LOG 035: Exiled I

Bonir-4: The Bazaar – Selene’s Residence

Selene curls herself into the corner of her small couch, knees drawn up slightly. The elegant  Mrs. Zasy is nestled in the warm hollow between her stomach and thighs. Selene’s fingers drift absently through the cat’s fur in slow, rhythmic strokes, each movement pulling a soft vibration of rumbling purrs that emanate from the animal’s chest. The apartment is lit dimly mostly by the wavering blue glow of the evening’s holographic projection that hovers before her like a living window into another age.

Tonight’s restful selection is a nature documentary about the old Amari coastlines -endless blue waters and rolling waves, a world that no longer exists anywhere in the known systems. The projection throws phantom light and shadow across the walls: the shimmer of salt spray against rock, the ripple of waves across a shore. The faint hum of the projector mingles with the narrator’s calm and familiar voice. Every corner of her narrow living space is a reflective of a vibrant ocean living space.

“The ancient tides follow patterns older than human civilization,” the voice intones, deep and reassuring in its knowledge. “Currents stretching the length of Amari carry nutrients from ocean trenches, feeding ecosystems vast and disparate despite the seeming commonality of the setting…”

Mrs. Zasy shifts slightly, golden eyes half-lidded, their reflective sheen catching and holding the glow of holographic surf. Her purr deepens, steady and content. This is their ritual. This is the safety Selene has cultivated: predictable, quiet evenings where the worst thing that can intrude is a reminder of what no longer matters.

A soft chime breaks the serenity. Selene’s ytterpulse blinks gently on the table beside her, projecting a pale glyph in the air. A voice message. She glances toward it, her hand stilling on the cat’s furry nape for the briefest moment.

VOICE MESSAGE
FROM: etmes.krynn@hadrian.station.hab.ua
DURATION: 2:47

The device waits patiently, its glow pulsing in alternating brilliance. Selene breathes out slowly, then resumes stroking Mrs. Zasy’s fur with deliberate calm. She lets her head rest against the couch cushion, forcing her attention back to the waves as they crash eternally on shores long since swallowed by progress and ruin.

“Just Etmes,” she whispers, her voice a thread meant only for the cat. Mrs. Zasy’s tail gives a single flick, as though in understanding. “Probably another birthday guilt trip.” The waves continue their endless dance, reflective of the rippling eternity of their reflective reality.

Mrs. Zasy chirps softly, a questioning trill that vibrates in Selene’s lap. Query: Bad man?

“Not bad,” Selene murmurs, eyes fixed on the projection’s ocean. “Just… exhausting. Always wants more than I can give.” Her fingers find the soft place behind Mrs. Zasy’s ears, rubbing in careful little circles as the cat leans into the scratches. Selene anchors herself to that sound and the touch of her softness -the small, unquestioning comfort of fur beneath her touch.

The communication device chimes again. Once more, the light flickers across the table, faint but insistent. This time, Selene shifts, her posture loosening, shoulders rolling back with a subtle exhale. Her hand eases its grip on the cat as her gaze lands on the sender.

VOICE MESSAGE
FROM: sienna.krynn@starshade.hab.ua
DURATION: 1:23

She reaches for the device, movements deliberate, careful as though any haste might shatter the fragile calm of the moment. With her other hand, she pauses the projection. The ocean freezes mid-surge, droplets suspended in ghostly arcs, blue shadows stretching across the walls of her narrow apartment like veins of trapped light.

Selene taps the message.

Sienna’s voice fills the small living room -warm, familiar, but edged with concern. “Hey, Lene. I know you probably got a message from Etmes and ignored it. But this time… I think you should listen. He called me earlier, and he sounded different. Really different. Scared, maybe? I’ve never heard him like that before.”

The recording hesitates, a breath caught between words. When Sienna speaks again, her tone softens, intimate and almost pleading. “I’m worried about him. And I’m worried about you shutting everyone out. Just this once, could you try? For me? I love you, sis. Just… listen to what he has to say. Please. For me?”

The message ends. Silence folds back into the room, broken only by the faint hum of the frozen projector. Selene realizes her arms have tightened around Mrs. Zasy, drawing the cat closer against her chest like a shield. Mrs. Zasy presses her small head into Selene’s sternum, purring louder, attuned to the shift in her mood.

Statement: Sienna sad.

“Yeah.” Selene’s reply is softer than before, as if afraid the walls might hear. “My sister sounds worried.” Her gaze drops to the device in her hand, its light blinking patiently. Her thumb hovers over Etmes’s message, trembling faintly with hesitation. Her other hand continues to move across Mrs. Zasy’s fur, the repeated rhythm steadying her thoughts. “Maybe I should…”

She inhales slowly, holding the breath, then releases it as she touches the message.

Her father’s voice fills the small habitat. The sound stops her cold -so fragile, so unfamiliar in its weariness that her hand stills mid-stroke. Even Mrs. Zasy stills for a moment, as though sensing the weight of the words that tumble like boulders to her owner.

“Selene, I… I hope you’re listening to this. I’m not sure you will. Sienna said she’d try to push you -don’t be mad at her for that. I know I don’t deserve your attention after all these years.”

The words break slightly, his tone cracking to reveal emotion unguarded. Selene leans forward unconsciously, body tensing, her cat’s paws pressing against her chest with the shift in weight, offering strength against the tightness building in her chest.

“I got an offer today. An impressive job offer. Back on Trelleska.” A pause stretches, long and heavy. “For seventy years, I’ve been telling myself that if I could just get back there -if I could just finish what I started- then everything would be worth it. All the sacrifices. All the time away from you and Sienna. All the… damage I’ve done.”

Selene’s breath catches. This isn’t the Etmes she knows. This isn’t the distant, driven man who raised her while keeping half of himself locked away in data, research, and theoretical obsessions.

“But when they offered it to me today,” his voice trembles, resonating through the small apartment, “when they said I could go back… all I could think about was how empty it would be. How meaningless. Because I’d be going back as the same man who chose his work over his daughters. Who let his wife pit you against each other while he buried himself in data and investigations.”

Mrs. Zasy chirps from her place pressing against Selene’s chest, a bright sound that cuts through the heaviness. Query: Crying man? The cat is looking up with feline intensity.

And now Selene hears it clearly -the slight tremor threading through his words, the careful, measured pauses where he gathers himself, trying not to unravel.

“I’m a coward, Selene. I’ve been a coward for so long, I forgot how to be anything else. And I know… I know I don’t deserve forgiveness. I know I can’t undo the years of absence, the pain I caused, the way I let you down when you needed me most.”

The projection’s glow flickers across Selene’s face, rippling shadows painting her skin in moving blues and whites. She sits transfixed, rigid, with Mrs. Zasy settled warm and steady into her ribs. The cat’s purr continues to ground her as her surrogate father’s words press harder against the walls she’s built.

“But I had to try. I had to tell you that I see you. I see how strong you’ve become, how you’ve built a life for yourself despite everything we put you through. And I’m proud of you. I’m so proud of both of you.”

Selene’s eyes blur. She blinks rapidly, but the tears come anyway, softening the light of the holographic waves. These are the words she’s waited twenty-five years to hear. 

“I’m not asking for forgiveness and I’m not asking you to come to family dinners or pretend everything’s fine. I just… I needed you to know. Before I take this job -before I disappear into my work again -I need you to know that you matter more than any story I could ever chase. I know it sounds foolish. To chase the mysteries of families, while neglecting my own. You were right about that irony.”

Silence follows. Only his shaky breathing lingers in the quiet, a faint reminder of the man she thought untouchable.

Selene folds in on herself, curling smaller, her knees drawn higher as though she could protect the aching part of her chest. Mrs. Zasy nestles deeper into the space she makes, warm and insistent, filling the hollow with life.

“I have to go. The offer has a time limit. But Selene… whatever you choose, wherever you go, I want you to know that you’re enough. You’ve always been enough. The problem was never with you.”

And then the message ends. The apartment feels vacant now. Without his voice -with the still display of projected blue waves and their shadows -as if even the air has been sucked away. Selene sits unmoving for a long moment, save for her chest, breathing shallow and uneven. One hand clutches at her chest, the other burrows into her cat’s fur, grasping for something steady in the tide of emotion threatening to sweep her away.

Mrs. Zasy tilts her head, golden eyes reflecting the frozen surf. A gentle chirp: Query: Good man?

Selene stares down at the device in her hand. Her thumb hovers over the projection of the message, hesitation etched into every line of her posture. Eighteen years of security work have trained her to weigh risks, to evaluate threats before engaging with them even when the threat is only emotional.

Selene strokes the cat’s fur with trembling fingers, her breath shallow, her thoughts reeling. If there is anyone Selene can be honest with, it is Mrs. Zasy. “I don’t know, Zasy. I honestly don’t know.”

She remains curled into the corner of her couch, the holographic ocean suspended mid-motion all around them -waves frozen in perpetual rise, droplets caught like glass in the air. Suddenly, rather than a relaxing setting, the waves feel as though they are threatening to collapse in on her. To pull her down. To sink her into the depths of her own tears.

Her personal terminal hums softly on the low table before her, its glow casting more sterile light against the fluid blue of the ocean. Across the display, text waits in crisp, indifferent lines:

INHERITANCE TRANSFER REQUEST
PROPERTY: Residential Unit 847-Epsilon, Verilia-5 — The Athenaeum
PREVIOUS OWNER: Etmes Krynn
NEW OWNER: Selene Krynn
STATUS: In-Person Transfer Authorized

Her father’s penthouse. The words appear almost unreal, as they belong to another life. Another reality. Another version of her. Even with his voice still echoing in her ears -his confession, his promise, his weariness -she now holds legal claim to the childhood home in which she swore she would never set foot again. A place locked behind layers of bureaucratic gates, biodome clearances, and inter-network approvals. A place she once ran from as though escape could erase the weight of memory.

Mrs. Zasy chirps from her lap, breaking the silence. Query: New home?

“It… seems so, Zasy.” Selene’s voice is quiet and in awe. Almost uncertain, as her hand glides once more through the cat’s fur. “It’s strange, though. Most of these transfers are processed remotely. But this one… this one requires me to go in person.” A bitter smile creeps across her lips. She owns a luxurious property in a biodome she thought she would never see again, while she sits in a modest unit that has been her sanctuary for half her life. Some inheritances are gifts. Others are burdens shaped like keys.

“But once I’m back,” she adds, forcing warmth into her tone, “we can pack our things and move! Isn’t that… exciting?”

Mrs. Zasy blinks, her tail flicking once. Query: No.

Verilia-7: The Bastion — The Corridors

The Bastion’s corridors still in near silence, the deep-cycle hours stretching shadows across the steel and glass of its spine. Light panels glow faintly overhead, a pale mimicry of starlight, as if the station itself is holding its breath.

Kano strides through the stillness with furious energy, each step heavy and sharp, echoing off the walls. His mother’s words -her cold dismissal, her carefully veiled failures – still burn in his mind, replaying like a wound he cannot close. Rage rides close to the surface, hot and suffocating.

Behind him, boots sound in rhythm. Steady, familiar, and in step with his own. He doesn’t have to look.

“What do you want, Xeline?” His voice is clipped, harsh.

“Making sure you don’t punch someone.” Xeline’s reply is calm, controlled, a stillness against Kano’s storm. “Your knuckles are white.” He falls into step beside him, keeping pace without pressing too close. “You were right, you know. What you said to her.”

Kano shoots him a sharp look, eyes flashing. “What?”

“You were right,” Xeline repeats, gaze fixed straight ahead, voice even. “But you were also cruel. You tend to be both.”

“Don’t tell me you’re on her side.”

“I’m on the side of the victims,” Xeline answers simply, his words carrying the weight of conviction. “And in that room, I saw three of them.”

The words hit harder than any punch could have. Kano halts mid-stride, turning to face his friend, confusion and anger colliding in his expression. “Three? She’s an Admiral. She made the choices.”

“How old are you, Kano?”

Kano scowls, the question landing like an insult. “What kind of stupid—”

“How old?” Xeline’s gaze doesn’t waver, steady as a chronometer.

“Forty-seven.” The number snaps out of him, sharp and annoyed.

“Right.” Xeline resumes walking, his pace deliberate, forcing Kano to either follow or be left behind. The corridor’s dim lighting glints off steel plates and shadowed bulkheads, their footsteps echoing in the stillness. “And she’s an Admiral of a flagship. That takes what; thirty years of service at minimum? She’s younger than Messer, and he’s seventy. So she’s maybe sixty-six, sixty-eight?”

Kano’s brow furrows, frustration rising. “So?”

“So she had you when she was twenty. Maybe younger.” The math lands like a blow. Eighteen. A child bearing children. The number hangs in the air between them, heavy as gravity.

“I’ve been in her fleet for thirty-five years,” Xeline continues, his voice softer now, a murmur meant for the shadowed corridor rather than the world. “Every briefing, every report, every piece of station gossip. I have never once heard the words Admiral Waldermara without the Legion bound to them. Like a singularity that never let her go. Tell me, Kano -has there ever been a time when she wasn’t with him?”

Kano’s fury falters, draining into something colder. His mind claws backward, searching for an image of his mother unbound, standing alone. Free. He finds nothing. Only stillness where such a memory should be.

“No,” he bursts out suddenly, raw and defensive. “You don’t get to -she’s a mother, Xel. She’s had decades to figure this out. Decades to protect us. And she waited until now? When my sisters are already in danger—” His voice breaks. He swallows hard. “It’s too late. She’s trying to escape the prison when her children are already bleeding.”

Xeline stops and turns, facing him fully now. His expression is steady, gentle, but unyielding. “She has the tools now. She’s finally a fully realized adult. Rank and resources. With understanding—”

“She’s sixty-something!” Kano explodes, the words echoing off metal walls. “She’s been an adult for more than a decade!”

“And how long did it take you to stand up to her?” Xeline’s voice is low, precise. “You who had sisters to protect and every reason to rebel? And yet, you only found your voice now.”

Kano stumbles at that, anger cracking. “I’m not responsible for—”

“You’re not responsible for other people’s safety the way she is,” Xeline cuts in, his voice soft but relentless. “But you’re also not carrying the chains she’s worn since… maybe since she was a girl. Chains forged long before you were even born.”

Kano’s anger falters again, this time deeper, the blow landing where it hurts. Xeline knows his soft targets. He tries to resist, jaw tightening. “That’s different.”

“Is it?” Xeline asks, his voice dropping into something quieter, weightier. “I know what a bad parent looks like: the kind who chooses themselves. Every. Single. Time. Over their child. That’s not what I saw.”

The corridor falls into silence, broken only by the low thrum of the Bastion’s life-support systems. But beneath Xeline’s words, another truth lingers. The quiet pain of lived experience; the shadow of his own history left unspoken. It cuts deeper than logic or argument, slipping past Kano’s defenses.

Kano looks at his friend. Really looks. And for the first time tonight, he sees not just the calm crew officer beside him, but the ache behind his eyes. Kano’s anger softens, collapsing inward, leaving behind only a vast heaviness. But it’s shared. “You’re right.”

Xeline blinks, caught off guard by the honesty. “Wow.” A small, almost incredulous smile curves across his lips. “And how does that taste?”

Kano’s brow furrows, the word dragged from him like stone. “Like bile.”

An understanding bridges the chasm between them; a rope joining two lives with similar inheritances of questionable parentage, different in shape but similar in wound. Slowly, Kano’s posture shifts. The son recedes, the soldier returns. But where anger once burned, only a cold, steady resolve remains.

“We can talk about this later. For now, we need to move,” he says. His voice is clear now, sharpened by purpose. “My sister Selene needs our help.”

Xeline inclines his head in a single nod, his movements precise, almost ritual. “Right.” He falls into step beside Kano, their strides naturally aligning. “Where to?”

“The Stem.” Kano’s gaze fixes forward, unflinching. 

Their boots strike the deck in perfect rhythm, echoing through the corridor’s hollow silence -two soldiers moving as one, bound now by a hard-won understanding of mission, of duty, of family.

Bonir-4: The Bazaar — The Exit Gates

Selene stands before the transition portal, where Bonir’s massive biodome narrows into the stem-like artery connecting petals of the station. The space reflects the lotus-shaped design of the habitat: what had been a wide, bustling marketplace just meters behind her now funnels into something quieter, more intimate. The walls curve inward as if guiding toward inevitability.

The building and checkpoint hum with unseen systems. The air is more electric here, charged, the buzz of surveillance wafting down though nothing visible stares back. She shifts, tugging at the civilian clothes that cling strangely to skin -simple fabrics in muted blues and earthen tones. After nearly two decades wrapped in the invisible neutrality of her gray security uniform, this feels… exposed. Her fingers smooth the fabric again and again; restless. When was the last time she wore her own clothes beyond the privacy of her quarters? The colors are too bold, the softness of the cloth too indulgent, almost like a disguise.

The exit gates rise seamlessly from the biodome’s architecture, unobtrusive yet undeniable: a threshold. Beyond it, Selene glimpses the stark, clean geometry of the Stem’s interior. Neutral ground. A place she has not stepped into since she first arrived at the Atheneum as a child under UA standards, hand clutched to her mother’s, eyes wide both with awe and fear.

Now she stands alone. She is alone.

The AI’s presence hums around her, invisible but permeating. Sensors have already swept her body, cross-referenced her identity, pulled every detail of her service record, her movements, and her life. She knows it. It feels like her breath when she’s not paying attention. A looming presence of a machine that knows her better than most living beings.

“Hello,” she says to the security kiosk, her voice steadier than she feels. “This is Selene Krynn, requesting civilian transit authorization.”

A pause. Quiet systems work efficiently through the protocols. 

Stem Janus. Authorization granted. Welcome to Stem Transit, Citizen Krynn.
Decontamination process will begin in forty-seven seconds. Please step in.

One of the portal irises opens with barely more than a whisper of displaced air; a soft sigh that somehow carries the sound of finality.

Selene exhales once, deeply, then steps forward.

One of the gate seals behind Selene with a soft pneumatic hiss, the sound lingering in her ears longer than it should, like the breath of some unseen presence. She stands alone in what her younger memory had reduced to a plain white cylinder. But here, now, the chamber feels alive. The walls shimmer with an opalescent sheen that shifts as she watches. Colors slide like oil on water, as though the material itself is studying her.

Sensor nodes emerge like watchful eyes, tracking her from every angle. The chamber feels tighter than she remembered. Or perhaps she had simply been smaller, younger, when she last stood here. She raises her arms slightly, noting how much space she has before her fingertips would touch the glimmering walls.

Initiating biological decontamination protocol. Please remain stationary.

Mist descends, but this is no crude spray like the old systems of her youth. These droplets are impossibly fine, shimmering motes that dance around her skin as though directed by a hidden choreography. They cling briefly, then roll away in trails of silver, leaving behind a tingling awareness that feels less like cleansing and more like interrogation. She knows -without being told -that they are cataloguing everything: the salt of Bonir’s desert winds, the faint trace of iron in its recycled water, and even the microbial signatures of a biodome she has called home for eighteen years.

Through the semi-translucent walls, diagnostic panels flare to life. The diagrams race past too quickly for her to fully process, languages she doesn’t recognize, molecular chains, cellular breakdowns. She feels exposed; not just her body, but her history. The AI reads her like a book as if she were simply a collection of data. It’s comparing this moment against an archived scan from when she was twenty, full of rebellion, standing in this same place, certain she was ready to live beyond anyone’s command.

Foreign pathogen scan complete. No biological threats detected. Initiating atmospheric transition.

The air shifts around her. Pressure, humidity, oxygen ratios -details she shouldn’t notice, but she does. Each adjustment is surgical, precise. She draws a breath and feels the difference immediately: the clean, neutral composition of the Stem’s atmosphere, stripped of Bonir’s dry bite. The sensation is smoother, too clean; almost sterile.

Decontamination complete. Transit authorization confirmed. Welcome to Stem Central, Citizen Krynn.

The final gate slides open with no sound at all.

—

Selene steps through. And nearly forgets to breathe.

Her memory recalls only a large corridor, sterile and functional. Reality unfurls into something grander than her imagination could have held: a cathedral wrought not of stone and glass, but of mathematics and machinery. The central shaft stretches infinitely in both directions until distance swallows it. She tilts her head back, craning to glimpse where the ceiling vanishes into the vast lattice above, and still she cannot see the end.

The air hums—not with noise, but with resonance. Thousands of moving parts are so perfectly balanced that their vibrations harmonize into something like music, a soft thrumming that sinks into her bones.

Transit tubes spiral up the walls in colossal helices, so wide that her old Bonir apartment could vanish inside them without touching the sides. Pods rush along them in perfect silence: some gliding with passengers visible behind curved transparencies, others enormous cargo containers that dwarf entire neighborhoods. One passes close enough that she can see towering forest trees swaying gently in its artificial gravity -a Yrene shipment, she guesses. Another carries racks of crystalline structures that shimmer like frozen lightning -technology beyond her recognition.

The walls themselves pulse with rivers of light, holographic displays spilling data in unending cascades. Energy flux maps, atmospheric readings, fleet supply lines -information flashing in living color. A panel bursts briefly into clarity as it recognizes her attention: Bonir-4, population: 14,940. Crop yield:103% optimal. Atmospheric pressure: stable. Then the display vanishes into the torrent of other streams, as if to remind her that Bonir is just one petal among many.

She pauses, hand hovering against the rail, her throat tight. At thirty-eight, she is still considered young, barely past adolescence in UA longevity standards. But she knows she is old enough now to recognize what her twenty-year-old self had missed. Back then, this place had felt like authority, like control, something to rebel against. Now it feels like scale, like perspective. Her dome was a single petal on a lotus. This -this is the stem.

Where are you traveling today, Citizen Krynn?

The voice arrives without warning. It is not broadcast from speakers but woven into the very walls, each syllable vibrating with crystalline clarity. It is neither mechanical nor human, but something in between -familiar in tone, yet younger, more precise than EDI’s weighty presence.

Selene clears her throat. “Yes, I… I’m heading to Verilia-5. Also known as…”

The Athenaeum. Understood. Transit to Tier 3 Ring approaching Platform 28.

She exhales, her hand brushing against the rail for balance. “Thank you… Janus.”

My pleasure, Citizen Krynn.

The words linger, not vanishing like sound should, but resonating—etched into the Stem itself.

The Transit Pod

The pod that arrives at Platform twenty-eight is nothing like the cramped transport capsules from her past. What once felt like a tight cattle car is now an elegant conveyance. The arriving capsule extends a gangway that lowers to her step, its height and angle adjusting with uncanny precision to match her stride. Inside, the seat molds itself around her frame with quiet intelligence, supporting her posture without pressure. Transparent panels curve along the walls, offering uninterrupted views of the Stem’s impossible architecture as the pod glides into motion.

Beyond the glass, energy conduits spiral through the shaft like veins of light, each one thick as a subway tunnel, channeling power harvested from the petals’ rotational arrays. Bracing struts -monolithic and seamless -anchor into the Stem’s spine, their scale so vast she can barely measure them. Selene realizes her younger self had never truly looked. At twenty, she’d been too wrapped in escape, too intent on severing ties, to see the living piece of engineering around her. Now, it overwhelms her.

The acceleration is smooth, seamless -more sensation than force -yet the speed is staggering. Through intersecting tubes, she glimpses other travelers: a family, children with wide eyes and palms pressed to the glass; engineers in environmental suits riding toward the petals’ maintenance hatches; and couriers, their secure cases pulsing with encrypted light. Each pod moves in harmony, strands of a vast, ordered flow.

Approaching Tier 3 Ring. Estimated arrival: fifty-three seconds.

The voice is warm, measured exactly to her stress index. Even its cadence feels personal, Janus adapting to her like her own reflection.

The ring comes into view: a nexus of rotational joints and flexible conduits that swallow entire city-blocks. As her pod angles toward the docking aperture, Selene feels her breath catch -not from fear, but recognition. The structures are not just maintained. They are constantly being refined. Every weld, every joint, every kilometer of conduit bears the mark of iteration.

The Stem hasn’t simply endured the decades of her absence. It has grown.

As the transit pod curves toward Tier 3, Selene leans into the transparent wall, her breath misting faintly against the cool surface. Through the Stem’s lattice of conduits and struts, the Community Ring unfurls before her like a memory half-recalled -familiar yet impossibly changed.

The pod angles into the transfer station, and the first of the biodome access gates comes into view. Each gate projects a curated vision of its domain, not raw transparency but carefully framed windows, tailored to impress and inform.

Verilia-4 blooms across the projection wall, its arboreal cities rising like living architecture -massive trees hollowed and inhabited, bridges of woven light stretching from canopy to canopy. She watches children dart through the famous sky-gardens, their laughter somehow captured in the display, couples strolling hand-in-hand beneath bioluminescent blossoms that sway in artificial winds. Massive billboards scrolls with warm invitation: Cultural Exchange Programs Available — Visitor Permits: Standard Processing.

The next gates, by contrast, are sober, even austere.

Photheus-2 displays endless hydroponic galleries and agriculture under white-spectrum lamps. Information restraint, yet functional, pristine, and sterile. Its billboard reads: Station-Wide Food Production. Authorized Personnel Only. Transit Permits: Sponsor Colony Verification Required.

Photheus-3 follows suit -its projection a storm laboratory where great pressure domes churn with simulated weather systems, lightning rippling across engineered skies. The panel offers no welcome, only limits: Meteorological Research Facility — Photheus Citizens and Approved Researchers Only.

Verilia maintains the most open transit policies in the Community Ring.

Janus offers, its tone somewhere between commentary and reassurance, as though reading not only her attention but her hesitation.

A soft chime follows, the pod gliding into its final arc.

Welcome to the Community Ring, Citizen Krynn. The Athenaeum awaits you at the gate. I trust your transit through the Stem has been… illuminating.

The voice lingers for a fraction longer than protocol requires -like an old friend measuring her silence.

The Athenaeum Terminal

The transit pod doors part with a whisper of pressurized air, and Selene steps onto the platform. The Tier 3 transfer station stretches before her in a gentle, sweeping curve of the Stem, servicing the Community Ring’s five biodomes. The space feels at once familiar and astonishingly new, like returning to a childhood home rebuilt by architects with visions far grander than memory could hold.

The walkway toward the Athenaeum gate is wider than she recalls, designed for the constant ebb of students, researchers, and families moving between the educational biodome and the wider Community Ring. Embedded lighting adjusts automatically to her pace, casting warm pools along the polished floor, and sensors modulate brightness and color to maintain comfort for every pedestrian. The air hums faintly with filtered ventilation and subtle energy currents -a quiet background pulse that marks the life of the station.

Ahead, the Athenaeum gate rises larger than any other she’s seen. Its holographic projection displays soaring libraries and lecture halls she remembers, now enhanced with floating collaborative spaces connected by luminous bridges of light. Students move through the projection as if through thought itself: some alone, absorbed in data streams and tablets, others clustered in animated discussion circles, the digital aura of their conversations shimmering around them.

Beside the gate, an information panel glows with welcoming text: “Athenaeum Educational Complex — Current Seminars: Quantum Biology, Verilian Colonial History, Stellar Navigation — Visitor Services Available.”

Selene approaches the AI terminal, sleek and refined, its surface shimmering to life at her presence. It recognizes her biometric signature before she speaks. The voice that issues from it is warmer than Janus’s, almost human in cadence—pedagogical, measured, and reassuring.

“Citizen Krynn,” the terminal intones. “This is Elystra, your presence has been logged. How may the Athenaeum assist you today?”

The familiar weight of bureaucracy settles on her shoulders, yet it feels lighter than ever. Accessing services, navigating protocols -everything has been refined, streamlined, even humanized in a way that softens the invisible strictures she remembers from youth.

“H-Hi, Elystra. I’m…” her throat dry. “I’m here regarding an inheritance transfer protocol,” she says, voice steadier than she feels. “Arrangements were made through your archives system.”

The terminal’s surface flows with gentle patterns, scanning, cross-referencing, processing. Selene lets her gaze drift past it, toward the gate itself, wondering what changes await beyond, and whether some fragment of her past is finally ready to merge with her future.

Her father’s penthouse -for almost twenty years she has spent in Bonir, and now she inherits the home she once fled. The irony presses on her: leaving the security job, the invisible gray uniform, the desert’s adopted austerity, to return to the educational biodome that once formed the frame of her youth.

I have located it. Kindly, Citizen Krynn, place your palm on the scanner.

She places her palm on the biometric scanner. Property deeds, access codes, residential registrations -all flow seamlessly through the Athenaeum’s AI systems, instant and precise.

Transfer complete. Note: I can see you have a registered companion. Companion animal relocation requires separate authorization. Would you like to initiate that process?

“Yes. Her name is Mrs. Zasy,” she responds, her voice soft but firm, imagining the small golden eyes she will bring back through the corridors she has not walked in decades.

Form Submitted. Biological clearance review will take seventy-two hours.

Even her cat needs bureaucratic approval to cross between worlds. Some things never change under the Unity Accord.

Is there anything further I can assist you with today, citizen Krynn?

“No, thank you… Elyth. That will be all.” 

It’s good to see you again, may your day unfold with clarity and purpose, citizen Krynn. 

—

Returning to Tier 2, Selene feels a rare smile tug at her lips, the first genuine lift in months. The inheritance transfer rests in her hands like more than paper -legal documents, yes, but also a key to possibilities she’d barely dared imagine. Her father’s penthouse in the Athenaeum isn’t just larger than her Bonir quarters; it comes with access to research libraries, cultural exchange programs, even a small, bio-integrated garden where Mrs. Zasy could roam safely. She pictures the little black cat chasing shafts of sunlight streaming from the biodome’s solar collectors, maybe even encountering other Athenaeum felines she’d heard about in stories.

For once, the Unity Accord’s bureaucracy, usually an endless labyrinth of permissions and forms, works efficiently. Seventy-two hours for Mrs. Zasy’s biological clearance is negligible -she’s waited far longer for replacement parts for security gear. The delay gives her time to pack carefully, maybe even explore some of the Athenaeum’s public spaces she remembers: virtual reality archives, collaborative learning pods, and the floating gardens where students debated philosophy and quantum mechanics beneath artificial stars. For the first time since hearing her father’s voice, something lighter than resignation blooms in her chest. Hope, maybe. Or at least the possibility.

She begins cataloging what to pack: Mrs. Zasy’s favorite blanket, toys, the cat tree, a few precious books, and a small succulent that somehow thrived in Bonir’s artificial climate. The plant will flourish under the Athenaeum’s bio-integrated systems. Everything will be brighter there. More alive. She quickens her pace toward the Gateway Ring, eager to share the news with Mrs. Zasy and begin their new life in a place where curiosity and growth are celebrated, not merely tolerated.

The future feels luminous.

She approaches the familiar gate -the same threshold she crossed hours ago. Her old home is just beyond it: modest quarters, a few personal belongings, and her black cat—the only constant in this maze of biodomes and protocols.

Her palm presses against the biometric scanner, expecting the familiar green glow and soft chime of acceptance.

Instead, harsh red floods the device. An alarm shrieks -a tone sharp, final, unyielding.

Access Denied.

Selene freezes, staring at the red display, her mind scrambling to make sense. She withdraws her hand as if burned, then presses it back down. Perhaps the reader is malfunctioning. Perhaps-

Citizen Selene Krynn, your primary assignment and residency have been transferred to Photheus-2, effective immediately. Your previous Bonir-4 credentials are inactive. Please proceed to the pods and return to the Tier 3 Ring.

The words strike like decompression -sudden, violent, wrenching her breath away. She staggers back, eyes locked on the unforgiving red glow.

“What?” Her whisper is fragile, incredulous. “No… that’s… impossible. I never—”

She lunges, palm slapping the scanner harder. The red light endures, patient, absolute.

“Janu, Janus, review my file, please.” Her voice rises, cracking with panic. “There’s an error. I never accepted any transfer to Photheus. I just went to the Atheneum, that’s it!”

There is no error. Acceptance confirmed at 13:15 UATSC. Please proceed to the pods. Return to the Tier 3 Ring.

Selene staggers again, a shockwave of disbelief radiating through her chest. The platform feels suddenly too small, the walls too close. Everything she had counted on -the inheritance, the Athenaeum, the small bright hope of a future with Mrs. Zasy -has been ripped away in a single, impersonal declaration.

“No, Janus. That’s impossible.”

The pods remain, awaiting them. The Tier 3 Ring calls. And she has no choice but to move.

The AI repeats its response with the same neutral precision it uses for weather updates or meal schedules. To the system, this is routine. To Selene, it’s the collapse of everything she’s built. Everything she wants.

She tries the scanner again, hand trembling. Red flares bloom across the surface, cold and unyielding. She steps back, forcing ragged breaths to steady herself, and checks the obvious failures first: biometric readings, scanner status, mechanical seals. All normal. All functional. This isn’t a malfunction.

“No, no, no,” she breathes, pressing both palms against the barrier, willing it with sheer force. “My family is in there. My things… everything I own…”

The corridor tilts beneath her feet, walls closing in with each shallow inhale. Behind that gate. Everything. Her security uniform is still damp from yesterday’s shift, crooked on the closet hook. The three books she’s read until the pages are soft. Her little succulent, improbably green in Bonir’s recycled air, perched in its makeshift pot on the windowsill. And Mrs. Zasy, probably pressed against the door, ears alert, waiting for her familiar footsteps.

Her chest constricts. The scanner’s red glow sears into her vision as she presses harder, hoping to force it to remember her, to see her. The metal is cold, indifferent.

Citizen Krynn, access is denied. Please proceed to the pods.

“No—no, this is—” Her words are choked out. Vision tunnels. The corridor stretches endlessly in both directions, all identical walls and recycled air, no corners to hide in, nowhere to run. “Please… I live here. My cat. She’s waiting for me! I live here.”

Her voice cracks. Copper floods her mouth; she tastes it, realizes she’s bitten her tongue. Her hands shake, pressing the scanner again, and again. Each failure makes the walls feel smaller, the air thinner, the floor tilting just enough to make her sway.

“There’s been a mistake,” she whispers, then louder, “There’s been a mistake!” Her training fires instinctively: report the malfunction, get it fixed, someone from security will come. They have to. It’s a system error, a glitch.

Footsteps echo; rapid and deliberate. Relief flares through her, bright and hot. Finally. Someone to fix it. Someone to override the system. She can go home. To Mrs. Zasy, to her little plant, and to her life.

But before her mind catches up, her body responds: shoulders square, weight shifting to the balls of her feet, eyes scanning exit routes, cataloging cover. Security protocols don’t switch off just because she’s in civilian clothes.

“Kano?” The name slips out with concern, even as her stance postures in defense against him -threat or not.

And just like that, hope dies in her eyes.