Morning light crept slowly through the tall vertical blinds and stretched across the opposite wall in long pale bars that moved almost imperceptibly as the sun climbed.
Eli woke up the way you did when you were still figuring out where you were. The ceiling above him was flat and white. No posters. No crack running along the corner like the one above his bed back home in 416, the one that had appeared one winter and never been fixed because the landlord's maintenance requests went into the same place all maintenance requests went in Mariner Heights.
For a few seconds he just stared up at the white.
Then it all came back.
The city. The new apartment. His uncle.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. The room was quiet in a way that felt different from Port Virel. Back home there was always something to wake up to. Semi trucks staging outside the building before their port runs. Gulls crying somewhere near the harbor in the pre-dawn dark. The groan of the cranes starting their shift carrying faintly through the window glass. Here it was just the low even hum of the building's systems, the particular silence of a place that had been insulated and sealed against the city outside.
Port Virel silence was never total. This kind was engineered.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. His socks were cool on the hardwood floor beneath him.
When he stepped out into the hallway the smell hit him first.
Coffee. Strong and fresh, already filling the apartment.
Brad was in the kitchen, leaning against the center island with a mug in one hand and his phone in the other. He had the look of someone who had been up for a while, the specific kind of alert that came from having already made a few decisions before the day officially started.
He glanced up when Eli came in.
"You drink coffee?"
Eli shrugged slightly. "Sometimes."
Brad slid a second mug across the counter without making a production of it.
"Didn't know if you liked it or not."
Eli picked it up and took a small sip. It was hotter than he expected and considerably more bitter than what his mom kept in the apartment, the cheap pre-ground stuff she bought in the red tin from the corner store on Aldren Street.
Brad watched him for a second. "Too strong?"
"It's fine," Eli said, clearing his throat.
"You sleep alright?"
"Yeah. Eventually."
"New places always take me a night or two as well," Brad said.
Eli leaned against the counter across from him, both hands around the mug. The warmth worked its way up through his palms and helped pull him further into the morning.
The apartment felt different in the daylight. The floor-to-ceiling windows along the far wall let the full morning light in, filling the space and making it feel larger and more permanent than it had the night before when the city had been a lit grid below and everything inside had felt temporary by comparison. He wasn't sure which version of it he trusted more.
Brad took another sip from his mug.
"We'll head out in a bit," he said. "Get you some clothes and whatever else you need. I know you didn't exactly have time to pack anything."
Eli nodded. "Thanks."
Brad shrugged like it wasn't anything particular.
Eli looked down at the mug and then back up. "So. Yesterday."
Brad didn't pretend not to understand what he meant. "Yeah."
Eli shifted his weight slightly against the counter. "You said you were going to explain things."
Brad studied him for a moment, measuring the question more than reacting to it. "I am," he said.
He tapped the side of his mug once with his finger.
"But it's easier to explain once you know the basics first."
Eli frowned. "Basics of what?"
"How this world actually works."
Eli held his gaze for a moment. "Alright."
Brad pushed himself off the counter and slipped his phone into his pocket. "Finish that when you're ready," he said, nodding at the mug. "Then shower if you need to. Towels are in the cabinet in the bathroom."
He paused.
"I left some clothes in there for you too. Probably going to be a bit big, but they'll get you through the day."
Eli looked down at himself for the first time that morning. He was still in the same clothes from the station. The same shirt he had been wearing when the detective folded him into the back of the car and read him his rights while he wasn't fully listening.
Brad continued like it was completely normal. "There's a spare toothbrush under the sink too."
"Okay," Eli said.
Brad picked his phone back up and moved to the living room area, giving Eli space without making it obvious he was doing so.
Eli finished the rest of the mug and put it in the sink. Then he headed back down the hallway.
The bathroom light clicked on with a small buzz.
Brad had left a folded stack on the counter. A faded grey t-shirt and black athletic pants. Under the sink, two toothbrushes still in their plastic wrappers sat on the lower shelf next to a bottle of mouthwash.
Eli turned toward the mirror.
For a second he barely recognized who was looking back.
His hair was flattened sideways from sleeping. Dirt streaked the collar of his shirt. The fabric had gone stiff and faintly discolored in places where things had soaked in and dried without being rinsed out.
Then he noticed the darker stains along the sleeve.
Blood.
Not much. Just a few drops, small and brown now from drying, standing out against the lighter fabric in the morning light coming through the frosted window above the tub.
He stood looking at them for a second longer than he meant to.
Mateo.
He looked away from the mirror and pulled the shirt over his head. The smell came with it as the fabric moved, a mix of sweat and old concrete and something metallic that had settled into the cloth and wasn't going to wash out.
He dropped it into the sink.
The shower turned on with a dull rush. Steam began rising slowly as the hot water found its temperature and hit the tile.
Eli stepped under it and let the water run over his shoulders and down across his face.
For a while he just stood there.
The heat loosened the dirt from his skin and it ran off in thin gray streaks toward the drain. He watched it go and didn't move.
But the sound wouldn't leave.
That dull scraping.
The noise Mateo made when he realized something was wrong, the sound of a person trying to claw their way through a wall with what was left of their hands. Wet and fast and getting faster.
Eli pressed both palms flat against the tile wall and closed his eyes.
He hadn't even seen most of it. He had only heard it through the concrete between their cells.
Mateo saying he couldn't feel the wall.
The panic breaking through his voice completely.
The way the scraping sped up and didn't stop.
Eli swallowed hard.
If the thing in that corridor had pushed a little harder. If it had focused on him instead of anchoring to Mateo.
He could have been the one doing that to himself.
His chest tightened suddenly the way it had in the cell, the air going thin, the walls seeming to contract slightly before catching themselves.
He braced one hand harder against the tile and tried to slow his breathing down.
It didn't work.
The sound came back.
Scraping. Wet. Rhythmic. Getting faster.
His shoulders started shaking before he had fully registered what was happening.
He bent forward and pressed his forehead against the cool tile while the water kept running down his back.
He hadn't cried since he was about twelve. He had gotten good at talking himself out of it before it had the chance to start, finding the place in his chest where it was building and pressing down on it until it went somewhere else.
The first sob caught in his throat because it had nowhere else to go.
Then the rest followed.
He broke into the kind of crying that made his chest burn and his breathing come apart, the kind that didn't care about being quiet even when he tried to be. The water drowned most of it out anyway, the shower filling the small bathroom with enough noise to cover the rest.
Mateo had been alive one minute, then screaming the next, and then just gone. Eli hadn't known him. Had barely seen his face until it was already over. But he had heard everything from a few feet away through a concrete wall and apparently that was enough.
The water kept running.
After a while the sobbing slowed.
His breathing came back in longer pieces, steadying a little more with each one.
Eli stayed under the water for another minute before finally straightening up.
He turned it off. The bathroom went quiet except for the faint building hum coming through the walls.
He dried off slowly and pulled on the clothes Brad had left. The grey t-shirt hung a little loose around his shoulders. The pants rode slightly lower than his usual fit. He brushed his teeth at the sink with his eyes down, looking at the black bath mat below the vanity instead of the mirror.
When he stepped back out into the hallway the apartment still smelled like coffee, now slightly cooled down and settled into the air.
Brad was sitting at the small round kitchen table with his laptop open in front of him. He glanced up when he heard Eli come out.
His eyes paused on Eli's face for a moment. The red eyes weren't hard to notice and Brad clearly wasn't going to pretend they were. He closed the laptop and stood up.
"Ready?" he asked.
Eli nodded.
Brad grabbed a small set of keys from the bowl near the front door and slipped them into his pocket. "We'll start with getting you some clothes," he said. "Then maybe stop for lunch. After that we can talk. Deal?"
"Fine, deal," Eli said, crouching to lace his sneakers by the door.
Brad opened the apartment and stepped out into the hallway.
Eli followed.
The door clicked shut behind them.
The elevator ride down was quiet. Neither of them said anything while the floor numbers ticked down above the doors. Eli leaned lightly against the back wall, still adjusting to the feeling that this building was somewhere he was supposed to be.
The lobby doors slid open into the morning.
Aurelion was already fully awake. Cars moved through the intersections in timed coordinated flows. People crossed at the corners with the purposeful ease of people who knew exactly where they were going and had built enough margin into their morning to get there without rushing. The maple trees lining the sidewalk had gone fully orange and red overnight it seemed, the fallen leaves swept into clean piles along the curb by whoever maintained the block, probably on a schedule posted somewhere in a municipal database.
Brad unlocked the car and dropped into the driver's seat.
"Shopping center should be about ten minutes."
Eli climbed in and pulled the door shut.
The drive was short but the city kept expanding around them the closer they got to the commercial district. The streets widened. The buildings transitioned from residential towers and office blocks into rows of storefronts behind glass facades with underground parking cut into the foundations and identical small trees planted at measured intervals along the sidewalk.
Brad pulled into a large shopping center and parked near the entrance of a clothing store. He cut the engine.
"Alright," he said.
Eli looked over.
Brad pulled a slim card from his wallet and held it out. It was solid black metal, no logos, no bank name printed across the front that Eli recognized.
"Grab whatever you think you'll need for a while."
Eli blinked. "Seriously?"
"Yeah."
Brad nodded toward the entrance. "Shirts, jeans, shorts, socks. Whatever you know you'll actually wear. Don't go too crazy, but don't overthink it either."
Eli turned the card over in his hand.
"Are you coming in too?"
Brad shook his head. "I need to run to another store nearby for a minute." He pushed his door open. "Don't worry. I'll be back before you're even done."
Eli stepped out and watched his uncle cross the plaza before heading inside.
The store smelled like clean fabric and the slightly artificial freshness that clothing stores maintained with their ventilation systems, that particular smell of new fabric and plastic hangers and conditioned air that existed identically in every store of its kind across the Somatic Republic.
He wandered between the racks for a few minutes, trying to figure out what he actually needed. Most of what he wore at home was the same rotation of hoodies and broken-in t-shirts, nothing with any particular thought behind it, just whatever he reached for in the morning.
He grabbed a few plain t-shirts in darker colors. A couple pairs of shorts, a few pairs of jeans that fit close enough without trying them on. A pack of socks. A dark grey zip-up hoodie from a rack near the back wall caught his eye and he added that too, the weight of it familiar in his hands.
The shoes took the longest. He worked his way down the aisle twice before finding a black pair of athletic shoes that felt right when he walked a few steps in them, the kind that would work for most things without standing out.
He carried it all to the counter, arms full, and pulled the black card from his pocket just as Brad stepped up beside him.
"Find everything you needed?" Brad asked, easy and unhurried.
"Yeah, I think so."
"Cool. I'll be outside."
The cashier finished scanning and took the card. She handed Eli a large handled bag with the receipt folded into the bottom.
Brad was on a bench outside the store entrance under the shade of one of the plaza's maples, fallen leaves gathered in a small drift against the base of it. He looked up when Eli came out.
"Sit with me for a minute," he said.
Eli sat and set the bag beside him on the bench.
Brad reached into a second shopping bag he had brought back with him and pulled out a small white box. He held it out.
"Open it."
Eli peeled the plastic wrapping and lifted the lid.
A brand new phone. Still in its factory packaging, the screen covered in the clear protective film.
He looked up immediately. "I thought I wasn't supposed to contact anyone."
"Your old number stays dead," Brad said.
Eli turned the phone over in his hands.
"But cutting you off completely isn't exactly realistic either," Brad continued.
"So I can text people?"
"Good friends. Anyone you trust the most." Brad said. "Keep the conversations normal."
Eli studied his face. "And if they ask where I went?"
"You moved away for family reasons," Brad replied.
"And the station?"
Brad didn't hesitate. "That part still doesn't exist. Not to anyone who isn't sitting on this bench."
Eli nodded slowly.
"I trust you to be smart about it," Brad added. "Don't overshare anything. And don't go starting a panic back home."
Eli slid the phone back into its box. "Yeah. I can do that."
Brad picked up the bag of clothes and the empty phone bag and stood.
"Good."
They stood back up into the midday sun. The plaza around them had filled out since they arrived, families moving between the storefronts, a couple kids running ahead of their parents near the fountain at the center of the lot.
"Want some food?" Brad asked.
"Yeah," Eli said.
They ended up at a small sandwich place at the corner of the shopping center. Nothing involved, just a large screen ordering kiosk and a few tables along the window and a counter where a staff member in a paper cap called out order numbers. Practical, fast, the kind of place that existed in every commercial district in every Somatic city because it served a function and did it without fuss.
They ordered and found a table near the window where the afternoon light came through at a low angle and lay across the table in a warm stripe.
For a few minutes they ate without talking, watching the shopping traffic move outside in its easy midday rhythm.
Eli broke the quiet first.
"Hey."
Brad looked up mid-bite.
"That guy I was in the holding room with yesterday," Eli said. "Mateo."
Brad waited.
"He said he took something called Nex," Eli said, taking a sip from his drink. "You heard of it?"
Brad leaned back slightly in his chair. "Nexal," he said.
"Yeah, that was it."
Brad took another bite before answering. "It's a new synthetic hallucinogen. I've heard it called a couple of names. Nex, or sometimes NX-9."
"Hallucinogen?" Eli said. "Like acid and mushrooms and all that?"
"Sort of," Brad said. "It's made in some aftermarket lab that hasn't been found yet, unless you were the one running it."
Eli looked down at the table. "He kept saying everything around him was lagging. That's how he put it."
"Yeah, that tracks."
"People take it a lot?"
"Recently yes," Brad said evenly. "Probably more than they should. Not that I'm promoting drugs or anything."
He continued. "Most of the time it just messes with your perception. Sound, depth, reaction times. Stuff like that."
"Most of the time?" Eli asked.
Brad met his eyes. "Bad combinations can always happen."
Eli didn't push it further.
They finished eating not long after that and walked back to the car. The drive back to the apartment was smooth, the midday traffic moving at a steady pace through the clean organized lanes of the city.
Eli watched the maple trees pass in even intervals from the passenger window, their orange and red catching the light between the buildings.
Back upstairs, Brad set the keys in their dish. Eli put his bag near the counter.
Brad pulled out one of the chairs at the small kitchen table and sat down.
"This is probably going to take a while," he said.
Eli sat across from him.
Brad rested his forearms on the table.
"Before you can learn to control what happened at the station," he said, "you need to understand how it all works."
Eli leaned back slightly in his chair.
He had been asking for answers since the moment he ran out of that school hallway four days ago. Now that they were finally about to start, he realized he didn't actually know what kind of answers he was about to hear. He wasn't sure if that was better or worse than knowing.
Brad folded his hands on the table.
"Can we start from the beginning?" Eli asked.
Brad nodded once.