The first thing Proxy noticed when he woke up was the absence.
Not the cell. The cell arrived a beat later.
What came first to him was the lack of cyberware.
His neural interface went outward on reflex, the habit it had built every morning since the island began, and this time it found nothing to extend into.
He had nothing.
The environment had shut it off, and he met an absence so complete it almost felt physical.
He took a breath and set it aside.
The cell was small.
Two bunks against the left wall, a desk bolted under the barred window, a stool in the corner, a toilet in the open beside the sink.
The barred window sat high enough to show only a strip of grey morning.
The barred door faced a corridor where the fluorescent strip was already on, throwing flat light over everything it reached.
He was wearing orange.
The uniform fit across his shoulders adequately, and with no special interest in the person inside it.
He looked down at himself.
"Mm," Nyx said.
