blood flowed from the wound. A deep wound, reaching the rib. Not arterial—venous blood, slow but steady.
Ian's screams had degraded into moaning. His vocal cords lacked the strength to sustain the pitch. The sound from his throat was dropping, roughening, fracturing.
"nnngh… nngh…"
Water ran from Ian's eyes. This could not be called tears. It was the reflexive secretion of pain. Not grief. Not emotion. A neurological response: the optic nerve receiving pain signals and stimulating the lacrimal gland. Happening without Ian's consent.
The Butcher picked up a hemostatic clamp. Found the vessel bleeding most aggressively at the wound's deepest point and clamped it. The bleeding slowed.
Ian's breathing was ragged. Fast and shallow. His chest rose and fell in rapid succession, and each rise widened the wound, and each widening released another broken moan.
"Fascinating."
The Butcher peered into the wound. Gloved fingers pried the edges apart. Ian's body flinched reflexively.
"No regeneration."
The Butcher murmured. Whether to Ian or to himself was unclear.
"The upper-tier report flagged 'possible regenerative capability,' but it seems that under psychological suppression, the unconscious defense mechanism shuts down entirely."
Ian was not hearing. Or hearing and not understanding. His consciousness had traveled to a place where language could not reach.
Blood flowed from the wound.
No regeneration. No cells pushing through. No flesh filling in. The wound gaped and bled like any normal person's. Ian's body was refusing to repair itself. When the mind had shut down, the body followed.
The Butcher picked up the glass vial from the table. Unscrewed the cap. Soaked a gauze pad with the liquid. Rubbing alcohol. Pressed the gauze to the wound.
Ian's back left the chair.
Arched like a bow. The restraints went taut. Alcohol had met abraded flesh. A pain sharper than the saw detonated across the entire wound surface. The saw had been a point of pain traveling along a line; the alcohol was a pain attacking every exposed surface simultaneously.
The scream that came was different.
Higher. Beyond what the vocal cords could sustain. Thin, sharp, splitting. A sound straddling the line between a human throat and an animal's.
"AAAAAAAAAH———!!!!"
The white room rang. The walls vibrated. Ian's scream struck the walls and returned, driving itself into his own ears. He heard his own scream.
The mouth making this scream was the mouth that had said "Pain is but a moment."
The throat making this scream was the throat that had savored black tea.
The body making this scream was a body that had never once experienced pain.
Pain was not a momentary electrical signal.
Pain was the sound of flesh being ground. The vibration of bone being scraped. The heat of alcohol burning an open wound. The repetition of a wound reopening with every breath. The cycle in which the very act of screaming moved the ribs, and the ribs' movement fed the pain, and the pain fed the next scream.
Ian was learning for the first time.
He had not wanted to learn. But he was learning. What he had read in text, spoken from his mouth, and taught to others—he was now studying on his own flesh.
• •
The scream weakened.
The vocal cords had given out. His throat was shredding. The scream degraded into something resembling a cry. Not a cry—a cry comes from emotion, and what left Ian's mouth now was the noise of pain venting through the only available exit. Broken, cracked, wet sounds.
Ian's head fell forward.
Chin to chest. He saw his own chest. The wound. The blood. His own blood. The inside of a wound carved down to the rib. White skin, soaked red. A shirt soaked in blood. The white shirt. The shirt that had gleamed without a wrinkle in Episode 1's opening scene.
A word left Ian's mouth. Not a scream. Not a moan. A word.
"…St—"
The Butcher peeled the gauze away. Not because of Ian's word. The disinfection was complete, so the gauze came off. Ian's words and the Butcher's actions were unrelated. Whatever Ian said, the Butcher's hands followed their own sequence.
"Stop… plea—"
Ian's voice emerged. Cracked. Wet. Risen.
This voice was not tea-temperature.
This voice was not the softness that had spoken to Minho.
This voice was not the clarity that had recited the declaration.
This voice was the sound of a man who had never known pain, encountering it for the first time—first, and therefore indefensible—indefensible, and therefore shattering.
The Butcher looked at Ian.
Blood on his gloved hands. Ian's blood. No emotion in the Butcher's eyes. There hadn't been any at the start, and there wasn't any now.
"One thing has been confirmed."
The Butcher said, setting his instruments on the table.
"Pain is not a moment."
Ian's head hung. Chin on chest. Eyes open, but seeing nothing. His gaze had landed on the blood pooling on his knees and stopped there. Ian's shirt was soaked red. The white was vanishing.
Blood flowed from the wound.
Regeneration did not come.