Chapter 1 — Until We Meet Again

A new morning unfolded slowly over the city of Darka.

But Aryn had woken before the sunlight reached it.

He sat by the second-floor window, one knee drawn up, watching the street below come back to life.

A group of students in uniform passed the row of shophouses, bags swinging in time with their steps. Two transport workers stood arguing at the corner while a delivery truck cut past them without slowing.

Everything looked normal.

The phone on the windowsill buzzed softly.

The reminder he had set three weeks ago appeared on the screen.

Graduation day.

Aryn looked at it for a moment, then turned the phone face down.

The salt smell of the sea drifted in through a gap in the window frame.

Darka always smelled like this.

Not the clean sea smell of open water, but the smell of a port city — brine, the stale charge off the drive units, and something older underneath.

As if the whole city had been built over something that could never be buried deep enough.

Aryn got up, washed his face, and took his jacket from the hook by the door.

“I’m heading out.”

He called down to the floor below.

Silence for a moment, then a low, hoarse voice came up the stairs.

“Go on.”

Aryn put on his helmet and left the house.

The harbor had been busy since early morning.

Three large cargo ships were berthed along the main pier. Giant cranes swung containers overhead. Workers moved among the forklifts, and the noise of freight and machinery never stopped.

Aryn knew most of the people here.

He had worked at this harbor for two years.

A set of truck keys came flying toward him. The man who threw them barely looked up.

Aryn caught them out of habit.

“First run’s the east cold storage,” the foreman said, walking on. “Two more pickups after that.”

“Got it.”

He should have been at school today.

The ceremony, the last photographs, everything that came with stepping into adulthood.

But expenses had never cared about any of that.

Neither had his grandfather’s medical bills.

So instead of a graduation ceremony, Aryn’s day was a freight route.

He was strapping down the load for the second run when Chalwa turned up.

The guy was leaning against the truck as if he had been standing there a long time.

“You’re late.”

“I’m working,” Aryn said without looking up.

“I mean late for your own graduation.”

Chalwa held up his phone.

On the screen was a group photo — familiar faces lined up together, arms over each other’s shoulders, everyone squinting into the sun.

Only one person was missing.

Aryn.

He pulled the last strap tight and jumped down from the truck.

“Tell me it’s still on tonight.”

Chalwa grinned.

“Seven. Jina messaged this morning.”

The restaurant was on the canal road near the river mouth. It had no sign — only a few wooden tables outside and an owner who cooked according to his mood that day.

Everyone in the group had known the place since they were children.

As soon as they could get there on their own, they started eating there.

The others had all arrived before him.

He had barely sat down when the question everyone faces at a time like this began.

What are you going to do now?

Where will you go?

What does the future look like?

Most of the answers were Endara.

The capital always had that pull.

Universities, research centers, laboratories, the headquarters of the leading corporations — including the headquarters of the Hermit Corporation.

If you wanted to be part of something larger, Darka was rarely the destination.

Endara was.

“Jina wants to apply to the research track.”

Someone said it from across the table.

Aryn looked over.

She was looking down at her glass.

“Someday.”

Aryn knew she meant it.

Jina always knew what she wanted, and she had the patience to wait for it.

The Hermit Corporation took only the best students from the top institutions, but she was already planning several steps ahead.

“What about you?”

Someone asked.

Aryn reached for his drink.

“I’ll find something.”

The table went quiet for a moment.

No one pressed.

And that was what he liked about them.

The party broke up after midnight.

Aryn rode away from the restaurant alone.

He passed the city’s main intersection, then turned the wrong way.

At least that was what he told himself.

The motorcycle carried on along a familiar route, through a district where the lights began to thin, until the road curved down toward the coast.

The old harbor appeared out of the dark.

Rotting piers, empty warehouses, industrial ground abandoned for years, all of it fenced off behind old steel.

Aryn parked and walked out to the end of the pier.

The sea at night was completely black.

Rain began to fall as a fine mist, blurring the lights of the city on the far side of the bay.

He had not come back here in a long time.

But whenever his life was about to change, this was the place he thought of.

After his parents disappeared at sea, this was the first place anyone brought him.

Aryn barely remembered that night now.

Only the sound of the waves, his grandfather’s hand on his shoulder, and the silence.

The old man had hardly said anything.

Fourteen years had passed.

Aryn stood in the rain, thinking about Jina leaving Darka the next morning, and the others scattering along their own paths.

Then the light appeared.

It shot up from beneath the surface, about three hundred meters offshore.

A shaft of deep violet shot straight up into the sky, punched through the low cloud, and vanished.

The whole thing lasted less than two seconds.

Then everything returned to darkness.

Aryn went still.

He had seen Rips before.

Everyone had, especially anyone who grew up in a coastal city.

Small Rips opened from time to time. Sometimes it was only a shiver in the air. Sometimes a faint glow.

Sometimes the salvagers got there first.

Sometimes a Hermit Corporation response unit got there first.

It had become part of life in the city.

But what he had just seen was nothing like a small Rip.

While he was still thinking about it, the heat began in the center of his chest.

Then spread through his body.

Pressure built behind his breastbone.

Aryn looked down at his hands.

His fingertips were giving off a faint violet light.

“What—”

The heat surged.

Aryn tore off his jacket, then his shirt.

Rain struck his skin and did almost nothing.

Steam rose off his body.

His heart was beating so hard he could hear it, and the edges of his vision began to blur.

Aryn looked at the sea.

Then stepped off.

The cold hit him, and it did not help at all.

He sank.

The heat went on burning inside him.

Darkness, the pressure of the water, and the pain swallowed everything by degrees.

Until at last he could no longer tell which way was the surface.

And which way was the seabed.

Aryn opened his eyes in a white room.

No windows, only smooth clean walls and an unnatural quiet.

An old man was sitting beside the bed.

The Hermit Corporation uniform identified him at once.

Grey hair, a calm bearing.

Aryn pushed himself upright. A deep ache ran through his chest, as though he were bruised somewhere inside.

“Two days.”

The old man spoke before he could ask.

“You were unconscious for two full days.”

He paused briefly.

“Your motorcycle is in the parking structure downstairs.”

“Your phone—”

“Is at the bottom of the bay.”

Aryn looked around the room.

The equipment beside the bed resembled medical instruments, but the displays showed readings he did not recognize.

“Where is this?”

“Our medical facility.”

The old man stood.

“Darka branch.”

He set a document folder down on the bed.

“Read it when you’re ready. You can leave whenever you want. The staff at the exit have been informed.”

The old man walked toward the door.

“That light.”

Aryn spoke up.

“The light in the sea. That was a Rip, wasn’t it?”

The old man stopped, but did not turn around.

“Read the file first.”

Then he walked out.

Not long after, Aryn sat on his motorcycle in the parking structure and opened the folder.

The first section was a medical report.

Blood results, vital signs, general health data.

Everything looked normal, at least the parts he understood.

Until one heading.

Taba Core Assessment

Aryn frowned.

His eyes moved down to the next line.

Estimated Taba Core energy: three hundred years

He stopped reading.

Three hundred years.

The number made no sense.

He was an ordinary person who had never trained in Taba.

But the report in front of him said he had it.

Three hundred years of Taba Core energy.

Aryn looked at his hands.

They were the same as ever.

At least from the outside.

He turned the page.

This one was not a report.

It was an offer of employment.

Hermit Corporation

Field Operations Unit

Aryn read it once.

Then closed the folder, started the motorcycle, and rode out.

Three blocks away.

A young woman in an administrative uniform set down a phone.

“He left on his own.”

The old man sitting across from her nodded, his eyes still on the data displayed on the desk in front of him.

“Did he take the offer with him?”

“He did, Director.”

“Good.”

“If he comes back, let me know.”

The woman hesitated slightly.

“And if he doesn’t come back?”

The old man looked up.

“He’ll come back.”