2400 AD

Callum woke up in a single bed.

Soft light. The smell of disinfectant. A man in a chair beside the bed. Golden hair cut short, blue uniform. The same man who had rescued him.

“What the fuck happened? Where am I?”

“You’re safe,” the man said.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Okay. Okay. If you don’t want to tell me what’s going on, that’s cool. Just tell me who you are,” Callum said.

“Gideon. Commander Gideon Kinsman.”

Callum sat up and threw his legs off the bed.

“Hold on!” The commander leaped from his chair and placed a gentle hand on Callum’s shoulder. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

Gideon recognized Callum’s symptoms: psychological shock, a surge of strong emotions and a corresponding physical reaction.

“Let me out of here!” Callum’s face twisted into a vile grimace.

“You need rest.”

“I need to get the hell out of here and continue with my life.”

Gideon understood how he felt. "Life, as you know it, is over. Done. You don’t have much of a life left out there. You’re here, safe with us. You don’t need to be anywhere else.”

“My clients. My business. My dogs.”

“If you leave now, they’ll come after you. We’ll talk about this later.”

“I’m well enough now to talk. What the hell is going on?”

Gideon responded by gently placing him back onto the bed.

As he lay back, Callum felt jittery. He wanted to puke. His mind felt foggy. It was as if he was having an out of body experience, disconnected from reality, like watching a movie of events unfolding rather than actually being there. “I need to get out of here.”

“We’re looking after you.”

“What is this place? Where’s my mask?”

“Denizen 1. You’re underground; you don’t need a mask here. It’s a safe environment.”

“What do you mean safe? From what?”

“Xenocon, and the Solarian Directorate. They were rounding up people without the mark. Murdered those who resisted. They’re separating all those with the mark, from those who don’t have it. If you don’t have it, and I noticed that you don’t, they would have taken you away, never to be seen or heard from again.”

“Bullshit! Xenocon is a respected institution.”

“That’s the perception. The reality is far worse than you can imagine. They experiment on people on behalf of the Directorate. If you’re not one of them, if you don’t have that sacred barcode on your wrist, you’re fair game. They’ll take you and remove your personality, your memory and your sexual preferences. You will become an "it" with nothing to live for. Xenocon controls every aspect of everyone’s life. They would have killed you.”

“I’m French Foreign Legion. I can take care of myself.”

“How long do you think you would have survived out there knowing you haven’t got the mark? When you saw me you ran like a chicken without a head.”

“What?”

“You fled onto the rooftop. Wanted to jump. That’s what they do to people. Rule by fear. You never know when your time is up. It’s happened to thousands of others. Still happening. People just vanish. If you feel so safe, why did you run?”

“I ran from you.”

“You weren’t the least bit afraid of those Androids killing people?”

“I went back to get my laser."

“They would have killed you. That’s a given. Why don’t you have the mark? You’re in the security business. Are you an insider? You have connections?”

Callum turned his right hand and studied his wrist but didn’t say a word.

After a long silence, Gideon shifted towards the wall.

“I don’t really care why you don’t wear the mark. I don’t have it. In fact, almost everyone here doesn’t have it. I was just curious.” He turned to the wall and said, “Open.”

A woman wearing a white coat over blue jeans came in and stood beside Gideon.

“This is Cleo. She’s been with us a long time. She’s going to sedate you. When you wake up you’ll be fine.”

He gently took Callum’s hand. “Trust me.”

Callum stared at Gideon with intense dark eyes that spilled out fear.

“I told you my name. What’s yours?” Gideon asked as Emily injected him with the sedative.

The chemical had an immediate reaction, and, in a drowsy voice he said, “Callum.”