***Secure Gateway Facility – Cell 0-03-230, Tibet, Earth***

***Magnus***

The man sat down at his side of the table and shuffled through his stash of papers, pointedly not looking at me. He wore an expensive suit and had the looks of someone who had done this job for years and was getting tired of it. His expression told me that he arrived long ago at the point at which his human charges were nothing more than yet another case study to him.

I pulled at the restraints that held me in my chair, but they didn't budge.

He nonetheless shot me a magnificent glare, telling me that I shouldn't make the situation any worse than it already was.

“Magnuson Elrod, born 07.10.3893 in Europe, Iceland. Got a degree in physics, programming...” He hesitated and shook his head. “And historic pop culture of all things? Worked at the Iceland Space Research Institute. Then transmigrated to Australia when you were twenty-eight. Two years later, back to the EU, Germany. One year later, you relocated once again, this time South America. And then nobody knew where to find you for the next two years. Which makes you thirty-three right now.”

I only blinked in reply and enjoyed that the man looked somewhat irked at my apparent refusal to speak. He had already made a show of how much he had researched about me, laying out what little he actually knew, so I stayed silent.

When he realized that I didn't care for his spiel, he dropped his tough-guy charade. “Magnus, you are being charged with over a hundred homicides on various political figures all over the world. They are trying to stick you with connections to several anti-governmental groups, which is reason for exile in of itself if they can prove just one of those affiliations. The accusations the world government is throwing at you are past the point of humor. If I can help you, I will – but I need information.”

I said nothing. It wasn't as if the charges were completely wrong. Though I guessed that the people in power were just throwing all the shit they had in their buckets, hoping enough would stick to convict me.

He leaned forward. “Talk to me, man. I am only doing my job here, and you aren't helping. Even I know ninety-nine percent of their claims must be bullshit! But they are going to exile you if you don't help me here. Together, we may keep you on Earth. You will have to face a few years in a re-educational facility. It won't be a walk in the park, but at least you won't be dead. Or worse. You know the stories about Tirnanog.”

Ah, the rumoured world of terror that was now Earth's special penal colony for undesirables and inhumane experiments.

I shrugged but acknowledged that he was showing some genuine emotion towards my plight. Maybe this man was one of the few good people caught in the world government's shitty system. So, I decided to throw him a bone.

Though, would it help him to sleep better if I talked, or would it make everything worse?

Figuring that it wouldn’t change anything, I cleared my throat. “Three weeks ago, I sat in front of the African parliament in Egypt. I waited for Senator Idama to leave the building. From what I have learned during my travels, he was one of the driving forces behind Project Exile. He and many others are responsible for the organized deportation of innocent people. Some who simply overheard things they shouldn't have. Others who had ideas that they shouldn't, and yet others I don't have the faintest idea why they were exiled in the first place.”

I leaned forward, but the chair's restraints automatically tightened and pulled me back.

“If you tell anyone I told you this, you will probably be exiled next.” I smiled wryly. “I stood up when Idama walked past me. Then I shot him thrice in the chest, and once in the knee when he didn't go down like he was supposed to. I took out the other knee and his shoulders. I emptied the entire magazine into him. And then, because that wasn't enough for the genetically manipulated bastard, I took the spike and the hammer that I had prepared and nailed the thing through his eye socket. At just the right angle that my informant had told me was necessary to get through the weak point in his fibre-glass enhanced skull. Grisly work, I tell you.”

The man drew his lips taut, then looked towards the camera that observed the room. The thoughts that were rampaging through his brain were written plainly on his face.

“They don't have a microphone in here, so don't worry. But that's not everything I did,” I continued. “I am one of the leaders of the secret organization that hacked and redirected the Phenes weather satellite from its course and had it blow the American legal firm Kelen Rights to orbit. An agency whose main employers are the very people who supported our beloved senator and his cohort. They were instrumental in clearing the waters of bureaucracy for their employers.”

The lawyer's face paled. “You couldn't possibly know that. You were incarcerated and without access to the outside.”

I waved my hands around as much as the restraints allowed me to. “Only proof for you that I am at least a part of the perpetrators. How else would I know about it if I hadn't been aware of the operation beforehand? Don't you think?”

“Over four thousand people died in that terrorist attack! The Kelen Rights firm was located in a densely populated district in Manhattan! They still haven’t found all the bodies!” He quickly covered his mouth, knowing that he wasn’t supposed to tell me anything about the outside world.

“Ah, so the operation was a success. Then I am nothing more than a man who deserves his exile.” I nodded gravely. “Though, I believe that I and my people didn't achieve much with our actions. The world is just like that. Corrupt and unforgiving. We cut off the snake’s head, but the body keeps on moving. Even now Idama's subordinates are surely fighting to take over his position in an attempt to get a piece of the power. To keep the machine going and to uphold the status quo.”

The lawyer straightened. “Then why? So many innocents!”

I shrugged. “Why do anything? Why let them get away with what they do? Because fighting them would mean the death of good men, women and children? Their mistake wasn't to piss off a good man. I am a simple man Mr. Lawyer. If you give me a reason to hurt you, then I will hurt you. There isn't much more to it as far as I am concerned.”

“They will kill you,” he replied. “Look at you. There is no way that you will survive being exiled to Tirnanog.”

I looked down at my middle-aged self. Slightly overweight and certainly having failed my daily exercises, I didn't look like much. The ministry of healthcare scoffed at citizens like me. Even with the enhancements I was to receive upon exile, survival in Tirnanog was highly unlikely.

“I still have to go,” I reaffirmed the decision that I had made years ago. “I have to go. There is nothing that keeps me here.”

The good man stood up and took his stash of files. Then he practically flew out of my cell as if he had just visited the devil himself.

It was strange. I didn’t feel like the monster that he probably saw me as. Many humans could see the world only in black and white, not realizing that their perpetual white probably created more harm and suffering than a few short years of black. I saw myself more as a grey person.

I smiled, wondering whether I would meet the lawyer again in exile, or whether he would be smart enough to keep his mouth shut. The very fact that he was still working in this facility as a cog in the machine made me suspect that the latter was the case.

My cell stayed lonely for the next two hours or so. Or was it three? It was hard to tell the time without my captors providing any clock. They were surely doing their damnedest to jump through the bureaucratic loops that would get me exiled as quickly as possible.

The next visitors were two clerks in white. One placed a tray with several needles and intravenous packages in front of me, while the other read from his notepad. “Wow, we have a multiple murderer here! He is to receive the standard experimental nanites and virus zero.”

“Standard combination for anyone who isn't supposed to survive,” the clerk with the needles stated without much emotion and looked at me. “Some of the higher-ups must really hate you to administer the outdated stuff.”

“Don't place any of this week's bets on him!” Notepad-man commented with a chuckle. “They don't last long without the advanced enhancements that come directly from R&D.”

While facing away from his comrade, Needles-guy switched out the ampoules that his compatriot had administered with something that he had hidden inside his chest pocket. Using practised motions, he loaded an injector with them.

Without much fanfare, he pressed the injector against my neck and the two of us made eye contact. He nodded, hinting that all was well, and proceeded to install one of the IV drops that the pair had brought with them on my chair.

“Let's go.” The other man signed something on his tablet and was already on his way out of my cell. “129 more to go today! We can hook him up to the IV on our return trip.”

They kept chattering while the door fell closed, but I didn't catch onto what they were saying. The world was already spinning into darkness, my mind fading away.

Time and unification hadn't done much for humanity – aside from changing the players and the battlefields. The world governments had united, but that didn't mean some regions wouldn't still be exploited 'for the good of humanity'.

People were starving for resources, and so they looked towards space – which turned out to be another dead end when the limitations of physics assured homo sapiens would stay within the confines of its prison.

Hope arrived with the development of wormhole technology.

Scientists managed to punch a tunnel through space and time, finally reaching out to other worlds... or one world, as they later realized. For some yet unexplained reason, their hyped new tech was a two-station ticket.

One was Earth.

The other was Tirnanog.

Some joker had decided to name the new land after the Celtic Otherworld and the label had stuck. A paradise of everlasting youth, beauty, health, abundance, and joy.

He couldn't have been further from the truth.

The world government sank uncountable amounts of resources into Tirnanog's colonization and exploitation. But Tirnanog refused to be tamed by the humans and their technology. Its harsh conditions, its fauna and flora, it all proved too much for the feeble human body.

Colonies quickly perished to the environment or the biological pests that infested Tirnanog. Humans were an invasive species in this place. But for once, it turned out that most things on Tirnanog found the strange bipedals to be a tasty thing.

After decades of failed attempts, the world government abandoned its pet project and demoted the place to a penal colony long before my birth. A place to get rid of anyone who might step on their toes without resorting to imprisonment or death penalties. It was also a good testing ground for the newest weapons and genetic mods that they would grant to their elites.

The words imprisonment or death penalty were no longer feared among Earth's countless multitudes. Instead, the worst possible punishment would be exile to Tirnanog.

I came back to myself when something rattled the chair I was in. Blinking at the moving lights, I realized that I was being moved down a corridor at a slight decline. Cell doors were passing to both sides, but there weren't any guards as far as I could tell.

My throat felt dry and I was covered in sweat. Otherwise, I noticed that I felt great. Better than in all the years since I had embarked on my quest to get back my last living family members.

Someone had transferred me into a wheelchair with much sturdier restraints than the ones that had held me earlier. Heavy steel cables forced my limbs and torso tightly into place, ensuring that I wouldn’t make a run for it.

Upon looking around, I realized that I was being transferred out of my cell alongside other inmates. Each of us was bound to their own wheelchair, which was guided by what looked like a magnetic railway.

The silent procession felt eerie until some of the others woke up and voiced their objections. Prisoners cried out their displeasure at the treatment and were quickly quieted by electric shocks. The entire process of deportation was apparently automated from here on out.

Though, I found it surprising that nobody had found it necessary to inform me about my sentence after the lawyer had left me.

I closed my eyes and kept quiet, having no desire to suffer an electric shock of my own. A thing which I had become very good at in the past years.

The others took a little longer to learn, but the induced electricity quickly silenced even the most stubborn of the men.

When my chair stopped, we had arrived in a large, round hall. Fifty prisoners in total had been arranged around a dark pit. I couldn't see its bottom, which made the situation all the more ominous, but I guessed that this was a part of the large Synchrotron Collider that would open the wormhole to Tirnanog.

The only hint that something was happening was a faint humming sound and a bright light that seemed to rise from the dark.

A pillar that lowered from the ceiling caught my attention. Several screens on it faced in all directions, ensuring that every prisoner would be equally informed on what was about to happen next.

A man in a snobby doctor’s outfit appeared on the screen that was facing me. He looked somewhat dishevelled and corrected his glasses as he looked into the camera. My best assumption was that all the prisoners around the pit would have their own view of the same picture.

The man cleared his throat and started speaking while ignoring the called-out questions from the men around me. So I assumed that he either didn’t give a shit about us or that it was a recording.

“Ahem, my name is Professor Everhart, and I am the leading scientist of this project. Dear test subjects, listen well, so that you may provide the best results for further study and the improvement of humankind. After all, performing well in your coming trial means your survival in Tirnanog.”

The screen changed and showed two images of what looked like bacteria and some highly complicated molecule.

“You were injected with nanites, microscopic robots that are able to change and alter your bodies. While you were unconscious, they built their own neural network inside of you and strengthened your bodies to be able to survive the transition. A second injection held the latest version of a DNA-recoder, a phage that is capable of rewriting your DNA into new configurations. It will be up to the nanites to guide this process and to ensure there aren’t any unwanted consequences.”

The man chuckled self-deprecatingly as if he knew all too well that this didn’t work even nearly as well as he wished it to.

“You likely all heard of this in school, but we are reaching for the limits of what’s possible with our technology when it comes to conquering Tirnanog. This project is an attempt to accelerate human evolution to the point that survival on Tirnanog is not only possible, but for humanity to thrive under its harsh conditions. The average man among you will probably be unable to understand the details. Rest assured that your sacrifices are for the good of humanity and will eventually allow us to colonize the other worlds within our solar system. Even if Tirnanog remains out of reach.

“What’s important for you to know is that your altered and improved bodies will be able to go through rapid mutation. In the beginning, any genetic material you come in contact with in your new world will cause rapid changes to your bodies as the nanites adapt and incorporate hopefully beneficial traits of native gene sequences into your DNA.

“Since this process will be the most effective in the beginning, we have an affiliate waiting for you on the other side who will provide you with genetic samples that should start you on your evolutionary path. And who knows, maybe it will be one of you who becomes the progenitor of a new race of humans who call Tirnanog their home?

“But I digress. I should stick to the stuff that actually helps you to survive. Well, as I said, anything you eat will be incorporated into your evolution. First, small amounts of genetic material will suffice, but as your genetic code gains in complexity, alterations will be harder to make and the process will slow down. You will have to hunt the animals whose traits you wish for in increasing amounts. Or die trying. The intention is for each of you to forge your own path through chance and opportunity, to eventually achieve an acceptable outcome.”

The doctor winced as some thought struck him.

“Just try not to eat any plants or bugs before you are provided with some proper genetic samples by our affiliate. Those work out only in the rarest of cases, as their genetic traits are often too different from the human genome. It would be a shame to lose a test subject to such an easily avoidable mistake.

“Be aware that you can exchange genetic traits with other humans who share your nanites through regular intercourse, and that this can only happen between members of opposite genders. After all, the point of this project is to create a stable population of evolved humans on Tirnanog. Even if the government has given up on the possibility and is more interested in the more practical applications of our research… but that doesn't concern you...”

The man on the screen kept talking, but my attention was drawn to the pit. The light grew brighter and brighter as the humming increased.

“… Lastly, let me remind you that while you might feel very good at the moment, that won’t be the case on Tirnanog. The planet has roughly two times the gravity of Earth. The changes to your bodies should have already accomplished the bare minimum to have you survive under those conditions. Additionally, Tirnanog is revolving around a white dwarf in very close proximity. Meaning that it will be unpleasantly bright until you have adapted to the environment.”

The man on the screen nodded gravely.

“Let me wish you the best of luck. However inhumane your punishment may seem, random evolution and mutation is the only path that’s left to move forward for humanity. All other attempts have failed, so our hopes rest on you.”

I desired nothing more than to curse this man and his speech, but at that moment my wheelchair tipped forward over the pit's edge. I was left hanging at a ninety-degree angle above the flickering energy effect that now filled the entire pit.

The whirring noise became all-encompassing as it droned out the so-called scientist’s voice. From my point of view, his methods sounded like nothing more than the random experiments an alchemist of old may have used.

Already guessing at what would happen, I tried to fumble for purchase with my hands, but it was futile. Whoever had designed these chairs made sure the prisoners had no easy handholds.

Wavering, and whirling, the light rose from the bottom of the pit. It wasn’t what I had expected the wormhole to look like. But hadn’t the scientist said that the other side was illuminated by a white dwarf?

Before I could finish the thought, my restraints and those of forty-nine other exiles released, dropping us into the pit and onto another world.