AETHER MIDNIGHT

The Scent of Panic

Panic has its own distinct scent. It is sharper than ozone and heavier than exhaust. It smells like stomach acid and cold sweat, cutting right through the permanent, comforting aroma of burnt engine grease and old metal in The Garage.

Grox backed away slowly, his heavy boots dragging against the floor until his massive back hit a stack of rusted cargo crates. The loud thud seemed to echo in the cavernous space. His four muscular arms wrapped tightly around his own thick torso in a rare, unsettling display of vulnerability.

"So... so that black thing. The cylinder. The thing I brought here..." his voice cracked, losing its usual deep, resonant rumble. His large, dark eyes were wide with a terror I had never seen in him before. "That thing called him? Whoever is slaughtering people up there?"

"Yes," I answered simply. There was no use lying now, and softening the blow wouldn't save us. "It was a beacon. The signal leaked into the planetary grid for just a fraction of a second before I destroyed it. But a fraction of a second was all it needed."

"By the cosmos..." Jax groaned, burying his blue face in his hands. He slumped onto a nearby flux wrench bench. "We're all going to die. The Crimson Skull syndicate was wiped out in ten minutes, let alone us? A mechanic, a scavenger, and kids?"

"L!" Kael stepped forward from the Mezzanine stairs, his dirty face tense, trying to hide his fear. Spark whirred anxiously on his shoulder. "We have industrial plasma cutters. We have seismic charges from mining ships. We can set a trap at the door—"

"No trap can hold back something that cuts steel like butter, Kael," Sera cut in, massaging her temples.

I looked at them one by one. My ecosystem. My family. They were terrified, all because the rotting trail of my past had invited a poisonous fly. Before I could formulate an evacuation plan, a loud noise struck the steel door of The Garage.

CLANG! CLANG! Pause. CLANG!

It wasn't a panicked banging. It was a code. Three familiar rough knocks.

I signaled everyone to step back. My hand reflexively felt the kunai grip under my belt. I pressed the hydraulic panel, opening the door just a shoulder's width.

The dirty air of Noctis Reach blew in, followed by a slender figure clad in dull armor covered in soot and fresh scratches.

It was Vex.

The bounty hunter stepped inside, wiping concrete dust from her visor. She didn't look panicked, just very, very annoyed. Wordlessly, she walked past Grox to my workbench and slammed a long-barreled rifle onto the metal surface.

The smell of melting metal instantly stung my nose. The rifle barrel was sliced neatly at a diagonal angle, the metal still glowing orange from extreme residual heat. The exact same burn mark as the scrap Jax brought last night.

"Five thousand credits," Vex hissed through her helmet's vocoder. She took off her helmet, revealing sweat-soaked dark hair and a hardened jaw. "My custom disruptor rifle is ruined, L. I need you to fix it, or at least cut the remaining barrel so I can use it as a close-quarters weapon."

"Vex," I said slowly, staring at the barrel. "Where did you get this damage?"

Vex snorted, leaning against an iron rack and crossing her arms. "At the bounty hunter guild headquarters on Level 1315. I was sorting my hunting license when a lunatic in a black cloak walked in. He didn't speak. He didn't demand credits. He just draw a red energy sword, deflected every laser shot like we were kids throwing stones, and started slicing up the terminal desks."

Grox swallowed loudly. "He... he's at the bounty hunter guild?"

"He's looking for security camera footage," Vex continued, appraising Grox. "Someone sold scrap from the sector border, and that lunatic is tracking the transaction. I survived because I jumped out a ventilation window the second my rifle was sliced. I don't get paid enough to fight dark magic users."

Vex sighed heavily, turning to me. "The point is, the streets up there are chaos, L. I need my weapon right now."

"Vex... that scrap..." Risha pointed at Grox, trembling. "Grox bought it."

The room fell dead silent. Vex slowly turned to Grox. The bounty hunter's hand reflexively dropped to the backup blaster on her hip. "Tell me that's a joke."

"I didn't know what it was!" Grox squeaked, backing up again.

"Quiet," a flat, sharp voice interrupted.

We all turned to the corner. Cora stood up from her terminal desk. Her right cybernetic eye now glowed bright red in the dim lighting of The Garage. Instead of complaining about the dust on Vex's armor or the inefficiency of our panic, Cora's fingers danced across the interface screen.

"Vex, which terminal did the figure hack?" Cora asked quickly, her voice losing its casual tone and entering an absolute analytical mode.

Slightly taken aback by her authority, Vex answered, "The east server terminal."

"Connecting," Cora muttered. Her organic eye rapidly read lines of code, while her cybernetic eye scanned the incoming data. "The bounty hunter guild has level four security. I am hacking a backdoor through their server cooling lines."

It only took ten seconds before Cora hit one final key hard.

"The data retrieved by the figure was the transaction record of a scavenger named Krel," Cora reported. "Krel sold the cylinder to Grox exactly fifty-four hours ago. Krel's current location is detected as... deceased. His lifeline in the public medical system was severed three minutes ago."

Tali covered her mouth with both hands.

"Calculating time," Cora continued, her red eye blinking in sync with our racing hearts. "If the figure got Grox's name from Krel, he will track Grox's cargo manifest on Level 1314. From there, the probability of him finding Grox's route to The Garage is ninety-eight point seven percent. Based on his movement speed, we have an estimated eighty minutes before this steel door is sliced open."