The God Of The Rust District

The White Room And The Red Eye

The barrel of the gun pressed hard against the back of my head.

I did not move. I did not even breathe. My mind felt completely blank, frozen between the terror of the metal ring on my skull and the impossible face of the girl standing right in front of me.

Aminata.

My little sister. The girl I had watched burn inside a transport vehicle three years ago. The girl I had cried over in the dark when I had nobody left in the world.

Her eyes were not warm. They did not hold any love or any sign that she recognized me as family. They were completely flat, like polished glass reflecting nothing at all. Her finger rested lightly on the trigger of her black pistol, steady and ready.

"Put the gun down, Aminata," I managed to say, my throat dry and tight. "It's me. It's Kofi."

"I know who you are," Aminata said. Her voice carried no emotion, just cold, sharp professional focus. "And that is why you need to go to sleep."

Before I could say another word, a heavy hand grabbed my shoulder from behind. Chibuzo, the giant enforcer I had knocked down only moments before, stood up without a scratch on him. His metal plating hummed softly, and his chrome knuckles caught the dim light of the alley. He didn't look hurt at all. He grabbed my arms and pulled them behind my back with a force that made my bones pop.

I tried to fight back, kicking my legs and twisting my body, but it was useless. Chibuzo was too strong. The amber light in my right hand flared up for a second, fighting to break free, but before the electricity could spread, Aminata stepped forward and pressed a small, cold metal disk against my neck.

A sharp shock raced through my veins. My muscles locked up instantly. The strength drained out of my body, and the ground rushed up to meet me.

When my eyes opened, the dark, dirty alley was gone.

There was only blinding white light.

I was sitting in a heavy metal chair in the middle of a square room with smooth white walls that had no corners. There were no doors, no windows, and no dirt. The air smelled clean, almost chemically pure, completely different from the sulfur and rain of Sector 4.

Chibuzo stood near the edge of the room, wiping a smudge of black oil off his chrome cheek. He looked down at a small digital pad in his hand.

Aminata stood a few feet away, her fingers moving quickly across a floating glass screen that projected glowing blue words and charts into the air. She didn't even look at me when I sat up.

"Where am I?" I asked, testing my arms. The metal chair held me tight around the chest and wrists with heavy magnetic clamps. "What did you do to me?"

"You're back in containment, Vance," Chibuzo said without looking up. His voice was calm, steady, and completely different from the rough street enforcer who had chased me through the slums. "Protocol 9 runner simulation is terminated. You failed your boundary check."

I stared at him, my heart pounding against my ribs. "What are you talking about? I live in Sector 4! I'm a runner! I steal packages to pay for food!"

"You don't eat, Kofi," Aminata said, finally turning her head to look at me. Her dark eyes bored straight into mine. "And you haven't been in Sector 4 for real in a hundred years. You are a localized anchor."

The words made no sense. My head throbbed with a sharp, splitting pain, like someone was trying to push a knife through my skull. Images flashed behind my eyes, strange, broken pictures of floating stars, massive gears turning in empty space, and a deep, endless voice that sounded like my own, but louder and older than the world.

"You're crazy," I muttered, pulling against the metal clamps until my wrists burned. "Let me go. Let me out of here."

"If we let you out, the system collapses," Aminata said, walking slowly toward my chair. She stopped right in front of me, her face inches from mine. "You built this entire cage, Kofi. You wrote the slums, you wrote the syndicates, and you wrote the fear. You did it because you couldn't handle the truth of what you really are."

"I am a human being!" I shouted, anger rising fast in my chest.

"You are the living host of a cosmic entity," Aminata answered back, her voice dropping into a dangerous, quiet tone. "An intelligence that broke reality before we managed to trap it inside a mortal mind. Every time you start to remember who you are, the simulation stutters. The code breaks."

She pointed a slender finger toward the ceiling.

I looked up. The smooth white ceiling of the room began to ripple like water. The solid panels faded away, replaced by a terrifying view of the open sky above Sector 4. But it wasn't the normal sky. The clouds parted instantly, revealing a colossal, blood-red eye that filled the entire upper window. It was miles wide, staring straight down through the glass, its black pupil dilating as it locked its gaze directly on my face.

The air pressure inside the room dropped so fast my ears popped. A low, vibrating hum rattled my teeth, growing louder every second.

"Do you see it?" Aminata asked, her voice tight. "Every time your memories push through the artificial barriers, the system checks on us. The red eye sees the glitch."

"What does it want?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper as I stared up at the giant, unblinking pupil in the sky.

"It wants to wipe you," Chibuzo said heavily, stepping closer to the chair. "And if the red eye deletes you, everything in the simulation goes down with you. Every city, every street, everyone you think you know."

Aminata reached into her tactical jacket and pulled out a small, heavy weapon made of clear, glowing crystal. Without a second of hesitation, she pressed the barrel of the crystal gun directly against the center of her own chest, right over her heart.

Her finger rested on the trigger, and her eyes stayed locked on mine, filled with a cold, terrifying resolve.

"I'm sorry, Kofi," Aminata said softly. "I have to pull the trigger to reset the loop and wipe your mind before the red eye tears us all apart."

"Wait!" I yelled, throwing my weight against the magnetic clamps as the red eye in the sky began to open wider. "Aminata, don't do it!"

Her finger began to squeeze the trigger.