[This simulation has ended. Duration: thirty days.]
[This simulation offers retainable rewards.]
[1. Wade's Bolt Pistol (Common Quality)]
Note: "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."
[2. Bedtime Story: The Path to Tech-Mastery (Complete Collection)]
Note: "Surely this is just a legend... right?"
[3. Zoya's Hoverbike (Relic Quality)]
Note: "Big guy... please live well."
[This simulation exceeded 24 hours. Simulator cooldown penalty is not waived.]
[Cooldown time: 30 hours]
[Currently available cooldown reduction: 449 hours]
[Consume cooldown reduction time?]
[Cooldown reduction not consumed. Simulator entering natural cooldown (can be overridden at any time).]
The simulation ended.
Nolan's eyes remained open, fixed on the glowing text of the simulator interface. He stared at those words for what felt like an eternity, though only minutes passed.
Finally, he spoke, his voice barely above a whisper.
"This stupid simulator."
He couldn't truly imagine what it had been like. Not really. The him in the simulation, bleeding out on broken pavement, holding a dying girl while a monster wearing his friend's face approached. What had those final moments felt like?
He was outside it all, separated by the barrier between reality and simulation. He couldn't truly empathize with something he hadn't experienced.
But he understood, on some level he didn't want to examine too closely, that in that moment his simulated self had been drowning in despair. The weight of it must have been crushing, suffocating, absolute.
His gaze drifted across the reward options. Wade's bolt pistol held his attention for a moment, a weapon carried by a man who'd given everything to buy time for strangers.
Then his eyes fell on the third option.
Zoya's hoverbike.
His jaw tightened. He drew a slow, deliberate breath through his nose.
Then, without hesitation, he selected the last reward.
Metal struck metal with a sharp, ringing clang.
Before him, materializing from nothing, appeared a hoverbike. Its shell was painted a light blue, the color of summer skies. The machine was massive, easily half a ton of Imperial engineering.
Nolan rose slowly from where he'd been sitting. He approached the bike as if it were something fragile, something sacred. His palm touched the metal shell, and he was struck by how cold it felt against his skin.
Something stirred deep in his chest. Emotions he couldn't name, rising and falling like waves against a shore. They threatened to pull him under.
In his mind's eye, the simulator's text transformed. It was no longer just dry narration, clinical descriptions of events that never happened. It became real. Solid. True.
Somewhere in the vast Warhammer universe, a human girl named Zoya had ridden this very bike. She'd raced through green fields, purple fruits hanging heavy in the air around her. The wind had streamed through her short hair. A yellow flower tucked behind her ear had bobbed with each bump in the terrain. And she had laughed, bright and free and unafraid.
That version of her was gone now. Dead before she could truly begin to live.
Nolan blinked, pulling himself back to the present.
Something caught his eye. A small object dangled from the hoverbike's handlebars, hanging on a thin cord.
Windproof goggles.
The kind Zoya had liked to wear pushed up into her hair when she wasn't riding.
Nolan's expression became grave. He reached out with careful fingers and lifted the goggles free. He held them up, intending only to examine them, to see if they'd fit.
Then he noticed something etched into the inside of one lens. Fresh scratches, deliberate marks forming letters.
The writing was in High Gothic, the formal language of the Imperium. Nolan shouldn't be able to read it. He'd never studied it, never even seen it before outside the simulator.
But his mind churned, processing, translating without his conscious input. Knowledge bleeding through from the simulation, perhaps. Or something else entirely.
The words resolved themselves into meaning.
"Emperor above, I think I've met a big guy that I like."
Nolan's face went rigid.
An emotion he couldn't control, couldn't suppress, rose from somewhere deep in his throat. It tightened his chest, burned behind his eyes, threatened to choke him.
He gasped several sharp breaths, fighting it back through sheer force of will.
Then he set the goggles down with trembling hands, nearly dropping them in his haste.
He turned and bolted from the lounge.
In the brightly lit main hall of the base, David crouched over a pile of building materials. The automaton had been carefully polishing and modifying components, his metal hands surprisingly deft.
His head swiveled at the sound of running footsteps. Blue optical lenses flickered with what might have been confusion as he watched Nolan sprint past.
David opened his vocal synthesizer, preparing to offer a friendly greeting. Building positive relations with the Omnissiah was, after all, a priority.
But Nolan was already gone, disappearing up the stairs without a backward glance.
David turned his metal head back to his work. He stared at the half-finished materials for a moment, processors whirring quietly.
"Perhaps the great Omnissiah forgot to turn off the stove in his residence," he mused aloud. "Yes. Ninety percent probability."
Nolan's expression had gone completely blank as he emerged from the basement, moving on autopilot.
He didn't go up to his apartment. Didn't even pause to consider it.
Instead, he pushed through the building's front entrance and out into the Manhattan night.
The darkness suited him just fine. The neon glow of streetlights painted everything in harsh colors, sharp enough to cut.
Nolan began to run.
Not jogging. Not a casual pace. A full sprint, his long legs eating up pavement with each stride.
He was trying to outrun something. Maybe the emotions threatening to overwhelm him. Maybe the weight of knowing that somewhere, in some reality the simulator had shown him, people had lived and suffered and died.
Or maybe he was just trying to feel something else. Anything else. Physical exhaustion to replace the ache in his chest.
His heavy footsteps echoed through the streets. He disturbed sleeping homeless people curled in doorways, startled drunk pedestrians stumbling home from bars. Small-time criminals scattered like cockroaches when light hits them, assuming this running giant was either crazy or dangerous.
A few sober passersby reached for their phones, instinctively wanting to record this strange sight.
Every phone screen went black. Frozen. Dead.
The interference field surrounding Nolan wasn't something he was doing consciously. It simply happened, a side effect of whatever changes the simulator had wrought in him.
By the time he'd passed out of sight, the phones flickered back to life as if nothing had happened.
Thirty minutes later, Nolan's chest was heaving. His breathing had become ragged, uneven. Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead and soaked through his shirt.
He slowed, then stopped, hands on his knees as he gulped air.
His eyes were unfocused, glazed. He looked around at unfamiliar streets, unfamiliar buildings.
Where the hell was he?
He straightened slowly, turning in a circle. Using memory and architectural styles, he pieced together his location.
He'd run from Chinatown in the south all the way to Harlem in the north. He'd crossed most of Manhattan without even realizing it.
A laugh escaped him, short and sharp. He shook his head at his own foolishness, at the absurdity of running away from emotions like a child afraid of the dark.
A breeze picked up, cutting through his sweat-soaked clothes and cooling his overheated skin. It felt good. Cleared his head. Blew away some of the heaviness that had been crushing him.
Nolan turned and began walking home, a small smile on his face.
He chose a shortcut through an alley, a route he'd taken dozens of times before. It would cut ten minutes off his walk.
But a few steps in, he froze.
Under the dim, flickering streetlight that barely illuminated the alley, a middle-aged man was beating a young woman.
The man wore a purple suit, expensive-looking even in the poor light. His face was twisted with rage as his fists and feet struck the girl again and again.
The girl was maybe in her late teens or early twenties. Black hair. Yellow dress. She stood there and took it, her face completely expressionless. She didn't dodge, didn't try to protect herself, didn't cry out.
It was like watching someone beat a mannequin.
The man's voice echoed off the alley walls, angry and mocking.
"My dear Jessica, do you think you can resist me? Let me tell you... it's wishful thinking! Completely impossible!"
Nolan's frown deepened. His mouth twitched with distaste.
He should turn around. Take a different route. This wasn't his problem. He wasn't a superhero, wasn't some white knight who swooped in to stop every crime he witnessed.
And after what he'd just been through, emotionally speaking, he had exactly zero desire to get involved in someone else's domestic violence situation.
He started to turn away.
Then the man's voice cut through the night again, and this time the words were aimed at him.
"Well, well! What's this? A qualified human punching bag? How convenient!" The man's grin was visible even in the poor light. He turned his attention to the girl, gesturing toward Nolan with exaggerated enthusiasm. "Jessica... kill him for me!"