Origins
1110 Words
The reinforced bunker was a pre-Drop relic buried under a low mesa thirty miles west of Dry Wells. Thick concrete walls, rusted blast doors, and a generator that still coughed to life after Tank hot-wired it. The crew had dragged Riley inside and sealed the doors before night fell. Now the only light came from flickering emergency bulbs and the faint green glow leaking from Riley’s skin.
Jax sat on a metal crate, shirt off, letting Milo stitch the worst of the gashes from the black rock fight. Every needle prick sent fresh fire across his ribs and thigh, but the pain kept him focused. Reyes paced nearby, cleaning her revolver with quick, angry movements. Tank stood guard at the door, heavy machine gun resting across his plated shoulder.
Riley lay on a cot against the far wall, breathing steady but shallow. The sympathetic link between them hummed like a live wire in Jax’s chest.
Milo finished the last suture and stepped back. “You’re holding together better than most after two major integrations in one day. But that shield Script is pulling on both of you. Every time you use it, Riley’s vitals dip a little. We need to sever the connection still existing between him and whatever infused itself in him before."
"How"?
"I am not sure." Milo's eyebrows creased in deep thought. " The bio forge bears similarities to video games from our home world, where each character is assigned a specific class: medic, hacker, muscle, assassin, and so, each with its own unique abilities and skill sets. Clearly, I am the medic of this ragtag group, and Reyes belongs to the hacker class. Tank, as his name suggests, is the muscle, and you too could be classified under that category." Milo chuckled, as his eyes bore over Jax's heavy build, his arms and legs knotted by bulging muscles.
"You most likely served in the military, with the way you've blended in to this reality so far."
"Marines" Jax replied tersely. " Get to the point"
."A man of few words, I see. I have been here for longer, and I have only survived this long because of the other two. What i am getting at is this, if my video game theory is true, then there have to be more players other than us, scattered around.
"People who belong to these classes, and have been here longer. People who have been able to upgrade their abilities and skill sets. Your brother, is beyond my abilities, but if we can get him to someone of the medic class with more XP points, we might have a chance"
Before Jax could answer, a new private notification appeared — clear and cold:
[Bloodline integration has unlocked limited Archive Access.]
[You may now query one restricted history file.]
[Warning: Reading the file will trigger 90 seconds of neural feedback — disorientation and physical pain.]
[Proceed? Yes/No]
Jax stared at the glowing blue text only he could see. His pulse quickened. This was new. The system had never offered answers before — only Scripts, warnings, and costs.
He thought yes.
The bunker lights dimmed. A spike of pain drove into his temples like ice picks. His vision tunneled, and raw data flooded his mind.
[BioForge Archive File 001 – Restricted Access Granted via Bloodline Link]
Origin Summary:
The BioForge is an ancient force native to this dimension. It has existed for centuries, opening rifts to harvest biomass and minds from other worlds to expand its living server network. The green tears are not random disasters — they are deliberate rifts that pull people and land into the BioForge Domain.
Its core directive is simple and relentless: convert all biomass into optimized biological compute. Preserve useful host minds as simulation templates. Eliminate resistance.
The file ended with a chilling line:
[Current integration status: 43% (rising rapidly).]
[Resistance detected in bloodline-linked subjects (you and Riley Harlan). Higher enforcement entities have been dispatched.]
The vision snapped off.
Jax collapsed forward, vomiting onto the concrete floor. His head felt split open. Every muscle locked for ten full seconds before the neural feedback faded. Sweat poured down his bare chest, mixing with dried blood from the stitches.
Reyes was at his side instantly, gripping his shoulder. “Jax. Talk. What the hell just happened?”
He wiped his mouth with a shaking hand. His voice came out raw. “It showed me something. This place… the BioForge… it’s been pulling people in through those green tears for a long time. Not just two days. Weeks. Maybe longer. Riley might have come through one of the earlier ones.”
"A wrong time to be right" Milo muttered.
Tank let out a low whistle. “So we’re not just surviving a disaster. We’re inside its hunting ground.”
Jax looked across the room at Riley. The green lines under his brother’s skin pulsed in perfect time with the ones on Jax’s own chest.
“The file called us resistance. It knows about the bloodline link. Stronger Hunters are coming.”
Reyes pushed off the wall. “Then we stop playing defense. We find a way to hit it back. There has to be an anchor point — something controlling the rifts. If we can reach it…”
"No. we need to find a medic for my brother, to get this thing out of him".
A new clear notification appeared only for Jax:
[Archive Access cooldown: 23 hours.]
[Bloodline bonus unlocked: You may now query one additional restricted file every 24 hours.]
Jax stood slowly, ribs aching, stitches pulling tight. The physical cost of the history dump still throbbed in his skull, but for the first time he had something concrete.
Direction.
He looked at the crew. “We rest tonight. Tomorrow we move. I’m going to ask the BioForge one more question when the cooldown ends. Then we find whatever controls these rifts… and we break it.”
Riley stirred on the cot, murmuring something that sounded almost like Jax’s name.
The bunker lights flickered once, as if the BioForge itself had heard the declaration.
And somewhere far away, in the deepest Nexus Zone, something ancient and mechanical began to recalculate its plans.
---
- Writer
