The morphine haze clung to Caleb's brain like wet wool. He dragged air through his dry lips, blinking against the glaring lights. His body felt disconnected, floating somewhere above the mattress. He yawned, a rattling sound deep in his chest, and pushed both arms upward to stretch.
His right arm fought the movement. A block of dead weight encased in a rigid cast dragged his shoulder down.
A chair scraped violently against the linoleum.
"Hey, hey, hey, easy man!"
A glossy pamphlet smacked onto the floor. Hiro hovered over the bed, his hands waving nervously in the air. "The nurse told me how bad your situation is. Don't break yourself."
Caleb lowered his good arm. He stared at Hiro through a thick chemical fog. The kid wore his oversized track jacket, looking completely out of place in the medical ward. Caleb's tongue felt swollen. He forced his jaw to work.
"The... ice," Caleb mumbled, the syllables slurring together into absolute gibberish. "You shot... the freeze bullets. In the dirt."
Hiro relaxed his shoulders, letting out a short laugh. He picked up his pamphlet from the tiles. "Oh, so you watched my fight while you were recovering, I'm guessing."
Caleb blinked slow, heavy blinks. The sludge in his head began to recede, leaving behind the throbbing reality of his shattered ribs. He swallowed hard, summoning enough moisture to clear his throat.
"I also stopped by to wish you a speedy recovery," Hiro said, his voice dropping to a sympathetic tone. He gripped the edge of the metal bed frame. "I really hope you try again next year. You took a crazy hit."
Caleb stared at the ceiling panels. Next year. He owed too much money to survive until next year.
"But," Hiro continued, pointing toward the metal tray table next to the bio-monitor. "It seems you also have a gift."
Caleb rolled his head against the pillow.
Sitting dead center on the tray table was a small box. It was wrapped in red paper and sealed tight with thick black tape.
Caleb stared at the dark adhesive. The sheer weight of his situation mounted, pressing down on his chest. The staggering family debt. The paralyzed arm. The encrypted viewer who now owned his survival. As the stress spiked, the lingering morphine sludge receded. A strange lightness emptied his skull.
Then, his stomach violently contracted.
Acid surged up his throat. He doubled over, grabbing his midsection with his good hand. A tearing agony ripped through his gut. It felt like his organs were digesting themselves. His scrubber logic kicked in, assuming this was the brutal physical toll of the 97% sync rate crashing down—his un-augmented body screaming for the thousands of calories he had burned in the arena.
A hoarse yell tore out of his throat.
Hiro's pamphlet smacked the floor. The kid hovered over the bed, his hands waving in a frantic panic. "Hey! What's wrong? What's wrong?!"
Caleb clenched his teeth, fighting another brutal spasm. He dug his fingers into the white sheets. "I need food!" he gasped. "I feel like my stomach is going to rip itself apart. I haven't eaten since last night."
Hiro backed toward the door, forcing his panic to shift into action. "Okay. Okay, just... hold on. I'll hit the cafeteria."
He bolted into the hallway.
Caleb endured the grinding hunger. He curled onto his side, waiting in agonizing suspense. Hiro returned minutes later, balancing a plastic tray loaded with hospital rations—three foil-wrapped protein bricks and a bowl of synthetic broth.
Caleb grabbed a brick. He tore the foil with his teeth. He shoved the dry protein into his mouth, swallowing the dense mass almost whole. He drained the broth in three massive gulps. He didn't care about the taste; he only cared about the calories. The hollow ache dulled. The violent tearing in his gut finally subsided into a manageable throb.
He fell back against the pillows, pulling oxygen through his nose.
Hiro stood by the tray table, staring at him. "Remind me never to get between you and a buffet."
Caleb wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His gaze drifted to the small box resting beside his empty tray. The reward for breaking Kikaru's pride.
He reached out and hooked his thumb under the tape. It ripped back with a harsh screech. The cardboard flap popped open. Inside, resting on dense foam, lay a silver auto-injector. Green fluid glowed within the glass vial.
Hiro leaned closer. His posture stiffened. "Is that... a Tier 2 Combat Stimulant? A genuine Apex-brand injector?" He hovered his hand over the box, afraid to touch the glass. "These are heavily restricted. First Division captains use them to bypass extreme muscle fatigue. A single dose sells for fifty thousand credits on the underground exchange."
Caleb stared at the glowing fluid. Fifty thousand credits. He shifted his gaze to the rigid brace locking his right arm to his side.
"Can it fix nerve damage?" Caleb asked. His voice sounded raw. "Will it make my arm work again?"
Hiro lowered his hand, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, no. It doesn't do that. It just forces healthy muscles to ignore limits. If the motor pathways are burned out, injecting that will just send your body into cardiac arrest."
Caleb closed the cardboard flap.
Caleb exhaled a harsh breath. "Guess I got my hopes up."
He tossed the box onto the tray table with his left hand. It hit the metal with a sharp, heavy clatter.
He froze.
Fifty thousand credits.
If that glass cracked, his only ticket out of the disposal yards was gone. He threw the sterile sheets off, stepped onto the cold linoleum, and walked to the tray table. He scooped the box up, turning it over to inspect the vial through the cardboard window. The green fluid sloshed safely inside.
"At the very least, I can fence this to pay down the family debt," Caleb said, keeping his focus on the merchandise. "You mentioned it goes for fifty grand on the underground exchange."
Hiro stared at him. The kid's mouth hung open.
Caleb lowered the box. "What? Is there something wrong with my face?"
Hiro blinked, pointing a trembling finger at Caleb's torso. "Nothing more than usual, sir, but... uh... how are you walking around so nonchalant? Aren't you heavily damaged from the sync spike?"
Caleb stopped.
He looked down at his bare feet, then at the rigid brace trapping his right arm. He thought about the Siege-breaker tendril punching through his sternum just two weeks ago.
His chest was completely silent. There was no grinding bone. There was no burning ache. He had just swung out of a hospital bed, walked across the room, and felt absolutely nothing.
Caleb pressed his left hand against his stomach. The tearing hunger had finally faded to a manageable ache, thanks to the dry protein bricks.
He thought back to his conversation with Elara two weeks ago. He had woken up in a similar pristine room after a Class-4 impaled him, but instead of pain, he had felt absolutely nothing.
The military doctors had found nothing out of the ordinary, yet his shattered sternum had knitted itself back together in hours.
Now, Kikaru had caved his ribs in, and his chest was completely silent again. He realized the agonizing hunger he just experienced wasn't just exhaustion. The parasite had cannibalized his calories to rapidly repair the bone.
He looked up at Hiro. "I think I might have some type of Kaiju parasite or something inside of me."
Hiro wiped his palms on his oversized track jacket and let out a strained, sheepish laugh. "Okay. That's a funny joke."
The kid shook his head. "I should strike you down if that's the case. A Kaiju inside a person sounds terrifying."
"Two weeks ago," Caleb explained, his voice flat. "A Class-4 impaled me on a disposal run. A barbed tendril went straight into my chest."
He tapped his bare, unbruised ribs.
"The doctors stated I have nothing inside of me out of the ordinary. But I fully recovered. It has to be tied to it, right?"
Before Hiro could answer, the medical door hissed open.
The nurse marched in, pushing her fogged safety glasses up the bridge of her nose.
"Sorry, young man," she said, looking directly at Hiro. "Visitation is over. I need to prep this man for outtake and get him cleared to another—"
She stopped mid-sentence.
Her foggy eyes shifted to Caleb. He was standing near the tray table, wearing nothing but standard-issue hospital briefs and a rigid arm brace, casually holding a sealed box.
"Uhhhh," the nurse stammered. "What are you doing out of bed?"
A harsh siren blared from the ceiling speakers.
"The second stage testing will begin in one hour," a mechanical voice announced over the PA system. "Two hundred and one applicants are expected to report."
The nurse stepped forward and placed a hand on Hiro's shoulder. "I will handle it from here."
Hiro looked at Caleb. "So, will I see you again?"
Caleb shrugged his good shoulder. "Who knows. Just go with the wind and I'll catch up if life dictates that I should."
Hiro smiled. He walked toward the exit, pausing just before the threshold. "Thanks for that hit on Kikaru. I don't think she's a bad person, probably has her own trauma and stuff, you know. But what she did was still not nice and I didn't have the courage to say much."
The medical door began to slide shut.
"Out of all the people I've seen so far, I think you hold a lot of potential," Caleb said. "Even my friend Elara would agree, I'm sure."
Caleb saw a brief glimpse of a surprised face just as the metal door clicked shut.
He turned to the nurse.
"So what do we do now?" Caleb asked. "I'm feeling really good."
He displayed this by twisting his torso, using his healed core to casually swing the heavy cast of his paralyzed arm forward. His ribs absorbed the momentum without a single ache.
The nurse stood in absolute silence. She took off her safety glasses and reached behind her head. She pulled the hair tie loose, letting her auburn hair flow freely over her collar.
Caleb got a look into her eyes again. They looked completely foggy. The glazed, empty stare unsettled him. He thought she might be experiencing some kind of medical episode.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I have been watching you for some time, Caleb," she said. Her clinical tone had vanished, replaced by a voice that sounded far too smooth. "A bit longer than when you almost died, to be honest."
Caleb tightened his grip on the sealed box. He took a slow step backward.
His good hip bumped the rolling metal tray table that held his empty food wrappers. He shifted around the cart, keeping the aluminum surface between himself and the woman.
She stayed exactly where she was. She reached a hand into the heavy auburn hair she had just untied. Her fingers dug behind her ear, peeling a matte-black comms-chip away from her scalp.
She tossed it onto the tray table. It hit the metal with a sharp clatter.
"A secure line," the smooth voice said through the nurse's lips. "Keep it behind your ear. The military scanners will read it as a standard medical augment."
Caleb stared at the device. He had a fifty-thousand-credit stim in his left hand, a paralyzed right arm strapped to his ribs, and a hacker puppeteering a human being right in front of him. The math made zero sense.
"Why?" Caleb asked, his voice rough. "You drop an Executive capsule on a garbage feed. You buy my stream. Now you're hacking military staff just to hand me a radio."
He shook his head. "What's the payoff? Guys who scrub disposal filters for thirty credits a cycle don't attract billionaires."
The nurse tilted her head. The movement was entirely too sharp.
"You think too small, Caleb."
She stepped forward, shoving the tray table aside. The wheels shrieked against the linoleum. Caleb tensed, but before he could raise his good hand, she reached out.
Her cold fingers clamped onto his jaw, gripping his face tight.
"I have no interest in the battered scrubber standing in this room," she whispered. Her thumb stroked his cheekbone. "I am investing in the monster you are going to become. The military throws you away because they only measure what you are today."
She leaned in closer.
"But I know exactly what it costs to hide a predator under a human mask. I am the only one meant to stand beside you at the very end."
The rigid tension holding her spine straight collapsed instantly.
Her eyes rolled back. The unnatural strength vanished from her grip. Her body went completely limp, pitching forward like a cut puppet.
Caleb only had one working arm. He tried to brace himself, but her dead weight slammed heavily into his chest.
His bare feet slipped on the polished linoleum. They crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs, Caleb taking the brunt of the impact against his back. The air punched out of his lungs.
The nurse gasped.
She inhaled sharply, pushing herself up on her hands. She blinked hard. The thick glaze in her eyes dissolved, replaced by stark confusion.
She looked down. She was straddling a patient wearing nothing but standard-issue hospital briefs and a rigid arm brace. The soft, heavy weight of her large breasts pressed firmly against Caleb's bare skin and the hard plastic shell of his cast.
Caleb couldn't push her away. His paralyzed right arm was dead weight strapped to his ribs, and his left hand was gripping the cardboard box tight to keep the fifty-thousand-credit vial from smashing against the tiles.
The nurse's face flushed a brilliant, furious red. Her clinical composure shattered into a bubbling, frantic mess. She scrambled backward off his hips, her hands slipping on the polished linoleum.
"W-what are you doing?" she stammered, frantically pulling her untied auburn hair out of her face. She snatched her fallen clipboard off the floor and hugged it against her chest like a shield. "Did you pull me down? Listen, if you're trying to make a move on a member of the medical staff, you should buy a lady dinner first!"
Caleb let out a slow, painful exhale. He rested his head back against the cold floor.
"You passed out," Caleb said, his voice flat. "And then you fell on me."
The nurse scrambled to her feet, clutching her clipboard tight against her chest. Her face flushed a brilliant red. She snatched her fogged safety glasses from the floor and shoved them onto her face.
She cleared her throat, forcing her clinical composure back into place like a shield.
"Get back in bed, Applicant," she ordered, tapping her pen against the plastic board. "The transport team is arriving in ten minutes."
"Transport?" Caleb asked, pushing himself up.
"You are being transferred to the Central District trauma ward," she said. "You have severe neural feedback in your right arm and multiple fractured ribs. You are looking at six months of intensive rehabilitation."
The Phase Two siren blared through the ceiling speakers. (5) minutes; final call.
Caleb grabbed the plastic buckles on his medical brace. He ripped the velcro straps loose, peeling the heavy shell away from his ribs. The cast hit the linoleum with a loud clack.
His entire right arm was a horrific shade of purple. Thick scarring traced the edges of his bicep where the flesh had burned.
The nurse gasped. "Get back in bed before you hurt yourself more!"
Caleb pulled in a sharp breath. He bolted past her. He hadn't pulled brass stunts like this since he was a youngling dodging lower-sector sweeps.
He snatched his stained disposal jacket from the chair, shoving his bruised arm through the canvas sleeve. He scooped the steel capsule holding the combat stims off the tray table and jammed it deep into his pocket. Pushing through the medical door, he pressed the black comms-chip hard behind his right ear.
Dead silence. Nothing came through the receiver.
Fingers clamped tightly onto his bruised bicep. The nurse dug her shoes into the floor, dragging her weight against him to halt his momentum.
"I am serious!" she yelled, her voice echoing down the empty hall. "I will have you detained, sir!"
Caleb casually flicked his arm away to shake off her grip.
The nurse launched backward. Her shoes shrieked against the polished floor. She skidded ten feet and slammed hard into the drywall. A noticeable dent cracked the plaster.
Caleb froze. He stared at his empty hand.
He winced, his eyes going wide. "Sorry!"
Boots pounded around the corner. A Defense Force soldier in full tactical gear and an interior security guard skidded to a halt. They stared at the dented wall, then down at the dazed nurse clutching her shoulder.
She pointed a shaking finger straight at Caleb.
"He's going to get himself killed!" she yelled. "Please stop him!"
Caleb turned and sprinted down the green arrow path.