He reached into his bag, pulling out the watch he’d scavenged earlier. The glass was shattered, but the internal convex lens was still intact. He didn't have his magnesium fire starter anymore—he’d given that to the beach-dwelling idiots—but he had something better. He had the memory of a past he had tried for a decade to forget.
Flashback: Ten Years Ago.
The facility was white. Blinding, antiseptic white.
"Focus, Arkan," a voice said over the speakers—his father’s voice, cold and academic. "The interface isn't just hardware. It’s an extension of your central nervous system. You aren't just turning a light on. You are the light."
A young Arkan, no more than eighteen, sat in a chair with hundreds of needles hovering over his left arm. The pain wasn't a sharp sting; it was a constant, b
