Daylight streamed through the porthole. I slowly cracked one eye open to see a small room, the window a skylight and next to the cot I slept in was a large metal shelf, covered with an array of salvaged objects. Sliding to my feet I felt the cold numb ground, my shoes and socks were lying at the edge of the bed, my leg was mended, my hand ruffly bandaged. I was dressed in the same clothes as before, a warm woolly blanket wrapped tightly around my chest. Approaching the door relative to that of a submarine I spun it open to hear a faint hiss of depressurization. Ahead was a large room, in the center were 3 control panels each with a chair behind them.

Glowing buttons, radar, makeshift instruments and a single large window overlooking the endless wasteland below made up the rest. In the corner a humanoid figure stood over a map, his eyes fixed at tracing a path, a cane in his hand. He spun around with remarkable speed portraying an eyepatch and knobby cane, his skin was dark and tanned, his ears slightly pointed his face an assembly of wrinkles. I had a vague memory of being nursed to health by the man and something being skillfully removed from the back of my neck and skull. The sting of operating lights still rang throughout my vision. I smoothed my hand over my tender skin to reveal a healed scar and dirty bandage, somehow my hair had not been affected by the operation.

“What… what did you do to me?” I asked

Dressed in military fatigues and makeshift metal armor, he had a single insignia on his breast pocket, that of another world. Yet he bore the symbol with a proud demeanor, his chest protruding as he walked.

“I rescued you from those mindless and I removed your tracker and some Collective control modules… the life transmitter was still hardwired to your spine so it was too risky,” he replied

“What?” I stuttered.

“Are you an associate of the collective?” he inquired

“No, I, I don’t know” I hesitated, unsure of what to say.

Pulling back his green shirt he revealed similar scars, twice as faded but still barely visible.

“I wasn't always like this you know, limp, injured, I'm glad to see you up, you're the first, the first I've seen in a long time this far east. Where are you from?, West, The Archius, I can see by your species you're not a mercenary.”

“I'm not sure where I'm from, London I think”

“London? Never heard of it, from the way you're dressed I’d say you just dropped.”

“Dropped? You mean that tube I was in?”

“Tube you were in?”

“When did you drop? Do you feel any wounds?” the man hobbled over and placed a hank on my forehead.

“Yesterday, I thought I did but since you found me I feel perfectly fine apart from my neck, why?” I questioned

The man was old in age, about 50 or 60 his face, dark-skinned and wore the scars of many battles and mental grief, his hair was light whispery gray portraying a vast sea of wisdom. Setting aside his cane he slinked away.

“No injury? Impossible… I saw you drop from a Collective Studies Pod”

“I was injured, my leg, you fixed it”

I looked at him in a puzzled manner, hardly aware of my surroundings.

“That ain't no injury kid, look at me, my leg, my eye, see the pearly white swirl of my pupil, despite this, they're fine. I was abducted 10 years ago by The Collective when I tried to free my mind, I lost something in return for escape, we all lost something, some lost their mind, most in fact, while some, some lucky ones lost their body.

They crippled my leg, and took sight out of my eye, to free your mind from itself, you have to lose part of it. Those wanderers you got in a fight with back there, they were those who lost their mind. You're telling me, you didn't lose any part of your body.”

He hobbled over, I noticed that part of his leg was robotically operated, a rivet of steel installed in the flesh and both his injuries were on the same side of his body.

“Ouch”

I winced in pain at his touch

“Hold still, I'm checking your brainwaves”

He placed a pad on my head connected to a computer with a few wires, tapping it twice he viewed a neuro scan of my brain.

“It seems you got an upgrade, your memory banks are overloaded, other than that no damage, sit over there, make yourself at home”

I positioned myself on a soft cushioned platform, keeping an intense stare into the man’s eyes.

“Where am I?” I asked gently.

The stranger stroked the metal wall with his hand and cast out a frivolous gander through the room.

“This is my ship. The Tobago, I'm Ellis by the way, Ellis Tobago”

He held out a strong weathered hand to shake my own vigorously.

“So tell me how did you escape?”

“A creature was coming, one from my mind,"

"A synth"

"What is that?"

"It's a monster, a creature your mind creates, people have gotten past the maze, however, none have gotten past the synths in the end."

"You talk as if many have tried"

"Many try and hundreds of thousands have failed. Tell me how you escaped."

"I knew I couldn't win so I pulled”

“What?”

“I pulled the pads off my head, my memory had information on mental displacement, I removed the Neural wiring.”

“Removed it?”

“Yes”

He stepped back for a moment, stroking his chin with a wrinkled hand.

“Are you sure?” the man asked, his voice quavering.

“Yes?” I retorted confusedly.

“Bloody hell, The Collective must have thought they lost connection, that you were brain dead. Removing the Neural tube, that's crazy, almost makes me think that it's possible… What did you do to grab it?.”

“Yes”

“You grabbed something you could not see, feel, something not in your plane of existence?”

"What is past the maze?"

"Nothing for which I have heard nothing, a field of horrors all trying to kill you, houses, a whole world, and only one place is where you can master your mind.

“Where am I?”

I interrupted his question with another. He reluctantly answered, heaving a heavy sigh.

“Middle of The Wasteland, The dropzone, a planet full of garbage, test subjects, the collectives waste, spare parts, pirates, and old soldiers like me.”

“Old soldiers, Test subjects?”

The man seemed to speak in riddles.

“You saw the badge coming in? United Federation Of Kestle, General, Ellis Tobago. The collective took me from my troops, came in the night, we knew of their existence, even tried to fight them, fools we were, Kestle was a utopia for everything good in life. The society has grown from what I heard in Archius but they aren't big enough to take on the collective. I heard rumours they signed a treaty of non-intervention five years ago leaving the collective to its own desires.”

“Archius?”

“It's a city, only one for hundreds of kilometres, Has its own civil guard and government, they don't like outsiders much though, usually people like me just whip in and whip out, stocking up on supplies and selling our wares.”

“You mentioned others?”

I looked at him with bewildered eyes.

“Mercenaries, when I first came eleven years before that a mercenary group of soldiers from an army now perished in the sands of time crashed here. Apparently exiled for war crimes and a failure to maintain an intergalactic contract. 100,000 of them, they run the western wasteland along with many small settlements. Naturally, we have the Collective, of course, The Collectives Robotic soldiers are a formidable legion of strength, this entire planet is controlled by their iron grasp no matter what facade the criminals believe. With a single shot from the orbital cannons, an entire city could be decimated in an instant. Nothing left but smouldering remains.

In the North Continent, a few Collective cities and permanent settlements do exist, however, they are separated from this wasteland by a radiation field and an orbital defence system will terminate all unauthorized flights. They use this planet as a garbage dump keeping the shining towers and blissful gardens of The Collective unscathed by their own rampant destruction.

The members of the Collective homeworld see them as lesser citizens of course. Constitutionally they possess the same rights however this planet is envisioned as the garbage dump of the grand utopia, a cesspool of undesirables.

All necessary pollution, hazardous wastes and dangerous factories are constructed here. If it can harm the planet it takes place here and not on the homeworld. A few Collective outposts do exist in the wastes. Left to monitor side effects and maintain a semblance of order. They never do charity or civil law, of course. Instead, they simply abduct and execute those they deemed threats or persons of interest.

The wastes are where they dump all of their garbage, old test subjects and serve as a general storage area. This planet has the most enormous selection of species in the galaxy which makes it a great harvesting place. Legionaries are the only thing The Mercenaries are good for.

The planet is remotely fresh in use however, If you take an eye out for the series of small moons that orbit the planet Tautaran, that was the original plane of garbage disposal, once they had finally filled it and spoiled the land with toxins they moved on, harvesting this world seems to be their current decision, but this time sparing the upper half due to former colonies being located on its coast.”

Heaving a sigh he stood up and strode towards a porthole, raising his hand to point to the open sky.

You looked out the window, that thing the size of a small moon is where they keep us, study us and most of their prominent scientists live. They control twelve solar systems and could control a lot more but their focus was never conquest, always immortality. Why… we'll never know. What's your name, kid?”

“Taylor, John Taylor.”

“Interesting… You know if you ever want a job I could always do with help on my ship”

“Job?”

The term almost seemed alien to me, a thought from a past now forgotten.

“Payment would be food and lodgings maybe a few parts of equipment here and there plus I’ll show you the ropes”

I scanned my surroundings considering them the empty abyss of chaos that lay below.

“do I have a choice?”

"Well considering your options I could give you a lift to the nearest town, but if you've just dropped you'd be easy picking for thugs assuming you don't die of starvation or wildlife in the perilous wasteland, So I would say no"

I paused for a moment contemplating my next move.

"Sure I'll join when I start?"

“Today, one rule follow my direct orders no matter what and just don't touch anything”

“Ok follow orders don't touch anything, simple”

“It's never simple. Here put this on its makeshift armour, put the vest over your clothes it will protect you”

He shoved a black vest covered in scrap metal and intricate instruments into my hands and pointed to a dark hallway of steel.

“The ship was engineered to be a transport freighter. I bought it from a smuggler in the depths of a slum city San Contino. Almost lost an eye doing it, it's hardly a city more a clump of ancient ships clustered together. It's also where we go to get fuel and sell the scrap we salvage.”

“Salvage”

“That's about the only thing you can do on this planet. Salvage the entire place is one big rust bucket of supplies. We're in the wastes right now. A land that mostly ruins. To the north, there are the collectives strongholds and cities protected by the radiation grounds and thousands of defence systems which cut off the hemisphere, the west mercenaries, the south Archius and the east, nothing but wildlife. The rest of the planet is all water and the landmass is less than 1⁄4. Never swim in any water, it's irradiated, the oceans are where most of the toxic stuff leaks, it's the main trash container in this place…” he whispered

I stumbled forwards a bit shocked by the information, the man continued, babbling about the world around.

“The sun is getting low. Dump your belongings in cabin 4 and meet me on the aft deck where we can talk.” Ellis chortled

I stumbled down the dimly lit hallway past towering piles of junk, random disassembled weapons and unraveled coils of salvaged wiring. There were four small cabins that fashioned the living quarters. One was the General's, its window was re-enforced and padlocked, the other when I pushed the door open the beds and cabinets had been removed. In the center was a large work table welding materials and tool kits were strewn across the room, on top of the table lay a metallic robot, the grey body of a human with a blue visor for eyes and one large antenna sprouting from the back of its head.