Pain came first.
Dull, deep, and cold.
Then came the silence.
Riven stirred, his eyes fluttering open to a smear of blurred lights overhead. He blinked slowly. Shapes came into focus—metal beams, rusted vents, flickering strips of synthetic light.
He was lying on his back inside a containment pod. The kind used for transport or quarantine.
A low hum filled the air. Steady. Reassuring.
But it wasn't real.
Something felt… too still.
He sat up slowly, muscles tight, skin cold to the touch. His coat had been removed. His boots, too. They'd stripped him down to a gray underlayer and left him with nothing else.
The moment he tried to move, restraints hissed open at his sides.
He frowned.
That wasn't standard protocol.
He swung his legs down, stood up, and steadied himself on the edge of the pod.
A mirrored panel across from him flickered—and for just a second, his reflection blinked back with a delay.
He didn't blink.
It did.
Riven stepped away.
The walls around him were smooth and seamless, but the air was filled with low-frequency vibration—like the deep thrum of a vessel in orbit, except heavier, older, and more deliberate.
He crossed to the door. No locks. No sensors.
It opened before he could touch it.
He stepped out into a corridor of curved walls and dull bronze light.
And there, waiting for him in silence, was a woman in a sleeveless coat. Her skin was a burnished gray, her eyes unreadable, and her lips pale against a tattooed jawline. Her presence was calm—but her posture was coiled.
"You're awake."
Riven didn't respond.
She inclined her head. "We brought you up three hours ago. You were unconscious when the scan spiked."
"What happened?"
"You tell me."
She gestured for him to follow. He did, wordless.
They walked through the vessel's interior—narrow corridors, humming conduits, and a faint scent of sterilizer in the air. The walls were oddly smooth, almost grown instead of built.
"Where am I?"
She glanced back at him. "An auxiliary skiff. Mid-orbit above Arc-4."
Riven frowned.
"You triggered a cascade during the scan," she continued. "The Null signature registered across five decks. That's not normal."
He said nothing.
She led him into a dim observation room. A pane of obsidian glass stretched across the far wall, showing the crater far below. Arc-4's ruins were little more than pale dust from this height.
On a table near the window sat a data rig. On its screen: a readout of his vitals. But not just his vitals.
Traceform resonance patterns. Drift fluctuation logs. Bioelectric oscillations.
They'd been monitoring him.
More than that—they'd been waiting.
The woman turned to him. "What did you find down there?"
He stared at the screen.
"It wasn't a fragment," he said.
"No. It wasn't." She studied him for a long moment. "Your file says you're unranked. No legacy. No enhancements. No synthetic trace."
He nodded.
"And yet here you are, synchronizing with a Traceform that shouldn't exist."
Riven finally met her gaze. "Then why didn't you kill me?"
A smile twitched at her lips. "Because null signatures aren't just rare. They're impossible. And impossible things don't get destroyed."
She turned the screen toward him and pointed.
"Your system is stabilizing. Do you understand what that means?"
He didn't. Not fully.
But the drift pulses—he felt them. He knew they weren't temporary.
The Traceform wasn't dormant.
It was becoming part of him.
She studied him a moment longer, then turned away and walked toward the far door.
"Get dressed. You're not leaving this ship yet."
"Why?"
She paused.
"Because someone wants to see you."
Then she was gone.
… [Scene Break]
The clothes they gave him were plain. Dark-grey armorweave, light and flexible, the kind worn by corporate field operatives. It fit too well, like it had been made for him. He strapped it on, laced up the boots, and stepped out of the observation room.
The ship was quiet.
He moved down the main corridor, tracing the direction the woman had gone. The hull vibrated softly—again, not from thrusters, but from something else. Something deeper.
The kind of hum that came from engines that didn't burn fuel.
He reached a chamber at the end of the corridor.
The door slid open.
Inside was a single man.
He sat in a chair near a stasis tank, legs crossed, posture relaxed. His coat was long, metallic, and ceremonial in texture but worn like a second skin.
He looked young. Pale. Eyes like twin needles of amber glass.
"Riven Kael," the man said, smiling faintly. "Sit."
Riven hesitated, then obeyed.
"You've found something," the man said. "Or rather, something has found you."
"I didn't ask for it."
"Of course not. That's the point."
The man leaned forward, tapping on a console beside him. A screen lit up—images of Riven's biometrics, overlaid with drifting trace lines.
"Tell me what you saw."
Riven paused. Thought back.
"Light. Pressure. And a voice. Not speech. Just the idea of a name."
"Null."
He nodded.
The man tilted his head. "You've encountered something few ever do. A sovereign Traceform."
"That means nothing to me."
"It will."
The man stood and crossed the room. He stopped before the stasis tank and tapped the glass.
Inside, something shimmered—like static caught in liquid.
"Do you know what this is?"
"No."
"A memory that doesn't belong to anyone. A broken identity. Left behind after something greater was destroyed."
He turned back toward Riven.
"You've bonded with one."
Riven said nothing.
The man took a breath and stepped closer. "You're being watched, Riven. By people who think what you carry is dangerous. And they're right. But they don't know how dangerous."
He reached into his coat and pulled something out.
A coin.
Black metal. Smooth. No markings.
He tossed it to Riven.
The moment Riven touched it, a spike of static shot through his hand. His vision blurred—just for a second—and in that moment, he felt the Traceform react.
Not with pain.
With recognition.
When his eyes cleared, the man was smiling.
"You'll be sent back soon," he said. "To the surface. But not to scavenge."
He turned away again.
"You're going to start watching the world unravel."
… [Scene Break]
Back in his quarters, Riven sat in silence, the coin still in his palm.
The hum in the walls grew quieter.
But inside him, the pulse of the Traceform grew louder.
It wasn't speaking.
Not yet.
But it was waiting.
And in the silence between beats, Riven felt something new stir behind his ribs.
Purpose.
Or the beginning of it.