First comes the pain.
Not sharp.
Dull. Heavy.
As if someone used my head as an experimental drum… and forgot to include the recovery instructions.
I don't move.
For several seconds I just lie there and breathe.
That part is important.
When pain feels like this, the first rule is simple: don't jerk around.
First you check what's still working.
Breathing—present.
Pulse—present.
Consciousness… unstable, but operational.
Good enough to stay alive.
Then the sound arrives.
A distant hum.
Deep. Slow.
As if somewhere nearby the heart of a star is beating.
I open my eyes.
At first the world is blurred.
Spots of light.
Shadows.
Movement.
Where—
The thought snaps in half.
I blink.
Again.
Contours slowly gather themselves, like a system rebooting after a crash.
And over this blurred world a face leans down toward me.
Angelic.
Perfect.
Too perfect.
I have just enough time to think:
That's a bad sign.
And the next second—
smack.
A palm hits my cheek.
Not hard.
But hard enough to snap reality fully back into place.
"Axiom-126. Wake up."
The voice is calm.
No irritation.
No emotion.
A command.
For several seconds I simply stare at him.
Then I slowly run my tongue along my teeth.
All still there.
Good.
"Who…" I begin.
The thought jams.
I look at his face again.
Pale skin.
Calm eyes.
A faint, almost friendly smile.
And memory returns.
Not gradually.
All at once.
Like an electric shock.
The ship.
Nexus Prime.
The black hole.
And him.
The material incarnation of the Dark Mind.
"Oh…" I exhale.
My head still rings, but the picture of the world is already coming back together.
I nod slowly to myself.
"Excellent."
He looks at me.
"Excellent?"
Carefully I test my neck. Turn my head a few degrees.
It works.
"Yes," I say. "Waking up next to a cosmic god. Consistency is the mark of professionalism."
He watches me.
Like a doctor observing a patient who's reacting far too calmly to the diagnosis.
"Axiom-126," he says. "You have finally decided to return."
I blink.
Slowly.
My head still hums, but thoughts are already forming an orderly line.
"I always return," I mutter. "Sometimes… just through a black hole."
He tilts his head slightly.
As if trying to determine whether that was a joke or a symptom.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure myself.
"Sit down," he says.
I open my mouth to ask why, but I don't get the chance.
A chair beside me lifts off the floor.
No flashes.
No dramatic effects.
It simply rises… and calmly floats toward me.
I stare at it for several seconds.
Then sigh.
"Of course. Flying furniture. Why not."
The chair gently catches my body.
Too gently.
I sink into it and feel my muscles begin to relax.
Too quickly.
Too deeply.
I tense slightly.
Check my fingers.
They move.
Good.
"Hey…" I say. "Did you lace this thing with sedatives or something?"
"Nothing but comfort," the angel replies.
I nod slowly.
"Comfort usually comes right before something unpleasant."
My vision finally focuses.
And I see the panorama.
Space opens before me.
The black hole.
Gigantic.
The accretion disk spins around it like a burning hurricane.
Plasma erupts from the poles.
A quasar blasts into the void.
The light is so intense it looks like space itself is on fire.
I stare at it for several seconds.
Just breathing.
Slowly.
Then I exhale.
"Funny."
The angel looks at me.
"Funny?"
"Yeah."
I shrug slightly.
"Usually when people wake up, they see a ceiling."
I nod toward the viewport.
"I wake up to a black hole. That's progress."
He smiles.
Slightly.
But his eyes remain cold.
"I studied the matrices inside your body," he says. "And upgraded them for my purposes."
I blink.
"What matrices?"
And in the same instant memory detonates.
The Ironheart Dyson sphere.
The neutron star.
The colossal structure surrounding it.
Light.
Energy.
And Kelit.
A post-biological being.
Her voice.
Matrices.
Nanobots.
The network.
Another flash.
Liara.
My squad.
Laughter.
Someone telling a stupid joke.
Someone arguing over ration packs.
And then—
screams.
Fire.
Blood.
Emptiness.
I lean forward.
My fists clench by themselves.
For a second a very simple thought appears:
stand up and hit him.
But that would be a terrible idea.
A truly terrible idea.
So I simply look at him.
"You…" I say.
My voice is a little hoarse.
"You killed them."
The angel looks at me calmly.
Like a scientist observing an interesting specimen.
"Axiom-126," he says softly. "Let's not start from the beginning again."
He takes a step closer.
"You serve me."
I exhale slowly.
The anger is there.
But it isn't controlling my hands.
Not yet.
"Really?" I rasp. "I must've missed that career transition."
He smiles faintly.
"Although…" he adds, "I was never able to fully subjugate your will."
A pause.
He studies me with something close to curiosity.
"You are a unique creation."
I nod.
"Yes. I usually hear that right before someone starts the experiments."
"And I made you even better."
I look at him.
Now that sounds dangerous.
But panic would be useless.
I exhale.
Gather my thoughts.
"Why am I here?"
A direct question.
He answers immediately.
"What, have you forgotten?"
He spreads his hands.
"You are my trophy."
A pause.
"Together with the Sigil of Rupture bomb."
My heart skips a beat.
I feel it.
But I don't show it.
"I studied the technology of the Ironheart super-civilization," he continues. "And I am ready to master it."
He looks straight into my eyes.
"And you, Axiom-126… are my finest agent."
A short laugh escapes me.
"Oh wonderful."
I nod slightly.
"So I finally got a promotion."
"You will help me achieve this," he finishes calmly.
I look at him.
One second.
Two.
Inside me something cold begins to rise.
Not rage.
Decision.
"You killed my friends," I say.
Silence.
I don't raise my voice.
I don't stand.
I just say it.
"And I will destroy you."
The words sound calm.
Like a plan.
The angel looks at me.
And then—
he laughs.
Quietly.
Genuinely.
"Amusing."
He shakes his head.
"But that's fine."
A pause.
"It will pass."
He makes a small gesture with his hand.
Somewhere deep within the station, machinery begins to hum.
The chair beneath me shifts slightly.
I feel it.
Note it.
Remember it.
Every detail.
"Now," the angel says, "you will travel to the Ironheart Dyson sphere."
My heart skips again.
He continues:
"And you will carry out your mission."
I slowly raise my head.
"What mission?"
The angel looks at me.
His smile widens.
"You will find out… when you arrive."
A pause.
And right then I feel something new inside me.
The matrices.
They are moving.
Slowly.
Unnaturally.
Like a system someone rewrote without asking my permission.
I sit perfectly still.
Listening.
Analyzing.
And I realize one thing.
They are waking up.
And I'm going to have to figure out very quickly—
what exactly he changed inside me.
**
The angel makes a nearly lazy gesture with his hand.
And in that same instant, the world stops belonging to me.
My body rises.
Just rises.
Without effort.
Without my consent.
My feet touch the floor.
I stand up.
But I'm not the one doing it.
There is no worse feeling than this—when your body works perfectly…
and someone else is making the decisions.
I check my breathing.
Steady.
Pulse—fast, but manageable.
Good.
Panic would be pointless.
If the body is no longer mine, at least the head still has to be.
"Well, that's just perfect," I mutter. "Looks like I've officially been promoted to furniture."
Silence fills the hall.
As usual, humor is not a popular currency here.
I walk.
One step.
Another.
Like a puppet.
But habits remain.
I count the distance.
Three meters.
Five.
The center of the hall.
The enormous chamber feels even larger when you realize you control absolutely nothing inside it.
The floor is dark metal.
The walls rise upward for dozens of meters.
Somewhere far beneath us, the energy of a black hole hums.
I feel it.
Not with my ears.
With my chest.
Like pressure.
As if gravity itself is quietly whispering:
You're only here temporarily.
I stop.
Of course.
Because that's what he wants.
I try to move my fingers.
Nothing.
I note it calmly.
Record it.
Memorize it.
"Remind me later to file a complaint with the cosmic labor union," I say. "Working conditions keep getting worse."
The angel watches me.
Calmly.
No irritation.
No emotion.
As if he's observing a lab mouse…
one that has suddenly learned to talk and is now mildly disrupting the experiment.
He raises his hand.
And from above, a dome begins to descend.
Metallic segments slide out of the ceiling.
Slowly.
With surgical precision.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Each sound feels like a signature on a death sentence.
The segments meet.
Locks seal.
And suddenly I'm standing inside a transparent sphere.
I look at the curved walls of the dome.
Exhale quietly.
"Oh no," I say.
The memories come instantly.
Laboratories.
Surgical tables.
White light.
Instruments.
Experiments.
My body taken apart piece by piece.
My consciousness wired into a network.
Thousands of tests.
Thousands of "improvements."
I swallow.
My mind stays cold, though somewhere deep inside a familiar, icy fear begins to rise.
"Experiments again?" I ask. "You know, I already have a lifetime subscription to the trauma ward."
The angel steps closer.
His voice remains calm.
"The updated Punisher has been embedded into your neural network."
My heart skips a beat.
I feel it.
But I keep my face calm.
"It will form within the matrix network of the Ironheart civilization."
Now that… is genuinely bad news.
"Release it once you arrive."
My body moves again on its own.
My arm rises.
My palm opens.
And I watch as something begins to grow directly out of my skin.
Metal.
Nanostructures.
Threads of light.
A system assembling itself in the center of my palm.
Slowly.
Coldly.
Without mercy.
An object forms.
An egg.
Dark.
Smooth.
Pulsing.
A container.
A vault.
The Punisher.
For several seconds I just stare at it.
Memory politely provides images.
Cities disappearing in seconds.
Digital networks infected like nervous systems.
Civilizations collapsing… before they even understand what's happening.
I've released it before.
Several times.
That was enough to turn an entire planet into obedient slaves.
I exhale slowly.
"Oh, this is just wonderful," I say. "You've given me a pocket apocalypse."
The angel doesn't react.
Of course.
Humor is not part of his protocol.
I look at the egg.
Its pulse matches my heartbeat.
What did you do to me…
But it's too late to panic now.
So I do the one thing I'm actually good at.
I think.
I lift my gaze.
"But how exactly am I supposed to reach the Dyson sphere without a ship?"
The question sounds calm.
Even though inside everything is stretched tight, like a cable under maximum tension.
The angel answers just as calmly.
"You won't need a ship."
A pause.
"The matrix network will take care of everything."
And at that moment, the light inside the dome begins to intensify.
Soft at first.
Then brighter.
I feel warmth on my skin.
"Hey," I say. "This wasn't included in the standard service package."
The light becomes blinding.
My skin starts to burn.
First like a sunburn.
Then worse.
Nerve endings begin to panic.
I clench my teeth.
Stay calm.
Pain is a signal.
Not an order.
"Wait…" I exhale.
The temperature rises.
A second.
Another.
And suddenly—
plasma.
A white-blue stream ignites around me.
It spins inside the dome.
Compresses.
Slams into my body.
The scream tears out of me on its own.
I'm not a hero.
The pain is too much.
Every cell burns.
Every nerve is screaming.
But even through that I try to hold on to one thought.
Count.
Analyze.
Remember.
"See you in your brave new world, Axiom-126," the angel says calmly.
His voice almost drowns in the roar of plasma.
The world begins to come apart.
I feel my skin disappear.
Muscles.
Bones.
My body is no longer a body.
It becomes data.
Signal.
Flow.
"Hey…" I rasp. "That… wasn't… in the instructions…"
My consciousness begins to fracture.
Flashes.
Space.
The network.
A Dyson sphere.
Billions of nodes.
The Ironheart Matrix.
I fall into it.
No.
I'm injected into it.
Like a virus.
Like a program.
Like a weapon.
I'm still holding the Punisher egg.
And I realize one thing.
If I activate it…
The Ironheart civilization could vanish.
The thought is heavy.
But clear.
My consciousness fades.
Darkness begins to close in.
And just before everything disappears, one almost calm thought appears.
Alright.
If I'm already here—
I might as well ruin everything.
Pause.
Silence.
Emptiness.
And then…
somewhere deep
inside an alien
matrix network
I open
my eyes
again.