The featureless face held my gaze for a silent, eternal moment. Then, a calm, synthetic voice spoke from its smooth surface.
"As you wish."
The oval didn't move. It didn't recede. It collapsed. The center of the face imploded, the skin-like surface folding in on itself with a sickening, wet tearing sound. It spun faster and faster, forming a churning vortex of black nothingness that expanded until it filled my vision.
The chair, the restraints, the white room—it all dissolved into the maelstrom. I wasn't pulled. I was un-made, my body atomized and scattered into the storm of raw, chaotic space. There was no up or down, no light or sound, just the crushing, infinite pressure of the void between spaces.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
I was falling, re-forming in an instant. I hit the floor with a bone-jarring thud, the impact driving the air from my lungs. The restraints were gone. I was free, but sprawled inelegantly on a plush, dark grey carpet.
Gasping, I pushed myself up to my knees. I was in an office.
It was a massive room, dominated by a sweeping, panoramic window that looked out over the glittering, perfect expanse of the city. The light from outside was warm and natural, a stark contrast to the sterile glare of the containment wing. In the center of the room sat a large, obsidian desk, sleek and imposing. On its front, a simple, elegant silver nameplate was the only adornment.
VALENTINA
And behind the desk, she was there.
She was hunched over a datapad, a stylus in her hand, her brow furrowed in concentration. The abrupt, violent eruption of space-time in the center of her office didn't make her jump or scream. She just flinched, her head snapping up with a sharp, irritated sigh, as if I were a fly that had just buzzed into her room. She half-expected this. The damn Warden and his theatricality.
"You've got to be kidding me," she muttered, tossing the stylus onto her desk. It clattered against a half-eaten tray of synth-food and a cold cup of coffee. Her grey eyes, tired and annoyed, locked onto me. "He teleported you. Directly. No transfer corridor, no decontamination field. Just... poof."
She leaned back in her high-backed leather chair, rubbing her temples. I glanced around. The room smelled of old books, ozone from a powerful terminal, and the faint, sharp scent of gun oil. A model of a brutalist warship hung in one corner. On the far wall, a rack held a collection of beautifully maintained but lethally practical-looking energy weapons. Her office was a fortress. Her work was clearly my incident report.
'I was right. The chair's too big for her. She's playing a part.'
"Rough day?" I asked, pushing myself to my feet and brushing myself off.
"I'm writing a report on a Class-2 Deviation who negated three containment beams with a soda-fueled temper tantrum," she shot back, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "A report I now have to amend to include 'direct summoning by the Prime Warden.' So yes, it's been a delightful morning."
She gestured to the chair in front of her desk. "Sit. I don't have the energy to scrub your essence off the ceiling."
I took the offered seat, not with insolence this time, but with a calculated curiosity. "So, the offer. Join you or get 'debugged'. Was that your idea, or his?"
"His," she said instantly, picking up her datapad again and scrolling through it. "The Authority sees a tool it can't break, so it tries to build a sheath for it. I'm the sheath."
"Charming metaphor," I noted. "And what do you see?"
She finally looked up from her datapad, and I saw the real weariness behind her professional mask. "I see a problem. A big, loud, messy problem that is currently derailing my career. The Warden thinks you're a unique asset. I think you're a unique liability."
"Liability or asset, you're stuck with me," I said. "Which means you're responsible for me. So here's my counter-offer."
She actually laughed, a short, sharp sound devoid of humor. "You don't make counter-offers. You accept the terms on the table or you get sent to a farm upstate where you'll be studied until you're a puddle of primordial goo."
"See, that's where you're wrong," I said, leaning forward. "You need me as much as I need you. They're scared of me, you said it yourself. They're scared of what I represent. But they're not just scared of the paradox. They're scared of what's making the paradoxes."
I let that sink in. "Something is wrong with the system. Something bigger than me. The failed tutorial, my weird powers, a dead planet's essence in a vending machine... these aren't random events. They're symptoms. You're a zealot, right? You believe in the system. Don't you want to know if it's sick?"
Valentina stared at me, her expression unreadable. Her grip on the datapad tightened. The question had hit its mark. Her faith wasn't just a conviction; it was a defense mechanism. The thought of it being built on a flaw was her deepest fear.
"You don't know anything," she said, but her voice had lost some of its edge.
"No, I don't," I agreed, standing up. "That's why I need you. You're going to be my guide. My mentor. You're going to teach me about the Authority, the Gods, the Laws, all of it. In exchange, I'll be your attack dog. I'll point me at whatever monster or anomaly you need handled."
I walked around the place, kept my composure while trying to look for an exit. "You get to keep an eye on the problem and maybe fix your broken system. I get to learn how to survive here. It's a win-win."
She didn't say anything, just watched me.
"I'll report here tomorrow, bright and early," I said, pausing at the threshold. "Try to have some real coffee ready. The stuff in the vending machine tastes like battery acid."
"Any exit here or am i stuck?"
"How did an idiot like you become an anomaly, here have fun". With just a snap of her fingers a door appeared directly behind me, slowly i opened the door to find a white hallway of which the best description would be it looked like heavens entrance. The door slid shut behind me, and I allowed myself a small, grim smile. And just like that the door behind me vanished.
But i got what i needed. She wasn't just my sheath. She was tour guide. And I was about to learn everything she had.