The dog howled. It was a sharp, piercing, guttural tone that Pollux felt vibrating in the bones of his skull before his ears fully caught it. Hyperperception mapped out the furious energy rushing toward them through the dust-choked air.
"They already know about us," Pollux whispered, tuning out the noise of the flickering lights. He felt the air in the warehouse changing. The heat of three bodies was approaching from the left, from behind a stack of empty pallets. "That dog... its heart is beating too fast, it's overloaded. It doesn't just smell us with its nose; it feels our own fear."
"Certainly not my fear, sweetie," Ash snapped, her thumb moving with unusual gentleness over the safety on her belt, where a series of small, inconspicuous cylinders hung. "Put those crates directly in front of you, at chest level. Hold them tight. It's going to shake a bit in here."
Pollux didn't have time to object or ask what she was planning. Ash threw one of the cylinders toward the approaching footsteps. It wasn't a grenade intended to tear bodies apart and destroy precious supplies—it was an acoustic charge designed to paralyze the senses.
BOOM.
In the moment of the explosion, Pollux did not close his eyes. He saw a perfectly formed, invisible wall of compressed air sweep through the space. He saw how the dust on the floor formed into complex geometric patterns in a fraction of a second and how the concrete pillars vibrated so strongly that plaster began to fall off them in precise scales. All the metal in the warehouse began to "sing." Thousands of tiny screws, wires, sheets, and fittings screamed in his head in one disharmonious, painful key.
The pressure wave hit him in the chest with the ferocity of a speeding train. Pollux gasped for breath. For a moment, the world fell apart into a million shaky fragments. "Shoot, you log!" Ash shouted through the whistling that filled his ears.
The first soldier stumbled out of the smoke. He was totally disoriented, a thin stream of blood running from his ears, but he still gripped an automatic rifle in a convulsively clenched hand. The dog beside him whined helplessly, its senses in ruins. Pollux automatically reached under his coat, though his hand shook from the aftershocks of that blow. He didn't see the soldier as a human; he saw the center of his chest as a point where the most heat was concentrated. He saw the rhythm of his confused breath.
CRACK.
The shot from his weapon sounded like a weak, almost ridiculous snap of a whip after Ash's explosion. The soldier fell backward onto the concrete without a single word. Pollux felt something tighten inside him. The metallic smell of blood mixed with the aftertaste of nitrate and old lubricant.
"Two more, move!" Ash hissed, no longer crouching in the shadows. She ran forward with the elegance of a predator that knows its prey is stunned. Pollux saw the second soldier trying to aim through the corner structure of a rack. He saw his finger tightening on the trigger.
"Right! Behind those barrels!" Pollux shouted, his voice sounding booming in the empty warehouse. "That metal barrel... it has thin walls, corrosion has eaten it from the inside! Shoot through it, oil will leak out, they'll slip!"
Ash didn't listen to him literally, but she understood the direction and the weakness. Instead of shooting, she kicked one of the crates. The crate landed on the pressure plate on the floor with a thud. Emergency lights flared up throughout the warehouse. That sudden surge of electrical energy almost blinded Pollux. He felt the old cables in the walls overload and glow white-hot.
"Enough! Turn it off!" he shouted and slammed his shoulder into Ash, pulling her behind a concrete pillar. In that same second, the distribution box on the wall, overloaded by the alarm and the previous shock, exploded in a geyser of blue sparks. The second soldier, standing too close to the wiring, received an electric shock that threw him five meters away into the wall.
The silence that followed was unnatural and heavy. It smelled of burnt insulation, death, and raw meat. Ash looked at him from under her messy, blonde hair. In her eyes, there was something that wasn't just her usual mockery. It was wonder mixed with respect. "You knew that box would give in under the pressure, didn't you?"
Pollux leaned against the rough concrete, his heart still pounding in his throat. He felt the terrible buzzing slowly dying down in his head under the influence of exhaustion. "I felt... that there was too much of it. The little lights in the grid started screaming. I just wanted that overloaded silence to finally stop."
Ash slowly stood up and brushed the plaster off her coat. "Silence, boy. You just saved our necks and we saved valuable ammunition to boot. The third one bolted as soon as he saw those lightning bolts from the wall. Karimorians are superstitious fools; they'll think in the barracks that some mountain demon from old legends is protecting you."
She handed him his crate of meat, which he had dropped to the ground in the chaos—luckily away from the pressure plate. "Take it. We're leaving before those rats in uniforms come to their senses. And Pollux?"
"Yes?"
"That shot of yours... wasn't bad for a start. But next time, don't try to aim for the button on the uniform. Just hit him. The world will deal with the buttons."
They stepped out into the freezing, dirty night. That silence after the explosion and the subsequent frantic flight through the narrow, snowy alleys were cathartic for Pollux. The noise in his head slowly turned into a monotonous hum of the city's electrical grid, which he could push into the background by sheer force of will. They ended up in a half-collapsed, abandoned garage where the concrete walls at least partially resisted the freezing wind.
Ash sat on an overturned barrel, opening one of the stolen cans with casual skill using a knife. The smell of fat and spices wafted through the room—in this city, it was the scent of wealth. Pollux had grown accustomed to this sharp contrast to Skeldar over time, though it had been a shock at first. People here were different; there were more races, as well as more smells. The attitude was distant, and natural friendliness had vanished as early as the borders. Therefore, he had learned to remain alone and trust less.
Pollux sat opposite Ash, his back leaning against the cold metal of an old van. "Eat," she threw him an opened can. "You looked inside there like you'd seen a ghost."
Pollux took the can. His hands were no longer shaking, but that resonance still echoed in his head. "I saw... how things fall apart. Not just those doors or that box. Everything. Every piece of metal in that warehouse had its own tone. When you set it off, it was as if someone struck a million bells at once."
Ash put a piece of meat into her mouth and watched him with interest. He was young. His shirt with ancient ornaments was dirty from wear, but it was clear he valued it. His eyes had that azure color again, a color Karimor did not know at all. His hair was gray like the homogeneous clouds constantly hanging like a curtain over this land, ready to fall at any moment.
"Bells? That's quite poetic for someone who just made a second hole in a Karimorian soldier's chest. But that trick with the distribution box... how did you know it would blow exactly then? No one is fast enough to calculate the volts in a cable."
"I don't calculate it," Pollux stared into the darkness of the garage. "I just see where there is too much of it. Like when water is poured into a container that's too small. I felt the current choking in those thin wires. It wanted to go out. I just... waited for it to do it."
Ash spat and smirked. "I don't know how you function, but you're dangerous. In our trade, danger is a given, but uncertainty... that will kill you."
Pollux did not answer. He pulled his Skeldar knife from his pocket. In the dim light, the silver glistened. The blade was silent, clean, unlike everything else in this city. "Why did you actually take it?" he nodded toward the crate of alcohol she had stolen. "Meat, I understand. But those bottles... they could have slowed us down."
"Meat is for survival, boy. But alcohol? That opens doors," Ash pulled out one bottle and looked at the label. "There are people in this city who, for one bottle of quality alcohol, will tell you even what they don't know. And you... you're looking for something that maps won't tell you. I can see it in your eyes. You're always looking for something on the horizon."
"I'm looking for answers," Pollux admitted quietly. "In Skeldar, they tell me the world is simple. That it's enough to believe and work. But here, things work differently. I left to find out what I am. But so far, I'm only finding out that this world is broken."
Ash laughed quietly. "The world isn't broken, Pollux. It's just built of lies and rust. And you have the misfortune of seeing through both. But if you want answers, you'll have to go deeper than just Karimorian warehouses. You'll have to learn to get your hands dirty not just from oil, but from blood too."
Pollux looked at his palms. They were soiled with soot and mud. "I learn quickly. I already know that your toys glow red when they are hungry for an explosion. And I know that when you smile that way, someone somewhere is about to lose their head. And that thing hanging on your shoulder—I'm afraid of what it will do when you get angry."
"See!" Ash clapped her hands. "We'll beat that talk about bells out of your head yet, and maybe I'll even sell you somewhere for a decent price."
"You won't sell me," Pollux said with absolute calm. "You need me. Without me, you would have stepped on that plate in the warehouse, and we wouldn't be sitting here now. I'm your best investment, Ash."
Ash looked at him for a moment, the knife in her hand stopping. Then she smirked again. "Investment? You're a cheeky little thing. But you're right. You earned your keep today. So eat. Tomorrow we have to turn those maps you pulled from that machine into credits. I know someone who collects information on convoy movements to the east. And you will tell me which of those convoys has the weakest security."
Pollux nodded and bit into the food. The last tone from the exploded box was slowly fading in his head. He felt tired, but in a strange way, alive. Skeldar was far away, almost like a dream. Reality was here—cold concrete, a cynical woman with a penchant for explosions, and a world that buzzed in his ears like an endless riddle.
Ash threw the empty can into the corner of the garage. The metallic impact echoed in the silence, and it stung Pollux's temples slightly, but he no longer paid it any mind. He had learned to push that feeling away.
"How quickly we got to know each other," Ash remarked, sizing him up with a look. "One explosion, one corpse, and already you're lecturing me about investments. Skeldar gave you a good foundation, but Karimor is really sharpening your edges, Pollux."
"Those edges were always there," Pollux replied and closed his eyes. "They just weren't as visible in the snow. There weren't so many... things there to bump into me."
"Fine, 'Investment'. Look at this," Ash pulled a crumpled piece of electronics from her pocket. It looked like a small terminal with an antenna, but it was charred, and one connection was visibly broken. "I found this in that warehouse. One of those soldiers had it in his hand until you... well, until you stopped him. It's not Karimorian make. Too clean, too small."
Pollux took the device into his hands. This time it wasn't like the machine at the station. This didn't creak in his head. It was silent. All too silent. He felt something foreign in it, something that did not belong in this dirty city.
"It doesn't hum," he whispered, running his thumb over the spot where the insulation was missing. "I feel... cold in it. It's like frozen metal, but inside it's still waiting. There is energy there that isn't flowing anywhere because this path is closed."
"Can you revive it?" Ash leaned toward him. "If it contains what I think it does—records of why they were guarding those crates of expensive alcohol in the middle of nowhere—then we have a ticket out of this filth in our hands."
Pollux concentrated. Hyperperception showed him the way. He saw where the flow had stopped. Carefully, he pulled out his knife. With the tip of the silver blade, he gently bridged two contacts. A quiet, high-pitched beep sounded in the room. The device in his hands vibrated gently, and a small screen lit up with a bluish light. Pollux felt that light pulsing in his palm.
"It's showing..." Pollux frowned, trying to understand the characters. "They are numbers. Coordinates. And a logo. Three overlapping circles... I don't recognize it."
Ash snatched the device from his hand, and her face froze for a moment. "HYPERION ENERGY. A mining corporation. What is a corporate device doing in a godforsaken warehouse in a city of no one?"
"Maybe they are looking for the same thing I am," Pollux said and looked at his dog tags, which he still had hidden deep under his clothes. He felt their weight on his chest. "Answers to questions that no one wants to ask."
Ash tucked the device into her pocket and stood up. Her tone was suddenly different—less playful, more tactical. "We're packing up. If Hyperion is involved, then those soldiers weren't just some local militia. Someone in the south is paying for things to happen quietly in Karimor. And we just threw a grenade into it."
"Where are we going?" Pollux stood up too.
"Toward the east," Ash smirked, but there was no peace in that smirk. "You said you were my best investment, so prove it. We'll have to cross the border where sensors don't just scan tickets, but also whether you have an infection in your blood." She looked at Pollux sternly. "And you have one!"
Pollux nodded.
"I'll go," Pollux said. "But Ash... if they catch us, my pistol has only seven rounds left. Try to make it so I don't have to use a single one this time."
Ash just laughed and stepped out of the garage into the darkness. "Not a chance, Pollux. In this world, silence only lasts until I strike a match. Don't worry, I have more of them."