Many may disagree at first, but once the evidence is laid out, the theory becomes clearly correct.

The most consequential event to occur to the Cygnus-Orion Galactic Arm Spur was one simple act.

The Glassing of TerraSol by the Mantid.

Scoff if you will.

The Mar-gite, the Lanaktallan, the Mantid, the Atrekna, the Precursor Autonomous War Machines, and too many others to count certainly id.

It had effects that are still rippling through the cosmos this very second. - Bo'okdu'ust, Lanaktallan Socio-Mathematics researcher, 15 TXE

The door hissed closed as he sat down, FIDO sitting next to him and then laying down.

**Worried Dax** FIDO said.

"Me too, boy," Daxin said, reaching out and petting FIDO's petting nerve by scratching him between the ears. "I know better than to trust or underestimate her."

The door clicked shut. There was a loud humming noise that was more felt than heard and the impression of a strobing light even though the light level inside the hexagonal chamber didn't change. Mist rose up from the floor, thin and wispy.

Daxin blacked out.

He knew he had nightmares. Terrible nightmares of his deepest fears chasing him. He didn't remember them, the nightmares shattering, turning to ash, and whisping away.

He was laying face down in a small puddle of drool. His eyes were crusted over with something and it took him a minute to open them. FIDO lay next to him, eyes closed, tongue hanging out.

Daxin hurt all over.

With a groan he rolled over and rubbed his eyes as he sat up.

Rather than the hexagonal chamber he expected, there was a grid of glowing green light above and below him that extended off into infinity in all directions.

Daxin got to his feet and looked around, rubbing his sleeve against his mouth and cheek.

This was not was he expected.

FIDO got up slowly, shakily, his ears rotating as he sniffed the air.

**Strange place dax strange place** FIDO said.

"Yeah, yeah it is," Daxin said. He looked around slowly. Up was above his head, down was where his feet were securely placed. He lifted his feet off the floor several times, then just lifted his toes, then just his heels.

Same surface tension.

He reached up, the ceiling stayed just out of reach. When he jumped up, it still stayed slightly beyond his reach. He closed his eyes, letting his onboard navigation system run a check even as he clicked his tongue several times.

It looked the same on his internal mapping.

He opened his eyes and started moving forward. There was no real reason to go that direction, he just chose at random and started walking.

After an indeterminable amount of a time a wall slowly came into view, then gradually drew closer. The wall had clear corners for the ceiling and floor and stretched off into the distance to the right and left, the surface of the wall made up of blackness broken up by a perfect grid of green lines. As he got close, four grid boxes flashed, then went white.

Daxin shook his head, moving through the doorway.

He stepped out, smoothly and easily, into a dark room. His onboard systems could detect several larger than man sized tubes at the far side, a desk and chair with a datacomp on the right, and a door to the left. He stopped and waited, detecting and feeling FIDO move up next to him.

The lights came on, buzzing tubes embedded in the ceiling. The tubes were suspension tanks, the fronts shielded, cables and pipes coming off of them. Five total. The desk was a heavy thing, all metal and plastic, and the datacomp was an older model. CRT with keyboard and mouse. The door was heavy and said "NO ADMITTANCE - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" in red paint stencil.

"You," Daxin said when he saw who was leaning against the desk.

The Matron of the Damned in all her glory, wearing an all black suit, white undershirt, black tie, and a white earpiece in her ear. She had a smokestick between her lips and a match in one hand. Her black hair was slicked back, black sunglasses hiding her eyes.

She struck the match on the table, lifting it up and lighting the smokestick. She puffed a few times, flicked the match into midair so it sparkled and vanished.

"Mister Freeborn," she said slowly, staring at him, the sunglasses hiding her gunmetal grey eyes.

Daxin just nodded.

The Matron pushed herself off the desk with a flex of her hips, moving slowly to the tubes. Her polished shoes clacked against the tile.

"Is it you or is it your electronic simulacrum in Hell?" Daxin asked.

"Me," the Matron said. "I'm in hiding, but for you, I've come back."

"Why?" Daxin almost spat the word.

He didn't trust her one bit.

"For you, Mister Freeborn. My intentions are clear," the Matron said without turning around. She put one hand on the first tube, took a drag off of her smokestick, then slowly turned to face him. "I'm going to take you off the board. Make sure you don't chase me. Make sure you're out of the way for whatever comes next."

Dax raised an eyebrow, his hand shifting to next to his thigh.

"Don't stupid, Mister Freeborn," the Matron said. "I know better than to use violence against the Walking War Crime," she gave a low chuckle.

"Where are we?" Daxin asked.

The Matron smiled. "I know better than to assume you're stupid, so I'll break it down for you," she said, her face still impassive. "We're currently in a flattened high energy waveform existing in the space at the junction of several dimensions."

Daxin nodded slowly. "So, don't bother trying to escape."

The Matron tilted her head slightly, then straightened up and nodded slowly. "Indeed, Mister Freeborn."

Daxin sighed. "All right."

"I need a Hell Knight," the Matron of Hell said. She tapped the cover on the suspension tube and it slowly drew up.

The figure inside was a horror show. Warsteel plating, chains, spikes, barbed wire, gears, tangled cabling. A demonic face shield, the front of the forehead clear to show a brain floating in nutrigel.

"Serve me, be my Hell Knight, protect humanity, Mister Freeborn," the Matron of the Damned said, her voice monotone. "You will serve only me, no longer bound to a humanity that used and discarded you when they were done with you. You will have more freedom serving me than you have ever known, Mister Freeborn."

Daxin closed his eyes. "Let me guess, if I serve you, you'll reunite me with my wife and daughter."

**don't trust Dax don't trust** FIDO sent.

The Matron of the Damned shook her head. "No, Mister Freeborn. Your wife and daughter are beyond me, beyond the SUDS, beyond the petty bureaucrats who keep watch over souls. You will merely be my Hell Knight, nothing more, nothing less. You will serve as Legion agreed to serve, Mister Freeborn."

Daxin heaved a sigh.

"No," he said.

"Legion has agreed," the Matron of Hell stated coldly.

"Dhruv has a need to serve. It's wired into him. It's wired into most humans, but Dhruv was generated from that strand of desire," Daxin said.

The Matron just nodded slowly.

"Serve me as a Hell Knight. Help protect humanity. The Digital Omnimessiah can lead humanity to a better universe, but you, Mister Freeborn, will punish those who stray or who threaten," the Matron said.

"No," Daxin said.

"Hmm," she said. She tapped the tube and the shielding slid down, hiding the monstrocity from view.

"To go on, you cannot use the physical form you are using now, Mister Freeborn," the Matron said slowly. She waved her hand and the armored shielding slid up from the other tubes. "Choose, Mister Freeborn, the visage you choose to wear once we have concluded out business."

Daxin stared. One of the occupants looked just like he had before he had sat down in the mat-trans. Cybernetic legs, arms, spinal column, eyes. Cybernetic markings along his ribcage. Tattoos on his face.

That one wasn't what held his gaze.

There was the heavy full conversion version of him. Little more than a brain in a jaw with the jawbone and the eyes remaining.

"Because it was funny, Mister Freeborn," the Matron of Hell threw his own words back at him as she stepped up and touched that suspension tube.

The Matron of Hell moved to the next one, pulling apart from herself to leave a version of herself standing next to the full conversion body. She touched the suspension tube as Daxin stared at the body within.

His body.

Thick muscle and heavy bone, only a few cybernetic implants. Tattoos on his cheek, across his chest, on his biceps.

"As you were after you waded the liquid metal of Mars to rescue the innocent. After you were touched by the Digital Omnimessiah, Mister Freeborn," she said.

Another pulled free, stepping up to the next one. Spinal reinforcement, cybernetic legs and arms, chest implants, natural looking cybernetic eyes.

"As you were during your years with the Combine, Mister Freeborn," all of the Matrons of the Damned said at the same time.

Another pulled free, moving up to the last tube. She touched it and the shielding slid back.

Daxin recognized himself, but not as he had ever seen himself. The habgang tattoos were missing. There were no cybernetic implants except for a datalink. The scars earned through a lifetime of warfare and street combat were missing.

"As you would have been, had you never suffered beneath the knives of corporate ripperdocs, military cyberneticists, or any of that. Pure. Unsullied. Just your base genecode as I found it in the archives of the Global Genomic Collection database, aged up to an adult," The Matron said. "Who you could have been, Mister Freeborn."

Daxin just nodded. "And?"

The Matron of Hell tapped all five tubes.

"You must choose one to progress. Choose the body you will live in, Mister Freeborn," she tapped all five of the suspension tubes. "I have not modified your mind. I do not approve of neural adjustment, despite the claims of scientists, we do not know enough of how the human brain works, Mister Freeborn."

Daxin just nodded. He stepped forward and touched the one where he was untouched.

"This one," he said softly.

There was a jerking feeling, like he had been yanked forward, then he was falling. There was pain, agony, and shards of his life flashed in front of his vision.

"Rise and shine, Mister Freeborn," the Detainee's voice was close yet far away.

He landed hard on his side, managing to take the majority of the impact on his hip and shoulder.

At least my reflexes are there, he thought to himself.

He took stock, laying there. He was laying in dirt, the feeling of moss and grass beneath his skin. He could hear the sound of insects. The air was cool, if slightly damp. Animals and creatures could be heard rustling in underbrush.

**Dax ok?** FIDO asked, and started licking his shoulder.

"Yeah," Daxin said. He opened his eyes and sat up, shifting his shoulder and grimacing at the tiny spark of pain.

**Daxin look funny** FIDO said.

Daxin saw he was naked and shook his head. "She loves games," he said.

"This is no game, Mister Freeborn," the Matron's voice came from behind him.

Daxin turned and looked. He noted how his body felt different. More real, but less solid. He was aware of less about his body, so many things now just... happening.

The Matron of the Damned sat on a rock behind a table. The table had clothing on it in different piles. Pseudo-military uniforms in one stack, leisure clothing in another stack, dress clothing in another. All with shoes, shirts, underwear, and socks.

"Choose, Mister Freeborn," she said.

"Why?" Daxin asked.

"Because, we have a long road to travel, Mister Freeborn," the Matron said.

Daxin just nodded. He moved up and looked it over. There were even leathers, completely with spikes and studs, that even had his old gang colors spray painted and scrawled on them.

He chose comfortable boots, thick socks, heavy denim jeans, a comfortable unadorned black t-shirt, a leather vest over it, and a pair of fingerless black leather gloves.

The Matron of the Damned just watched, silently, her eyes unreadable behind the black sunglasses.

Once Daxin was done stomping his boots so that they were nice and comfortable, he looked at The Detainee, trying not to let any irritation show on his face.

"Now what?" he asked.

**FIDO not trust this devil mommy** FIDO sent over the link that obviously still existed.

"We have a distance to walk, Mister Freeborn," the Matron said. "There will be trials of strength and determination that you must face."

Daxin decided not to ask why. Part of his didn't want to give her the satisfaction.

The Matron pushed off from the rock, lighting a cigarette as she walked toward the woods.

FIDO barked happily as Daxin followed her.