The copper coin in Bastion’s left pocket had no markings on either side. It was smooth, worn flat by ten years of his thumb rubbing against its edges whenever the static in his head turned into a roar. He sat in the back corner of The Salted Coil, a low-ceilinged tavern tucked into the lower docks of Oakhaven. The air smelled of burnt grease, cheap grain liquor, and damp wood. Outside, the rain beat a steady, metallic rhythm against the iron shutters. Bastion didn't drink. He just sat, his back against the thick oak pillar, watching the heavy wooden door. His dark blue tunic was faded at the elbows, the silver threading around the collar dull and lifeless. To anyone else, he was just another weary laborer who’d spent twelve hours hauling timber at the docks. Then the coin in his pocket turned ice cold. Bastion froze. His thumb stopped mid-rub against the smooth copper. It wasn't a natural cold. It was a sharp, biting frost that sank through his trousers straight to his thigh bone. Beneath his skin, the three gold lines buried near his wrist gave a single, dull pulse. Harmonic activity. He reached into his pocket and pulled the coin out. The copper surface was no longer smooth. Frost was blooming across the metal in delicate, crystalline geometric shapes, forming tight lines of text that burned with a faint, violet hue.
SOVEREIGN VANGUARD SHIPMENT — DOCK 14 CARGO: REFRACTED SUBJECT 09 FREQUENCY MATCH: VOSS, M. THE STATIC REMEMBERS
Bastion stared at the words as the frost melted under the heat of his skin, wiping the text away until the coin was just blank, cold metal again. Voss, M. His chest constricted. The breath caught in his throat like a jagged shard of glass. "Mira," he whispered. The name tasted bitter, heavy with ten years of dust and regret. No. He closed his fist around the coin, his jaw tightening until his molars clicked. It’s a trap. A baiting line from the Archivists, or a trick by a rogue hacker from The Static looking to draw out an Awakened. He opened his hand and flipped the coin toward the center of the wooden table. It spun three times, clinking softly before coming to a rest beside his untouched water glass. He stood up, pulled his heavy cloak over his shoulders, and walked out the door into the pouring rain. The alley behind The Salted Coil was pitch black, save for the flickering amber glow of a distant street lamp. Rain hissed against the cobblestones, washing greasy puddles into the storm drains. Bastion walked three paces down the alley, his boots splashing in the water. Then he stopped. He stood perfectly still in the dark, the icy rain soaking through his hair, running down his weathered jawline. He reached into his tunic, touching the cold silver locket hanging around his neck. He popped the latch with his thumb. Inside, the painted portrait of a young girl was completely blank. The face had faded years ago, replaced by a dull, smudged smear of amber light that pulsed faintly against the dark metal. Every time he fought, every time he drew upon the power of alternate timelines, the Nexus took its cut. First, he forgot the color of her eyes. Then the sound of her laugh. Now, even her face was gone. "I promised," he rasped into the rain. He turned on his heel, walked back into the tavern, picked up the cold copper coin from the table, and shoved it deep into his pocket. Dock 14 smelled of dead fish, cold iron, and ozone. Rain lashed against the rusted corrugated roofs of the shipping warehouses. Bastion crouched high on the rafters of Warehouse 9, his heavy cloak soaked through, his eyes locked on the floor thirty feet below. Four armored enforcers from The Sovereign Vanguard stood around a glowing iron crate. They wore heavy, vacuum-sealed plate that hummed with a sickly green light. Two local dockworkers—an old man with a missing eye and a boy no older than sixteen—were pinned to the cobblestones under the heavy boot of a Vanguard officer. "Where is the signal transmitter?" the officer growled, his voice synthesized through his iron visor. He raised a heavy plasma baton, its tip crackling with blue arc-light. "Tell me, or the boy's head opens." Bastion didn't wait. He didn't build a shield to block the blow. He dropped. Thirty feet of freefall. Bastion hit the officer mid-air, driving both knees straight into the man's chest plate. The iron buckled with a deafening CRACK. The force of the impact drove the officer into the cobblestones, shattering the stone beneath them in a five-foot crater. Before the other three enforcers could raise their rifles, Bastion surged forward. His right fist ignited with a harsh, golden glow—the skin over his knuckles calcifying into translucent, crystalline armor. He delivered a brutal, short-range hook directly into the helmet of the nearest soldier. BANG. The Anchor Knuckle detonated on contact. A concussive shockwave ripped through the air, caving in the soldier's helmet and throwing his two-hundred-pound armored frame ten yards across the warehouse floor into a stack of wooden pallets. "Awakened! Kill him!" the second soldier yelled, bringing up a heavy pulse rifle. Bastion didn't back down. He stepped right into the line of fire. He flashed a localized Aegis Barrier for half a second—just enough to catch three burning plasma bolts—and then violently collapsed the barrier inward, absorbing the energy before exploding it outward in an Aegis Slam. The concussive wave blasted the remaining two soldiers off their feet, sending their weapons skittering into the dark water of the bay. Bastion closed the distance on the last standing enforcer, driving a heavy knee into the soldier's ribs, following up with a sweeping elbow that shattered the visor, and finishing with a driving palm-strike to the chest that sent the man sliding across the wet dock. Ten seconds. Four armored soldiers down. Silence returned to Dock 14, save for the patter of rain against the iron roof. Bastion stood over the fallen officer, his chest heaving, his fists dripping with rain and golden light. Beneath his tunic, his skin burned as if he'd been dipped in acid. The three gold lines on his wrist pulsed wildly. 1... 1... 1... The debt. He turned toward the old dockworker and the young boy, who were scrambling backward against a stack of crates, staring at him with wide, terrified eyes. "Are you hurt?" Bastion rasped, reaching out a hand to help the boy up. The boy flinched, shrinking back into the shadows. "Who... who are you?" Bastion opened his mouth to answer. I am... He stopped. A cold, hollow void opened in the back of his mind. He reached for the name of the river that ran behind his childhood home in Echo Prime—the river where he used to race his sister every summer. It was gone. Just blank, grey dust. He looked down at his calloused, glowing hands. He had saved the workers. He had crushed the Vanguard squad. But the price for that explosive burst of power had been collected instantly. "It doesn't matter who I am," Bastion said softly, pulling his hood back over his face. "Get out of here. Before more of them come." He turned back toward the iron crate in the center of the warehouse, his boots crunching on the shattered stone.