Chapter 1: Enhanced

“Are you ready, Mr. Seres?”

A pale-faced scientist in a long white coat stood by the waiting room door, holding a clipboard against his chest, a pen poised just above the paper. Giddeon nodded.

“Good,” the man said, lowering his pen. “Come with me.”

He turned, waiting for the metal door to retract into the wall before stepping into a long, empty corridor. Giddeon scanned the fifty-odd people seated in vermilion padded chairs one last time. Most twiddled their thumbs or tapped their feet, betraying the room’s nervous energy. Like him, the majority were physically fit, their eyes sharp with intelligence—hardly the crowd he was used to.

Standing, he stretched his arms toward the ceiling and yawned. A transparent window spanned the hull, opening onto a vast expanse of swirling nebulae and distant stars. A massive, marble-like planet dominated the view, its surface swathed in vivid streaks of green, blue, white, and purple. Caught in its gravitational pull, three meteor clusters flowed around the orb like colorful cosmic rivers. Twin moons—one ruby red and the other azure blue—slowly orbited hundreds of thousands of miles away.

“I never thought I’d be one of the first to explore a new planet.”

Giddeon turned. A man stood beside him, staring up at the alien world. Unlike the others, his face was deeply wrinkled, and his hairline receding.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” the man murmured.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Giddeon replied, a quiet tension in his voice.

“Hard to believe it’s been ten years already and we know next to nothing about it.” The man pulled his gaze away, extending his hand with a smile. “I’m Edggen.”

“Giddeon. Giddeon Seres.” He gripped Edggens’s hand tightly.

“You excited to finally see what’s really down there? On Enivia?”

“Can’t wait,” Giddeon replied.

“Are you…nervous at all?” Edggen asked tentatively. “You know, about the procedure?”

“A little,” Giddeon said. “It’ll all be over soon, and we’ll be down there before you know it.” He patted Edggen’s shoulder, then nodded at the open doorway. “I have to go.”

“Oh, right!” Edggen waved him on with a faint smile. “Good luck, and see you on the other side!”

“On the other side,” Giddeon repeated quietly, stepping into the corridor.

In the distance, the man in the long coat walked with cold indifference, clearly not caring if he was followed. Giddeon strode to catch up.

“I’d introduce myself, but you already know who I am,” Giddeon said.

The man marched forward, his shoes echoing down the metal hall.

Giddeon kept pace. “What’s your name?”

“Leon.”

“Are the rumors true, Leon? The planet is already habitable?”

“Rumors are rumors for a reason,” Leon replied, his tone flat. “You’ll be briefed in seventeen hours, twenty-two minutes, and fourteen seconds. That’s when you’ll find out what your mission is.”

Giddeon raised an eyebrow. “Enhanced?”

“Twenty years now,” Leon replied, not breaking stride. “Half my brain’s been replaced along with most of my left arm.”

Leon stopped at an oval-shaped door. To the right, a triangular glass plate sat two feet above a square, emerald-green panel. He turned back, staring at Giddeon with a blank face. “They say it ruined much of my sense of humor as well as my ability to empathize, but I don’t see it.”

Giddeon gave him a roguish grin. “I’m sure you’re the life of the party.”

“Hmm,” Leon grunted. “I like to think so.”

He placed his hand on the panel. The system whirred to life, pulsing blue light across his iris while red lines mapped his fingers. With a sharp beep, the door slid open.

“Good luck,” Leon said, gesturing toward the opening. “And welcome to the world of the enhanced.”

“You’re not coming?” Giddeon asked, peering into the room.

The chamber was pure white, empty save for a door on the opposite end.

Leon shook his head. “My job’s to get the candidates. Besides, I dislike hearing all the screaming.”

Giddeon’s frowned. “Screaming?”

Leon tapped his temple, a faint metallic ring echoing through the corridor. “There’s no gain without a little pain.”

Giddeon forced a smile. “You know, I may have misjudged you, Leon.” He patted his shoulder. “Thank you for walking me—“ he turned, glancing down the long corridor, then back at Leon—“all the way here.”

Leon nodded wordlessly, signaling him inside.

Giddeon stepped in, then immediately spun back. Leon stared at him, forcing an awkward, foreign smile.

“If I ever throw a party, Leon, you’re the first person I’m invi—”

The door snapped shut in Giddeon’s face.

“—ting,” he finished, staring at the bland white metal.

“Please, get on the chair,” a female voice crackled through the room. A section of the wall slid open, and a motorized chair wheeled out. It was eerily reminiscent of a steel-plated, armored vehicle. As it neared, Giddeon caught the word Vibane etched in black-and-gold lettering on the backrest.

Giddeon glanced around as the chair skidded to a halt beside him. “I prefer to stand,” he called out.

“The procedure requires you to sit,” the voice crackled. “Please, have a seat.”

Giddeon hesitated, then sat. Cold metal bit through his thin clothing, raising the hairs on his skin. Two steel cuffs sprang from the chair’s armrests, trapping his wrists. Thin metal straps snaked from the backrest, wrapping around his feet and waist.

“Hey—what’s going on?”

“Don’t worry,” the voice replied. “This is just preparation for your procedure.”

“Wasn’t worried at all!” Giddeon called back, flexing against the restraints. They only bit deeper. “This all seems…normal,” he grumbled. “For a mad scientist’s experiment, that is.”

The air above him hissed. Translucent mist poured in from hidden vents.

“This is a paralytic agent,” the voice explained. “It will keep your body perfectly still. However, the neural integration will activate your pain receptors directly in the brain. You will still feel the process entirely.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Giddeon quipped.

None of this was in their onboarding files or their mission logs. His mind raced, his pulse quickening.

His lungs locked instantly as the mist reached him. A second later, he accepted the futility and breathed deeply. Vision blurred, limbs numbed, and thoughts slowed to a crawl. A sudden, crushing exhaustion tore through him. As his eyelids slowly closed, a faint click echoed. The opposite door slid open and the chair whirred to life, wheeling him inside.

Dozens of figures in hazmat suits crowded the operating room, their faces hidden behind mirrored visors. A cacophony of sound and light filled the air as machines beeped and flashed. On a mobile cart, jagged, blood-stained medical instruments gleamed. Near the center, a massive, barrel-like machine hung at an angle from the ceiling, its multiple rings rotating in a jarring swath of colors.

Two men in lab coats dashed past, pushing a stretcher bearing a body covered by a large, white sheet.

Giddeon wanted to scream, but his muscles were paralyzed. The chair rolled toward the machine on the ceiling, locking into place just below it. Up close, the device reminded him of a spirograph he’d played with as a child—a twisted, giant-sized version with a far darker purpose.

The chair spun and tilted, dropping his backrest to a forty-five-degree angle.

What have I gotten myself into? This is going to hurt—a lot!

“This is going to hurt, a lot,” someone beside him echoed his exact thought—the familiar voice from the white room.

Cursing himself for being right, Giddeon struggled to turn his eyes. A woman in full medical gear leaned over him, holding a long needle attached to a glass syringe. A green-glowing liquid inside cast an eerie light across her mask. Though the fabric concealed her mouth, her crinkling eyes told him she was smiling. Her smile remained as she jabbed the needle into his neck, injecting the substance.

“This part won’t hurt,” she said, refilling the syringe from an ancient-looking, charcoal-colored jar.

She carefully placed a hexagonal black piece of metal—no bigger than a paperclip—on the needle’s tip. A V-shaped section clicked out from one end, immediately accelerating into a miniature, blurring drill.

“This part will, though.”

She drove it into the side of his head.

He wanted to scream, but his body refused, trapping the agony inside his skull. White-hot flames blazed through his joints while his flesh felt encased in ice.

With a mechanical whir, his chair lifted into the air. The machine above lowered, swallowing his upper body into darkness. Rings rotated—some left, some right, others at dizzying angles. Colorful lights flashed in nauseating spirals. He tried to close his eyes, failing.

“Nothing to worry about, Mr.…Seres, is it?” the woman shouted above the loud hum of the machine. “The human body can only endure so much before it forces the mind to shut down. I like to think of it as a computer overheating. Soon, you’ll shut down, like a failsafe to keep you sane. Unfortunately, if you have a high pain tolerance, this will go on a bit longer. Let’s hope you’re weak in this regard. For your sake.”

Pain was a heavy, glass-strewn cloak he had worn for a lifetime, and his mind refused to let go. His stubborn survival instincts kicked in, working against him, anchoring him to the torture.

“…Stern? Look at the vitals. He’s still conscious.”

“…can’t override the system—no, more anesthesia will ruin the implant—”

His brain melted. Something foreign slid into place, scraping against the grey matter inside his skull like a second existence trapped with him inside his own mind. A faint, unintelligible voice whispered in the dark, then fractured.

“…longest anyone’s survived the sync—”

“Just let it finish. If we pull him out now, his brain turns to mush. You saw the last one.”

The pain nearly drove him mad, but at last, Giddeon welcomed the darkness.