When at last he stumbled out into the trade plaza of the Gate Node City, days later, he was a ghost with a name. The Gate Node rose above the port like an altar to passage, basalt ribs threaded with sigil-plates and corporate servos, kiosks flickering holo-ads for transit bonds and insurance. People moved in the arch's shadow, smugglers, merchants, mercs, people with ledger-lines and pockets of secrets.
Only people could pass through the Node. Unlike ports where ships arrived and departed, the Gate Node resembled an immense airport terminal, designed for the movement of bodies and identities rather than vessels. Every traveler was assigned to a gate upon purchase of passage. Some gates were small and intimate, fit only for a family or a handful of individuals. Others were vast halls, capable of transferring entire squads, expeditions, or delegations. Two of the largest gates connected directly to the capitals of major worlds, ensuring constant streams of commerce, politics, and migration. Beyond these were dozens of smaller gates, each reaching to remote nodes scattered across the far sectors, feeding a lattice of trade and movement that bound the known systems together.
Corporate soldiers in exoskeleton armor patrolled the concourses with cold efficiency. They were not here to protect lives but to protect revenue, enforcing contracts and ensuring that no one crossed without the proper bonds. Their armor gleamed under the holo-lights, machinery wrapped around flesh, each soldier a reminder that the Gate Node was not neutral ground but corporate ground.
At the kiosk, a composite face unfurled and the Gate AI's voice poured out of speakers, neutral, engineered to normalize passage into data."Welcome to Node Zero-Seven," it intoned. "Transit services online. Please present identification and destination. Note: mixed-lineage entries require additional verification and surcharge."
A man in a TRANSIT REGULATOR vest leaned in the kiosk's shade, a human bored and augmented. His ocular HUD flicked over Ryn with the economy of someone who had seen too many bodies and too many scams.
Ryn stepped into the sensor arc. The kiosk hummed, a scanner mapping biometric mesh, blood chemistry, gait cadence. He presented the chipped transit token and the small obsidian shard his father had pressed into his palm. His hand trembled slightly; his training kept it steady.
The kiosk's scanners read the identification card, producing a crisp digital display:
IDENTIFICATION CARD READOUT:Full Name: Ryn Thalos-MorvayneGender: MaleAge: 15Race: Human - Dark Elf Mixed BloodlineLineage Alert: Clan Morvayne flagged – Legacy RegistryStatus: Juvenile flagged, additional verification required
"Biometric tag detected. Please place transit chip and present payment method," the Gate AI said.
The guard swept a handheld scanner over the scar on Ryn's forearm, an exercise nick from drills long practiced. An amber flag blinked. "Scanner flagged: UNVERIFIED KIN-LINK. Mixed-lineage parameter triggered," he said flatly.
"Additional verification required. Mixed-lineage surcharge applies. Please authorize payment," the AI chimed.
Ryn did what he had been taught to do under stress. He fed the code from his mother's hidden holo-wallet. The ledger accepted the micro-transaction. Credits rolled into the Gate AI's account with the quiet hum of corporate accounting. The guard watched the numbers register, then leaned in with a humanism rough around the edges.
"You keep to the rules," he said. "Don't flash the pass. Move when the gate opens. People try to contest mixed-lineage tokens, avoid giving them reason."
"Understood," Ryn said. The reply was tight, practiced.
The kiosk printed a thin strip with micro-ink coordinates. The AI's voice chirped, "Final biometric verification: lineage signature validated. Coordinate lock: NRT-Δ4-11. Transit window opening. Please proceed into arch."
The guard pressed the strip into Ryn's palm like a judge's stamp. "Neroth," he muttered. "Caverns. Old blood-law. Watch your corners."
Ryn slipped the strip into his pocket, feeling the warm micro-ink through the paper. He stepped into the basalt ring with the slow, rehearsed movements of someone schooled in exits. The arch throbbed; sigils along its curve pulsed teal, amber, then a slow sigil blue, a rhythm older than its corporate chassis. The field pressed like a hand across his chest.
Ryn stepped through the arch and the world fractured around him. Light folded into itself, stretching and twisting like molten glass. The basalt ribs of the gate pulsed beneath his touch, sigils bleeding color across the field of energy. Sound fractured, then vanished. The wind and dust of the plaza, the distant hum of engines, the voices of merchants and regulators, all dissolved into a vacuum of motion and light.
He felt weightless, as if the drills in his blood had been rewritten into the rhythm of the gate itself. Stars curved and bled into streaks of silver and teal. He could smell ozone, feel the hum of nanites along his armguard, taste the metallic tang of power flowing across the field. The horizon twisted into impossible angles, time folding as he was carried across distances that should have taken days in an instant.
When the warp released him, the city and ground of the planet fell away. He drifted in the void above a blackened sphere, moons like scattered gems hovering in the cold dark. The drills his parents had taught him steadied his hands and his breath. He folded his shoulders and moved, a lone figure emerging from the gate's impossible calculus, ready to meet whatever lay beyond.
He could not have known the argument that would happen above, the convoy of blacked walkers and NorexCorp fatigue stepping into the plaza, the commander's clipped voice, the laminated clearances, the terse exchange with the kiosk's regulator. He had no ledger to read that night; he had only the dark and the steady beat of his breath.
The convoy commander set a face like erasure and walked straight to the console. "Transit Regulator," he said, and laid a laminated override on the kiosk, an authorization hash with corporate seals. "We request log access and verification for a subject that left Node Zero-Seven within the last cycle. Clearance: ORV-HT-9. Purpose: retrieval and coordinate confirmation."
The kiosk blinked and the TRANSIT REGULATOR's aug-lenses flared. "Clearance looks authentic," he said slowly. "But direct node-level override requires gateway keys. What's your—"
"Relay the token," the commander cut in. "We will not hide this in paperwork. The subject's lineage is flagged under ORV Contract. We request confirmation and intercept if necessary." He smiled without warmth. "Show us the exit coordinate and we will proceed."
The guard hesitated. Corporate procedure hung in the air like ash. He keyed the transmitted token. The kiosk printed the ledger trail and spat out the single entry, NRT-Δ4-11, the coordinate the commander wanted. The lieutenant's visor glinted as he read the micro-ink stripe.
"Coordinate confirmed," the commander said. His voice was small, bureaucratic, decisive. "We need relay confirmation. Containment protocol requested."
The kiosk answered with the coolness of a system that nothing shook. Local override requires node-level authorization and Consortium gateway key. The guard did what he could, flag the ledger, note inquiry, but could not force a recall. His hand hovered over the manual override and then retreated.
"I can log it and forward a retrieval request," he said. "But external recall needs a sanctioned warrant and gateway keys. We cannot force a Neroth relay without Consortium backchannel. I can only file and forward."
The commander's mouth thinned. He tapped the clearance into his sleeve and said what had to be said in corporate tones. "We file: subject evaded custody. We will not escalate here. This node's jurisdiction is hardened. We will not mention household casualties in the report. That is not our item."
"Understood," the lieutenant said with a twitch of impatience. "We walk then?"
"We walk," the commander answered. He signaled the convoy; the walkers rolled away and the crowd resumed its commerce like a tide rearranging around a reef. The guard pocketed the printed stripe and submitted his report in the log-room, careful and bureaucratic.
Ryn had no knowledge of their exchange. He had only felt the warp, the archival press of travel, and the metallic exhale of the arch. He was carried through space above a blackened world, his body steady, drills in his blood guiding each motion. The warp gate's pulse faded into the void, leaving Ryn suspended between worlds, senses alert, body steady, heart calm.
Far beyond the reach of the transit nodes, an AI monitored the warp currents aboard the frigate, its sensors sweeping the planet below. Its digital voice was crisp, mechanical, yet threaded with purpose."Subject Ryn Thalos-Morvayne has exited planetary grid. Status: escaped," it reported to the Cabal.
In a shadowed chamber, the mysterious Cabal manager leaned back, fingers steepled, eyes narrowing at the display. The name Ryn Thalos-Morvayne flickered across a holographic interface. He mused aloud, a quiet edge to his voice, "It is difficult to kill him in the Dark Elf world but not impossible."
He tapped the console with deliberate patience. "Contact our assets. Priority target."
The AI confirmed with a sharp tone. "Acknowledged. Orders relayed."
The frigate engaged its warp gate and slipped silently into the currents of the void, carrying Ryn onward through the silent expanse between worlds.
Deep within Neroth, the Umbral Dominion stirred. Caverns carved from basalt stretched into endless tunnels, glowing faintly with bioluminescent glyphs and memory-light. In a shadowed chamber, a Dark Elf asset received the mission target. The holo-display flickered, revealing only the name and lineage: Ryn Thalos-Morvayne, clan Morvayne flagged – legacy registry.
The elf's expression was calm, precise, eyes narrowing at the glyphs. He murmured, voice low and deliberate:"Morvayne…"
The chamber fell silent, shadows pooling in rhythm with his controlled breath. Outside, Neroth's cavern-world held its quiet watch, unaware of the shadowed path now tracing a boy whose bloodline marked him for attention.