2025
Dr. Varga did not move toward him straight away. She remained frozen in the kitchen doorway, her hand still hovering fractions of an inch from the brass lever. Fresh rainwater dripped rhythmically from the hem of her dark trench coat, pools of water forming on the floor. Her eyes kept darting in an erratic triangle: from his pale face, to the notebook clutched to his chest, to the slick patch of dark blood pooling beneath his elbow.
Behind her out in the corridor, a heavy set of boots shifted, followed by a low swear. “Dr. Varga? Are we clear to move?”
The voice from the corridor snapped Arden back to the present.
“Just give me another minute, lads,” she said, her voice tight, not breaking eye contact with Arden.
Two distinct shadows materialized behind her in the narrow hallway. The first to step into the light was Razen. Arden recognized him instantly from the initial review team—he had been the bureaucrat doing ninety percent of the talking before the dynamic went completely sideways. He was tall, lean and wore a heavy wool coat with the silver Admittance Authority insignia embroidered into the high collar.
The second man was Jack. Or at least, Arden thought his name was Jack. Jack looked significantly worse for wear. The seams of his tactical jacket were entirely shredded at the left shoulder. His arm hung at a useless, unnatural angle against his ribs, with a line of wet blood stretching from wrist to his elbow. He walked with a favoring limp now, too. Arden couldn't pinpoint exactly when that injury had occurred; the chaotic final minutes before he hit the deck had blurred into an incoherent symphony of shattering glass and ringing ears. Jack’s eyes locked onto Arden’s right hand. More specifically, onto the battered notebook still white-knuckled inside it. “You’ve got to be absolute joking,” He spat.
Arden matched his stare, unblinking. “Sorry about the arm.”
Jack’s jaw muscles clenched hard. “You didn’t seem particularly apologetic when you shoved me into a storage cupboard.”
“I didn’t shove you anywhere. I held my ground. You were the one who kept throwing your weight around.”
“That is enough,” Dr. Varga commanded, her tone slicing through the argument. Razen took a calculated half-step closer to the kitchen threshold but kept his boots firmly on the hallway carpet. A smart man. He knew the parameters of a cornered animal.
“Doctor” Razen murmured, his voice dropping to a whisper. “The automatic perimeter breach has already logged. If we delay protocol any further, this escalates into a formal incident.”
“It already is an formal incident,” Jack muttered under his breath, wincing as he shifted his weight.
Dr. Varga entirely ignored them both. Her focus remained anchored on Arden. “Look at me,” she said softly. Arden definitely didn’t. He looked at the edge of the notebook instead. Dr. Varga lowered her voice further, “Arden, I can authorize you to hold the notebook until we are safely inside the transport vehicle. Until we reach the facility.”
Razen let out a sharp, disapproving breath from the hallway. “Doctor—”
“I said I can let him hold it,” she snapped back, “But the absolute second we arrive you will have to let it go.”
Arden drew a jagged breath through his teeth. The movement caused a sharp spike of white-hot pain to ripple across his ribs. The agony had settled deep into his left side like a physical parasite with claws. “Fine by me,” he said flatly. Dr. Varga blinked, momentarily thrown off by his compliance.
“As long as I get to keep my hand on it until then.” Arden continued "It's all good."
Jack let out a dark, humorless chuckle. “Yeah. That doesn't sound suspicious at all.”
Arden turned his head a fraction of an inch, his voice dripping with dry venom. “Are you always this chatty after getting your arse handed to you by a diary?”
Jack tensed, taking a sharp half-step into the kitchen. Razen swiftly shot an arm out, blocking his chest. “Jack. Stand down.”
So the name was Jack. Arden thought. Good to have confirmation
Dr. Varga carefully dropped into a low crouch, keeping herself exactly outside of an arm’s reach. “You are bleeding, Arden. You need immediate medical attention.”
“What I need, Dr. Varga - I need people to stop kicking my front door off its hinges.”
“We knocked. Repeatedly.” said Razen.
“You filled my bleeding kitchen with smoke,” Arden countered.
Razen’s mouth flattened into a thin, bureaucratic line. “We deployed a standardized low-toxicity visibility suppressant after you actively barricaded the structural rear exit.”
“I thought it was an incendiary device. A smoke bomb.”
“It is categorized as an visibility suppressant, not a smoke bomb.” Razen said, making a circular gesture with one hand as he tried to explain.
“It smoked.”
Jack glanced sideways at his colleague. “To be fair, he has a point there. " Razen let out a long, weary sigh through his nose. Dr. Varga closed her eyes for one long second, pinching the bridge of her nose.
When she opened her eyes, her professional composure had returned, but Arden could see the immense effort behind it now. That helped. He took a grim satisfaction in knowing that the calm cost her something.
“Razen,” she ordered, her tone shifting to a directive. “Containment sphere. Gentle lift. Ensure there is absolutely no pressure applied to his right side.”
Razen stepped over the threshold into the kitchen. Instantly, Arden’s white-knuckled grip tightened on the notebook. Dr. Varga caught the defensive twitch immediately. “He is not going to take it from you, Arden.”
Razen halted, maintaining a non-threatening distance. “I’m not taking it,” Razen said, his voice almost robotic. “Try to relax. If you tense up, my ability won't work properly.”
Arden watched him anyway, tracking every micro-movement. Razen raised both hands, palms open and fingers slightly splayed. Fractured silver lines materialized around his fingertips—not glowing in the traditional sense, but mimicking the way a clean blade catches light where no reflection should exist. Suddenly, the atmospheric pressure around Arden’s shoulders tightened. The first translucent layer of the sphere materialized around his boots. He felt the physical sensation before his eyes could process it. There was a localized drop in temperature and then a clean separation between his body and the floorboards. Some scattered fragments of broken glass and plaster dust shifted away from the soles of his shoes.
Razen’s ability was clean, practiced, and entirely professional. The sphere completed its curvature around his torso, a transparent membrane that slightly warped the surroundings of the kitchen. The timber cabinets bent unnaturally through the field. Dr. Varga’s face stretched grotesquely at the margin of the glass before settling back into proportion.
“Lift,” Razen commanded softly. For a split of a second, Arden's mind shot back to the university corridor on Day One, feeling the entire planet learn a set of dangerous new rules under his feet. He sucked in a sharp breath. His fingers nearly slipped from the paper, but his grip tightened again, clamping down like a vice. “Easy” Dr. Varga murmured.
“I am currently levitating in my own kitchen,” Arden fired back, his throat dry. “Easy is not the word we're looking for.”
From the doorway, Jack let out a sharp snort and Razen effortlessly guided the sphere toward the hall. Arden drifted a few inches above the floor , his body tilted slightly backward, the battered notebook pinned flat against his ribs. It should have looked ridiculous. It probably did look ridiculous. If Rory had been there to see it, he would have cracked some moronic joke about haunted furniture. The sudden thought of Rory hurt significantly more than the physical wound in his side.
Outside, the front door stood wide open. Rain was blowing horizontally across the threshold with blue light washing over the brick walls, cast by the tactical emergency vehicles gridlocking the estate. Two heavy, matte-black Admittance Authority vans blocked the asphalt. Across the street, a neighbor stood half-hidden behind a twitching curtain, visible only by the nervous movement of the fabric. Razen steered the sphere down the concrete garden path. Arden spotted the exact point where the living room window had been shattered from the outside.
“Visibility suppressant,” Arden remarked dryly.
Jack, limping a few paces ahead, glanced over his shoulder. “Yes.”
“Looks like a smoking bomb.”
“It is not a smoke bomb.”
“It smashed through my window and smoked .”
Chapter discussion