You open a portal near the surface of the raging water, just above the crest of the highest wave. Though it’s doubtful that there are any eyes on the inoperable lighthouse during such a terrible storm, this will serve as a safeguard, making it appear to any onlookers that the boy would vanish into the water—swallowed up by the sea rather than snatched out of thin air. And your precaution pays off instantly.
“Wyr!” Both you and the boy look skyward, catching a glimpse of Myrette right at the edge of your view as she screams his name. The girl is once more dangling over the edge of the cliff, but this time in a vain attempt to save him—far too late. Hopefully seeing her safe will serve as a comfort for Wyr before he begins his life anew
But the last thing you both witness before the boy falls into the rift is another bolt of lightning striking the spire once more. This time, it’s a direct impact on the building’s giant light fixture, causing an explosion of sparks and another shower of rubble. It seems that even with all of the boy’s sacrifice, taking her place in the previous disasters, fate’s plans for the girl aren’t finished just yet.
That is no longer your problem, though, and nothing more can be done. Wyr’s body passes through the portal as quickly as if he fell through a hole in the floor. In just the blink of an eye, the world around him changes. One second he is being soaked by the raging storm in the dark of night, and the next the air around him is calm and his body is illuminated by an uncountable barrage of lights.
Signs advertising every service imaginable twinkle around the falling boy in a language you only partially understand at a glance. Buildings taller than the stars tower above him. Mechanical ships zoom around the sky, a few nearly hitting the plummeting body, but deftly maneuvering away at the last second. Unfortunately, neither you nor he have the time to appreciate the wonders of this futuristic society.
Just as quickly as the lights filled your eyes, most of them vanished as the boy continued to freefall past the many levels of the advanced city. One of the earlier flying ships seemed to have noticed his descent and sped in his direction. The vehicle emitted a beam to try and catch him out of the air, but his velocity was too much for it, and Wyr was wrenched free from its grasp.
Though it did not manage to save him from his fate, the beam did much in slowing his descent. Still, if the boy didn’t find something to cushion his landing, odds are that even bringing him to this world would have been pointless. Your divination assured his safety, and you will just have to trust it, because you are too exhausted from your actions to even lift a finger in his aid.
And that safety was realized by a pair of helping hands. Wyr’s body was caught by two outstretched arms, and he landed with a heavy thud, though quickly secured by a slight softness. Immediate relief stretched across his face, along with amazement that he was still alive, and bewilderment for his strange circumstances.
But you can only look on in horror. The boy turned his head to try to find his saviour, the owner of the hands that had rescued him from a gruesome death. But there is no other face to be found, no person to thank. No, Wyr found himself surrounded by more limbs than he expected—a dumpster full of not only discarded, rotting appendages, but a multitude of other severed body parts and stinking organs, all piled together in one disgusting heap.
As you expected and braced yourself for, he screamed. That must have been the last straw—his psyche overloaded by the endless adrenaline, and nonstop traumatic events, including the injury of his crushed leg that he likely felt the full pain of in that moment. And a second later, he passed out in the dumpster, still atop the pile of disposed flesh.
You’d really hoped he could at least escape from that predicament, but you can’t blame him for not pushing himself further. And his unconsciousness takes your mind with it, forcing you into the usual trance. Even if his circumstances are less than desirable, at least for now, he is safe.
◆◆◆
You are pulled from your trance for just a moment. The boy does not stir, but lately you’ve found yourself more able to retain your consciousness briefly while he is still asleep, usually just a few moments before he is about to wake up, or when he or the girl unconsciously tossed in the middle of the night, just briefly conscious without releasing.
In this instance, your attention was nabbed by the sound of what can only be described as an incessant mechanical yapping. You also hear the sound of scraping against the dumpster in which the boy is still resting. But these noises stop instantly when a voice cuts through them. “Now now, what’s got you all worked up?”
It sounds like a woman. You find yourself able to understand her, but her language is noticeably different. This could be a problem for him in the near future. But what is more concerning is the new noise of the approaching footsteps.
Since the boy is still asleep, and you are also not fully cognizant, the view into Wyr’s world is blurry. You are unable to make out the person’s face as she approaches the edge of the dumpster, but her words give you an impression. “My my, what do we have here?” Your vision is briefly obscured by a flashing light, and your best guess is the stranger scanned you in some way. “Well would you look at that. For once, we have fresh meat.”
You’re unable to discern her intentions from her tone of voice, but your instincts warn you that one way or another, this woman will be trouble. Still, there is nothing that can be done while the boy still rests, and you are too weary to make her go away through any of your abilities. Even the thought exhausts you again, and you find yourself slipping back to unconsciousness.
◆◆◆
You awake once more, this time fully rested, though still feeling rather weak from all the power you’ve used. Wyr is still asleep, but he too must be close to waking. It gives you a chance to assess the situation and examine your surroundings. At the very least, you are no longer staring at the pile of butchered bodies. The boy is now indoors and he’s laying on a table. It appears as if he’s been disrobed, though it’s hard to know for certain since a blanket is draped over his body, but at the very least, his shirt has been removed.
After confirming his safety, you expand your view and take a look around the room. It is mostly dark, but there are dotted lights everywhere, blinking on countless machines that you don’t recognize nor understand their purpose. And over to the edge, you spot an illuminated screen—a projected layer of light rather than any sort of display, similar to the very same tear in space you use to observe their reality.
In front of it, you spot the back of a head with black hair pulled into a messy bun. Every so often, a cluster of strands flickers with a purple sheen before losing its luster a moment later. This must be the woman whom you heard earlier. She’s paying no attention to Wyr, rather focused on the screen in front of her. Text and images that you can’t discern scrawl in front of her at blazing speed, far faster than a human eye should be able to comprehend. But she appears to be making no form of input. Your best guess is that she’s somehow controlling the device with her mind.
The woman suddenly spins around in her seat, and your attention is pulled when pained grunts rumble through the room. Lights click on, disturbing the waking Wyr even more, speeding up the process as he throws an arm over his eyes and slowly removes them as they adjust. “Hmm, so this is what it’s like to wake up naturally. I’d forgotten,” the woman mumbled her observation while scooting over closer to him in her seat.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“W-where am I?” the boy slowly muttered his question, starting to take stock of his surroundings. “Is-is this the future?” He asks with a bit more fervor and a bit more concern, not quite able to process the scientific wonders all around him. “Or-am I dead?”
“No, you’re not dead,” the woman huffed and assured him. “I made sure of that. In fact, I’d say you’re the most actually alive person I’ve seen in my lifetime. Such an interesting specimen.”
“Erm, what do you mean by that?” Wyr recoiled as the woman’s face drew closer to his, staring deeply into his eyes. He was off-put by both the sudden brashness and her visage now that he got a better look. There were streaks of metal and circuitry exuding from her eyes down the sides of her face, flowing over her neck and into her form-fitting and abstractly designed blouse. And he was startled even more when the woman’s pupils shrank and spun, then emitted a light that scanned his head.
“Look at all your muscles move and nerves twitch,” the woman was enthralled. “All that work by your body just to make you look afraid, so inefficient yet miraculous and captivating at the same. What I mean, boy, is you’re actually still human. Well, at least far more than the rest of us.”
“Y-you’re not?” Wyr was endlessly confused, unable to process what she meant.
“Most in our society would consider me one,” the woman immediately backtracked. “But to a Purity like you, I’m practically a scrapheap. To expound upon her point, she reached down to her waist and grabbed the bottom of her blouse. But instead of raising just the material to show him her stomach, her flesh went with it, raising the skin like it was nothing more than some kind of protective flap.
The boy’s eyes nearly bulged out of his skull, and his mind looked like it was on the verge of breaking when he got a glimpse of the woman’s innards—or lack thereof. She had no guts to speak of, at least not in the traditional sense. There were organs, but they were all inorganic machines designed to replicate the real thing. However, Wyr recovered from the shock quicker than you expected him to.
“So you’re some kind of… mechanical person?” He asked with both disbelief and genuine intrigue.
“Heh, sure if you wanna call me that,” the woman cracked a smile. “I can tell just by your expression and this little exchange that you have no idea how our society works. Very intriguing. So what are you then? Some rich prick’s organ farm that escaped your cloning pod and took a tumble down here? I heard rumors about them, but I hoped they’d take a few more decades before they run me out of business.”
“I, erm, huh?” It was obvious the boy didn’t understand half the words the woman had said.
She was both fascinated and perplexed by his ignorance. “Okay. What’s your name then? That might give me some insight as to where you’re from or what family is hunting you down.”
“Huh, hunting me?” the young man started to worry, even more confused. But, I’m uhh, Wyr.”
“We’re?” the woman repeated with a raised eyebrow. “We are? Don’t tell me you're some kind of hive-mind construct.” Her eyes whirred as she scanned his entire body again. “No, that doesn’t make sense. Unless the tech required to pull that off is tricking my eyes, but I doubt it.”
“No, erm, my name’s Wyr,” the regular boring human reiterated.
The woman let out another slight chuckle. “Now that’s a Wyr-d one,” she couldn’t help but make an absurd pun but then her face got a bit more serious. “I’m Ire. Actually, no. You can call me Dr. Ire. This is my… clinic.”
“Whatever, we can get back to your absurdity in a minute, boy,” she moved the conversation forward after he only stared back at her blankly for both her joke and introduction. “Let’s get to the matter of your bill. Since you have no tech to access Ticks, and there was nothing of value in your clothes, how do you intend to pay me for my services?”
“Um…” Wyr tried to respond instantly but nothing instantly spouted out of his mouth, so he genuinely took a moment to try to process everything and come up with a coherent response, hoping he’d stop coming across as a drooling ignoramus. “I’m sorry, what service did you provide again? So I can know exactly what I’m paying for. You said you were a doctor. Did you save my life?”
It was the woman’s turn to be a little surprised. “Hrm, isn't it obvious? Well I guess my work is just so good that you didn’t even notice. Yes, I saved your life. That much is free. But I also performed some maintenance work so you can walk out of here and have a chance at escaping whatever you’re running from. And that’s what’s going to cost you.”
“First, I installed a basic translation package in your communication ports. Erm, your eyes and ears and throat, I guess,” Ire altered her explanation when she was met with another dumbfounded look. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to install one. Most people are born with them these days. Luckily I had a spare just in case.”
“Next was your leg. Not the most top-of-the-line mode, but someone in your situation can’t complain. You can replace it with a better one later if you don’t like it. And I didn’t have any half-pieces either. But though the top-half of yours wasn’t shattered like the bottom, the infection had spread too far. Sleeping in their feeding bowl probably didn’t help. So it was better to just get rid of the whole thing than to try to salvage it.”
“What are you—?” Wyr cut himself off, not finishing his own sentence when he removed the blanket on his body. His eyes were met with the glint of metal, followed by his mouth gawking. The boy’s leg was gone, entirely replaced by a cybernetic appendage. Though to him, who still had no real concept of robots or cyborgs, it just looked like a shiny, well-defined prosthetic. But then he wiggled his toes, which made his entire face scrunch and flinch as his brain was forced to process the concept.
“If you want synthetic skin, that’s gonna cost you a lot more Ticks,” Dr. Ire cut into his absolute befuddlement. “I could probably have some that matches your skin tone here in a few hours. Few minutes if you’re willing to pay for express teleportation.”
“W-where’s my r-real leg?” the boy stuttered, unable to process the woman’s upsell.
“Hmm, that? They probably haven’t finished with it yet.” The woman whistled, and a few moments later, the sound of metallic clangs tippy-tapped into the room. Three mechanical pups barged in, all zooming around, fighting with each other over the same long lump. You have to assume it’s Wyr’s leg, or what’s left of it. Chunks of flesh are missing, clear bite marks dotted all over. It’s even been eaten down to the bone in a few spots. And the whole thing is an unnatural purple.
“Since it was unsalvageable, I fed it to them as a reward for finding you,” Ire explained. The one gnashing on the bone is ‘Bone Crusher’. The one trying to take it from her is ‘Death Jaw’. And the one nibbling on your former toes is ‘Lilah, My Dear’. They eat the bio-waste from the surgeries I perform and convert it to a material I can sell to the manufacturers up a few levels. Ehk, I apologize if you wanted to keep it. I can deduct a small percentage from your bill.”
“No, it’s umm, just a lot to take in,” Wyr watched the ravagement of his body part in unfettered perplextion. “H-how much do I owe you?” He did his best to try and accept the weird reality, and also finally made an effort to cover himself after just then realizing that his entire lower-half was dangling out in the open.
“Let’s see, I tabbed it up earlier,” the woman reached over and grabbed a tablet off of a nearby table, next to a basin of bloody water, assumedly the boy’s blood.
You sense an opportunity here. How much debt she imposes on the boy will likely define their relationship going forward. You’re still too weak to get him out of there by a more forceful method, yet you can always alter his perception of the situation. But do you need to?
So far, this doctor has shown him nothing but kindness. She saved his life and gave him the tools needed to exist in this world. Maybe she could prove to be someone Wyr could rely on moving forward—a foothold and friendly face in this unfamiliar world.
But at the same time, she is clearly not free of sin. The dumpster of disposed flesh gives you a better idea of her work, along with the questionable way she handles the corpses. And her interest in the boy seems to extend far beyond that of a good samaritan. Perhaps it would be best for him to sever ties as quickly as possible and find more morally-pleasant company, should such a thing exist.
Or you can do nothing for now—let the situation play out further and make a choice down the line, hopefully before it’s too late and his path is set in stone. So what will you do? Will you strengthen their bond or wedge them apart?
Tags Added: Sci-fi, Cyberpunk, Portal Fantasy/Isekai
Ch2 Poll Results:
Well obviously the futuristic world won in the end. I said before that the first run of the poll was a 3-way tie, but the re-poll was also very close, with the Savage World losing by only a single vote. Fret not, Savage Enthusiasts, I came up with a refined-enough idea for that world that I’m definitely going to use it in some story in the future, so I hope you stick around for my continued works.
But now we have a Sci-Fi setting with a main character named Wyr, pronounced as We're/Weir. It’s starting to sound like an homage to the author Andy Weir, prolific sci-fi writer of such famous works like The Martian. That was definitely not my intention with any of this, but I don’t mind it either way.
So I’ve never actually written Sci-Fi before, and it’s been a while since I’ve really delved deeply into it. There were some elements of it in Fiends For Hire, but I’d call that low-sci-fi at best. Ender’s Game/Shadow was my favorite book growing up, though, so I definitely have some love for it in my veins. But Cyberpunk 2077 was my last big consumption of it, so there will likely be a lot of influence from it, though I’ll do my best to make it feel distinct.
Bonus Poll Results: See the full results in the
Poll #6: What happened to their parents?
Winner: Mysteriously Missing with 36%
Since ‘Still out there somewhere’ was a close second. I’ll definitively decide that they are missing but will remain alive through the course of the story at least until a point that their mystery is solved, if that ever happens. So Wyr has no idea what happened to them, but holds out hope that he, or at least just his sister now, will see them again. (Assuming she’s still alive, may poll that later)
Poll #7: Name of the planet.
Winner: A tie between ‘Venetu’ and ‘Gao’ with 30% each
So since it’s a tie, I’m going to let both sides be the winner. The name of the original planet will be Venetu, and the new Sci-Fi planet will be Gao. This totally isn’t me being lazy and using this as an excuse to not come up with new names to poll for the new planet. Totally.
Poll #8: Name of the country.
Winner: Crique with 38%
I don’t really have a strong opinion of this, will just make for more fleshed-out lore, and I’m already thinking of jokes that can be made about the name.
Poll #9: Wyr’s Education level.
Winner: Another 3 way tie, really people?
So since it’s like this, we’re going to go with the median of the results and have him be a high school graduate. Meaning the boy knows his basic multiplication table and probably some algebra and geometry and physics, by late 1800s standards at least, which may actually be useful in this new world, though he won’t be a master at any of it. It also means that I who have forgotten all those things will probably need to brush up a bit too.
How will you influence their relationship? [Closes Mar 31 @ 10:00 UTC]
