2025
A low-profile saloon car waited directly behind the lead van. Its windows were tinted dark enough to mirror the flickering streetlights. Razen brought the sphere to a halt beside the open rear passenger door. Slowly, the containment sphere dissolved—loosening around Arden’s shoulders first, then releasing his legs. Without the artificial suspension, the white-hot pain rushed back into his ribs with a vengeance. His knees buckled, and he almost folded into the gravel. Dr. Varga reached out, catching his shoulder to steady him. He flinched hard at the physical contact, and she withdrew her hand instantly. “Sorry,” she said softly.
Razen held the door frame wide. “Careful now.” Arden slid into the leather backseat with a combination of help he deeply resented but physically could not refuse. The notebook remained clamped in his fist the entire time. sDr. Varga climbed into the cabin beside him, her damp coat squeaking against the upholstery. Razen claimed the front passenger seat. Jack walked gingerly around to the driver’s side, heavily favoring his good leg as he slid behind the wheel.
Arden looked up at the rear-view mirror. “You’re driving?”
Jack’s eyes met his in the glass. “You volunteering?”
“I’m bleeding to death back here.”
“So am I, mate.”
“A highly professional outfit, this” Arden muttered.
Jack muttered a low curse under his breath, twisted the ignition, and slammed his foot onto the accelerator.
The vehicles pulled away from the kerb without sirens, a quiet departure that felt entirely deliberate. For a long miles, nobody spoke. Arden leaned his head against the cold headrest, his gaze dropping to the worn edges of the notebook. “So” he said, slicing through the silence. “How long am I being kept in this facility?”
Dr. Varga took a measured beat to formulate her answer. “I’m not entirely certain.”
“That’s incredibly comforting.”
“Well, It depends on the progression of your review.”
“Meaning?”
“Usually it takes about two or three weeks, provided your stabilization responds well to the environment. A month or more if it takes longer but that is in rare cases,”
“And then what? I’m just free to go?”
“Yes.”
He turned his head to look at her. She met his gaze without flinching. “Arden, this isn’t a prison you know,” she said softly.
“Yeah, facilities never are.” Arden said.
Dr. Varga looked at him and shifted in her seat “It was specifically designed for citizens who have structural difficulty adjusting after the admittance,” she explained,“Particularly individuals who have already Offered, but are experiencing severe emotional instability surrounding a Counterweight. People have recovered there. A great number of people as I told you before”
“Recovered.”
“Yes.”
“From what, exactly?”
Her expression softened. He despised the softness; it felt manufactured. “From exactly this” she said. “From being utterly unable to let the world become livable again.”
Arden turned his back on her, staring out at the passing streets.
The Dublin skyline had transformed over the last two years in ways society pretended were structural improvements. The alternative was admitting that the occupation simply possessed better architecture than independence. Flawless, pale structures rose like weeds between the weathered brick tenements. Massive transit pylons that hadn't existed in 2023 dominated the intersections, their upper spires vanishing into a faint, humming silver haze. Glowing signs in English, Irish, and the angular characters of Xadgor script hovered uniformly above the junctions. Yet, the remnants of the old world stubbornly clung to life beneath the alterations. Traditional chippers, independent pharmacies, off-licences, and betting shops remained. A local kebab place hummed under a neon sign with half its letters dead. The old world hadn’t been demolished, instead had simply been fitted with attachments.
“I think I just want it to go back” Arden said. The words slipped across his lips before his brain could give them permission.
Dr. Varga’s response was quiet, almost a whisper. “Before Admittance?”
“Before everything.”
“That’s entirely understandable Arden.”
“Don’t do that,” he snapped.
“Do what?”
“Make it sound like a healthy thought.”
From the front seat, Jack glanced back through the rear-view mirror, his eyes narrowing. “You’re remarkably talkative now mate, especially for for someone who attempted to grind my wrist into powder twenty minutes ago.”
Arden locked eyes with him in the glass. “Maybe because twenty minutes ago I genuinely believed a terrorist cell was breaching my property when you shattered my window with a visibility suppressant, ”
“We had reason to believe something catastrophic had happened to you inside.”
“Something did happen to me. You happened.”
Jack’s fingers tightened visibly around the leather steering wheel. They left the dense urban streets behind. The buildings thinned out as the old city dissolved into a bleak landscape of sprawling roundabouts, waterlogged fields, industrial warehouses, and half-lit construction corridors where the streetlights stood entirely too far apart.
“How far out is this place aniway?” Arden asked.
“The outskirts,” Razen replied from the front passenger seat, speaking for the first time.
“Fields, inside the one of the biomes” Jack added dryly. “You’ll love it. Very peaceful. Endless opportunities to not assault the medical staff.”
“Jack,” Dr. Varga warned.
“What? The lad asked a question.”
Arden slowly turned the notebook over in his hands, his eyes skimming the new system prompt before he dismissed it without a second thought.
YOU ENTERED AN ACTIVE BIOME ZONE
As the facility’s perimeter lights finally cut through a dense line of trees, a weight settled in Arden's chest. The complex was significantly larger than he had anticipated. It sat back from the rural road, isolated behind twin rows of high security fencing and a bleak strip of manicured, wet grass. Low, sprawling, pale concrete. Entirely too many windows and definitely too much artificial light. It was the precise kind of architecture constructed to look inviting, while hiding its true purpose. A stark metallic sign mounted near the electronic gate read:
CONTINUITY STABILISATION CENTRE Regional Post-Offering Support Unit
Underneath, etched in smaller, unyielding block letters:
For your safety and the safety of others, all personal belongings will be collected and securely stored upon arrival.
Arden read the final line twice. Then, a slow, grim smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Dr. Varga caught the expression. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
The heavy security gate slid open with a mechanical screech. Jack pressed the accelerator and drove them through.
The car brought them to a smooth halt beneath a wide, covered intake bay. Two orderlies stood rigidly by the glass double doors, both wearing the Admittance uniforms. One carried a standard-issue tactical medkit; the other held an sleek glass tablet.
Razen exited the car first and Jack followed, pulling himself out of the driver's seat with a stiff, pained grunt. Dr. Varga swung Arden’s door wide, the damp night air rushing into the cabin.
“Am I permitted to walk,” Arden asked, “or do I get stuffed back inside the bubble?”
“You can walk,” Dr. Varga replied, her voice firm but measured. “Provided you allow us to assist you.”
His knee-jerk instinct was to refuse. He swallowed the pride and gave a tight nod. Razen wedged a firm hand beneath his left armpit, keeping his other hand conspicuously clear of the notebook. Dr. Varga anchored his right side. Together, they navigated him through the automatic glass doors and into a sprawling reception lobby.
The interior architecture was dominated by muted greys and panels of pale timber. Ergonomic chairs. Recessed, low-intensity lighting and of course a leafy plant in the corner that was almost certainly fabricated from synthetic materials. A sleek reception desk completely devoid of visible security barriers or reinforced glass. It was a space carefully designed by individuals who understood that cages functioned infinitely better when they masqueraded as medical care.
The orderly with the tablet stepped forward, his boots clicking softly on the polished floor. “Arden Sava?”
Arden chose silence this time and Dr. Varga answered on his behalf. “Yes.”
“Integrated System status?”
“Confirmed.”
“Ability?”
“Grip.”
The orderly’s eyes flicked down, lingering on the battered notebook for a brief second before returning to his screen. “Counterweight ?”
“Fixation.”
That single word altered the temperature in the room. The orderly carrying the medkit immediately looked up, his gaze shifting in a sharp calculation from Arden’s white-knuckled fingers, to the paper edge, and finally over to Razen.
“Object attached?” the medkit handler inquired.
“Emotionally and physically reinforced” Razen confirmed, his bureaucratic tone clipping on the vowels.
The orderly with the tablet gave a microscopic nod, his expression slipping into the dull disappointment of a bureaucrat dealing with a routine hitch. “Understood. We’ll need the object surrendered and logged immediately.”
“No,” Arden said flatly.
Dr. Varga turned her head to look at him, her brow furrowing. Arden kept his eyes fixed firmly on the empty expanse of the reception desk. “You explicitly stated I could hold it until we arrived,” he reminded her.
“I did and ... Well.. We’re here. I explicitly said that once we arrived, you would be required to let it go.”
Arden looked down at the notebook, actively suppressing the smirk that threatened to break across his face. The fools. He had simply needed a foolproof way inside the facility. Slowly, his white-knuckled grip uncoiled and for the first time since the breach at his house, Arden opened his palm. The notebook slipped from his fingers, hitting the polished timber of the reception desk with a soft slap. The room plunged into silence. Everyone stared at the battered paper as if one wrong touch might set it off and explode. Dr. Varga shifted her gaze to him, searching his face for a fracture, an outburst, a sign of psychological collapse.
Arden simply flexed his stiff, aching fingers and let the smile spread across his lips. “See?” he said, his voice dripping with smooth, venomous compliance. “Look at that. I'm already making fantastic progress.”
Chapter discussion