[2046 AD - Somewhere in Washington state]

Jake Darrow’s mind was shrouded in fog as the guards shoved him through a set of cold steel doors, then dragged him down a long white corridor. It was the sort of stark hallway that felt straight out of a horror movie set, the sort of hallway that never led to anything good.

But his body was exhausted and his eyes were heavy, and so he did not resist.

He could not remember why he was here, or where the hell here was. It was as though his body had been dropped into the middle of a strange dream.

But his mental capacities were sharp enough to understand that he was in deep shit.

The guards hurried him along so fast he could barely keep his feet under him. Both men were dressed in black uniforms, with no decorations, save for a patch on the right breast—an emblem of an octagonal maze with a red circle at the center. Both were tall and muscular, one Hispanic and bald, the other a very pale redhead. Neither man so much as looked at him.

They gripped him tightly by the arms and led him through another series of corridors.

“Wha’s going on?” Jake slurred.

And immediately regretted it.

The redheaded guard slapped his face. “Shut up!”

Jake grimaced. Yep, very deep shit.

“Go easy, Connors,” said the other guard. His badge read: Officer Marco Reyes.

Connors glared, but complied.

The impact awakened Jake’s mind further, and he realized he must be coming out of some sort of sedation. Likely the reason his legs felt so wobbly, and the guards gripped him so tight. A queasy feeling filled his gut, perhaps a side effect from whatever drug he’d been given.

But there was something more.

An image flashed in his mind. It was not entirely clear, but he vaguely made out the form of a young girl on the ground beside him. No older than his own twenty-three years. Blood poured from a gaping wound in her head, pooling on the concrete. From the angle of his vision, Jake was on the concrete too, covered in her blood.

Terror gripped him. He blinked hard and glanced down at his hands.

They were clean.

But the sudden movement sent his head spinning. He dropped to his knees in the middle of the corridor and retched on the ground.

“Dammit!” Connors shouted.

“Forget it,” Reyes said. “The orderlies will clean it up.”

The two enormous men jerked Jake back to his feet.

“Lucky you missed my shoes, asshole,” Connors said. “Cost me two hundred credits. I’d’ve kicked the crap out of you.”

“Ain’t worth getting writ up over,” Reyes said.

“You make me wish they never banned the death penalty,” Connors muttered. “What you did to that girl. I would happily watch them kill thugs like you. Hell, I’d sign up to do it myself.”

Jake said nothing, but the sinking feeling in his gut only worsened, and it took everything inside him not to vomit again. That girl had been real. A memory. Him on the concrete beside her.

Oh god! I killed her?

His breathing grew frantic and shallow.

Who had she been? Had he known her?

The image was still hazy in his mind. She had blonde hair, when it wasn’t covered in blood, but he couldn’t quite picture her face. His memory was consumed by the gaping wound and the blood. He knew it made him a coward, but if he was honest, he didn’t want to picture it. His heart thundered in his chest.

This can’t be real!

Jake didn’t bother asking the guards about her, for fear he would only get slapped again. The pair led him through a final set of steel doors, which opened into a smaller hallway. A tall black man with a mustache stood in front of a solitary door.

The man wore the same dark uniform as the other two guards.

It was only then, Jake realized how strange it was that he was not wearing any handcuffs. But then again, Jake was short and scrawny, and all three of these guys looked like they lifted all day. He was no match for any of them.

And where the hell would he go anyway?

The man gestured to Connors and Reyes. “I’ll take him from here, boys.”

The two released their grip and backed away.

The steel doors opened into another corridor, this one made of stone, lit by dim yellow lamps. A rush of cold air shot into Jake’s face, jolting him fully out of his haze. He glanced back. The two guards were already gone.

“Let’s go, kid,” the third guard said. His badge read: Officer Shad Matthews. He walked through the doors.

“You just expect me to follow you?” Jake asked.

The man laughed, a deep-throated cackle that shook his whole body. “If we were worried about your resistance, you’d be cuffed, boy. Besides, where else do you think you’re gonna go?”

Jake glanced back again, and realized that another set of doors had closed silently behind him. Apparently, he’d been standing in some sort of holding cell.

With no options and no answers, he obeyed. The ground was made of concrete, but the corridor went on and on, and made Jake think of a tour he had gone on once during a family vacation to Mammoth Cave, when he was in high school. Their guide had been a cute college girl, and Jake had not paid very much attention to the cave. His mother had been really upset at him. She was the nature-loving type.

He felt a sharp pang of guilt at the thought of his family. Did they know what had happened? Would he ever see them again?

With the level of surveillance technology, the jury trial system had been abandoned before Jake fully understood what it had ever been like. The evidence spoke for itself now.

Which meant there was no doubt about whatever it was he’d done. The government had footage. The girl’s bloody face entered his mind again and tried to stick, but he pushed it back.

The cavernous corridor continued for some time. Shad kept a quick pace ahead of him, saying nothing. Jake guessed it was ten minutes or more before they reached a gigantic vault door. Shad punched a code into the keypad to the right, and the door shot up and another rush of cold air struck Jake in the face.

The room beyond was empty and stark white. There was a stainless steel table at the center, and two steel chairs. Upon the table was a singular plate set with a juicy ribeye steak, mashed potatoes, and buttery green beans. Beside the plate, there was a bright red can of Coke.

It was a silly thought all things considered, but he was relieved it wasn’t Pepsi.

Shad gestured to the seat.

Jake stared at the food stupidly.

“Your favorite meal, isn’t it?” Shad asked.

“Y-yeah, but how did you know?”

Shad shrugged. “The law knows things, boy. Same way they don’t need a trial.”

“What the hell is this?” he asked, pointing at the food.

“Back when I was a boy, I had an uncle. Ran with a rough crowd and got himself into all kinds of trouble. One night, my mama got a call in the middle of the night. My uncle had killed a man. Swore up and down it was self defense, but there was no way to prove it. That was back before the satellite cams were built. Back when they’d kill a man for that sort of shit. Well, on the day they executed him, he got a meal. For the last meal, they’d cook up something real special. Whatever you wanted. Same as we got here for you.”

Jake started trembling. “M-my last meal? But they don’t—”

“Nah, they don’t execute folks no more. But from now on, you’re going to be eating a bit differently.”

“What do you mean?”

Shad took a seat in the chair on the other side of the table. “You better eat before that steak gets cold.”

Jake was starving, now that he thought about it. He tore into the steak, cutting off large chunks, dipping it into the creamy potatoes. He guzzled it down with a large swig of Coke.

“Why’s this the last meal? Because the prison food is so terrible?”

Shad smiled, and Jake thought it might actually be genuine, if a little patronizing. “Your head still feels a bit hazy, don’t it?”

Jake paused his eating and nodded. “How did you know?”

“You all come down like that. You got a headache too?”

Come to think of it, he did. It was not the blazing pain of a migraine, it was more like a strong, constant pressure at the base of his cranium, where the neck met his skull.

What part is that again? The occipital bone!

His Intro to Anatomy professor would have been proud. Jake reached back to the source of the discomfort, then jerked his hand away in horror.

There was something metal embedded into the back of his spine.