"I swear, I'm telling the truth!"

My grip on my glass tightened until my knuckles turned white, but I couldn't keep my voice from wavering. The man sitting next to me eyed me with a doubtful expression, and then looked down at the glass of Malovian schnapps before me. But I wasn't drunk - yet. Being sober certainly didn't help to cope with what had happened to me in the past twenty-four hours.

I had just arrived at the Backside of the Coin, the infamous raider sanctuary on Six. I had been here once before, a long time ago, when the Town had been a thriving mining colony and the planet had been known as Pylassius 6. Not much was left of the high-tech infrastructure I had seen at my last visit. At some point, the resident mining corporation had packed up and checked out, leaving behind nothing but a stripped down shanty town, starving settlers and a hollowed-out planet. Even the name of the planet had been stripped and Pylassius 6 was now only known as Six - to the few who knew of the planet's existence at all.

Six wasn't so much hidden, as it was forgotten. By the authorities, the elites, and most importantly, the big corporations who spun their intricate webs of influence and lies through the Outlands. It was the perfect place for me to wait for the heat to die down, but as I watched the newsfeeds on the large wall screen behind the bar, I realized that there was no heat. The events on Ticotan Station hadn't even made the news yet.

"Becky, what did you pour for that poor soul? I hope not some of Old Argus' moonshine," somebody spoke next to me, ripping me out of my thoughts.

I looked up and spotted a man with clothes as ragged as the establishment I had sought refuge in. The bartender poured him a glass without asking for his order. He was a regular patron, apparently.

"Haven't seen you around before," he noted, "What leads you to Six?"

I didn't even know where to begin, so I decided to start with the event that was still freshest in my memory, even if it meant I'd have to tell the story backwards. It didn't make sense either way.

"Ticotan Station," I simply said, "It blew up..."

He stopped in his motion, his glass halfway to his lips, and exchanged a strange glance with the bartender. He seemed inclined to believe me though, because he leaned closer with a spark of curiosity in his eyes.

"You know who did it?" he asked, and the corners of his mouth rose along with one of his eye brows.

"I... well, it doesn't make any sense, but I think it's... it was..."

The recollection caused me to falter in my words again.

"It was horrible," I whispered, "I've never seen so much... death before. Not like this..."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I had seen my fair share of carnage, I'd even had my own hand in it more often than I liked to admit. But Ticotan Station had been different. The metallic tang of blood and the foul stench of entrails still followed me around like a ghastly miasma. Images haunted me, vibrant and gruesome, tinged crimson with blood. Worst of all were the screams - deafening, blood-curling screeches that kept echoing through my mind. I had been a fighter pilot back in the day, but I had never once seen a massacre up close. And I knew that if I had, I wouldn't have been able to sleep another night after my first bombing run.

As I opened my eyes again, I found the man pinning me down with a somber glare. His cheerful smile had frozen on his face, reflecting the clammy cold that had taken hold of me.

"Tell me what happened," he said.

"I knew something was wrong from the moment I docked. Something was amiss, something in the air, like a strange kind of static. I was on a routine stop, just refueling and basic repairs. I decided to pass the wait at the local bar. On my way there, I bumped into a strange girl-"

"Strange? In what way?" he interrupted.

"Absent minded, distracted. But what struck me as odd was that look in her eyes. It was... hollow. As if she was looking right through me, and at the same time, I was looking through her, know what I mean?"

A furrow appeared on his brow, but to my surprise, he nodded.

"I didn't think much of it," I went on, "But later at the bar, I saw a few others like her. Hollow. Staring off into the distance. When they moved, every motion was staggered and odd. It was as if they were..."

"Not in control? Of their own bodies?" the man suggested.

"Exactly!" I felt relieved that he seemed to believe me.

"And then?"

"They... went berserk," I finally found the right word, "Suddenly, one guy attacked another... he tried to chew off his goddamn face! Another tore into him with his bare hands, pulling out..."

My voice trailed off and I trembled violently as I felt nausea well up inside of me. I noticed that the bartender had poured me another drink, and downed it in one big gulp.

"By the time security arrived the entire place had already erupted in carnage. I don't know what triggered it, guess it could've been anything, a disease, drugs... hell, I've seen it myself on Unos..."

"Neurachem," the man mumbled. I nodded again. That was the name of the company who had used that colony as a testing ground for a novel drug.

"But this was different. These people were doing things beyond what humans should be able to do. It was uncanny. I saw a girl half my size rip a grown man's arms off."

He leaned back and stared off into the distance with a furrow on his brow.

"Augments," he finally said. "These people were augments."

"What?" I exclaimed, "That's impossible..."

"So is your story," the man said and smirked. As he turned to look at me, white rings lit up in his dark eyes, giving them an eerie glow.

Personally, I had subjected myself to voluntary stripping in the early days of the Purge. I had to do it, to keep my job. I wanted to fly, not matter the cost, and I let them clip my body so they wouldn't clip my wings. Soon thereafter, Orion's Reach began to hunt down augments relentlessly and brutally, so I had never really regretted my choice. People like the man before me must have had miserable lives, living in constant fear of the Reach. That's why they were hiding in places like Six. But Ticotan was a reputable space station, and some of the people I'd seen mauling innocents had looked like upper class. It made no sense that they would be augments, but at the same time, it was the only explanation.

"You mentioned that the station blew up. How did that happen?"

"That's the craziest part," I admitted. "I barely made it out of there with my life, and got back to my ship, when I spotted an Atlas freight carrier inbound. I sent a warning, but they ignored it. Seconds after they docked, their ship went up in flames. And then the whole station with it."

"Atlas... the shipping company," he mumbled.

"I know, it sounds insane," I sighed, gripping my glass again, as if it could serve as a lifeline to some kind of other version of reality, where things still made sense.

"No, it sounds perfectly reasonable."

"What?" I exclaimed.

"My guess is that Ticotan Station was a testing ground," he said, rising to his feet, "And the experiment failed, so they covered their traces."

"Like... on Unos?" I muttered, furrowing my brow.

"Worse," he replied, and downed the rest of his drink. "What Neurachem did on Unos was just dirty business... But Atlas, they mean war. People like me, we'll be on one side. Neurachem, Atlas, what's left of the Reach, all those bastards in Neo-Tokyo - they'll be on the other side. And people like you will either have to pick a side, or will be caught up in the middle."

"A choice, huh?" I mumbled.

"Thank you for telling me your story," he said, as he payed the bartender for his drink, and mine as well. As I met his gaze the white rings in his eyes were glowing again.

"No, thank you," I replied. "For reminding me that I still have a choice."

My gaze came to rest on the scars on his hands – a result of inflammation of subcutaneous augments, or forceful stripping. Either way, it must have been painful as hell. I had thought of the Purge as something of the past, something that didn't affect me any more. But for people like him, it wasn't over. I had thought I was safe because I had been stripped. But the people on Ticotan station hadn't been safe either.

He was right – this was war, and the worst battles were yet to come.

_____

A.N.

Written for a scifi story prompt contest in July 2018. The word count limitation of 1500 was a huge challenge for me, and I had to cut out some of the description of the original draft. This short scene is set in the 'New Elysium' story universe (if you've read any of it, yes, the man the witness is talking to is Nova! I couldn't even squeeze a mention of his purple hair in here...). The main stories 'New Elysium', 'Against the Tide', 'Dreams in Monochrome' and 'New Elysium 2: Weapons of War' can be found in a reading list of the same name on my profile.