The ceiling of the Royal HQ corridor blurred past as the gurney rattled over the concrete floors. Ryan Mitchell stared blankly upward, the sterile lights blinking like distant, dying stars. During the final chaotic explosion of the black hole, he had been thrown nearly fifty meters. As one of the ten original logistics workers chosen for the Worm Nectar program, he possessed a physical resilience that would have been impossible for a human a year ago. His body was a patchwork of deep lacerations and internal bruising, but his heart beat with a steady, rhythmic thrum.
He remembered the faces of the other nine. They were guys he had shared coffee with, men who had joked about the "easy life" of moving crates while the vanguard did the heavy lifting. They were all gone.
