I feel like I’m soaring. Like I’m flying through the sky, and nothing can’t stop me.

Wait.

No, I’m riding a lion. My arm is wrapped around his thick, warm mane. It’s Luan! He’s guiding me to safety.

He’s taking me towards a… vortex. A swirling, colorful, gaping hole in time and space itself.

And it’s calling my name.

“Caia! Caia! Wake up!”

I open my eyes to see Leto leaning over me, his beautiful eyes searching mine.

“Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine, I think,” I say, still groggy.

He hugs me tightly, thanking every Zoran mythical figure in existence.

I use the moment to take in our surroundings. The room we’re in is dark, and damp.

Wait. It’s a cell!

“Where are we?”

I stretch my arms above my head, ignoring the deep pain in all of my muscles.

“We’re in some kind of prison ship,” Leto says. “SINTRA has abducted us.”

My eyes grow wide and I feel sick to my stomach.

“That can’t be right.”

“I wish it wasn’t.”

I crawl up to my feet and grab the bars of our cell. Try as I might, I can’t get them to budge even an inch.

“What about Kariza?!” I say. “What happened to her?!”

Leto shakes his head. “I don’t know, Caia. I woke up here, same as you.”

If she gets decommissioned because of me, I’ll never forgive myself. She could be a major pain in my ass, that’s for damn sure, but at the end of the day she was also my friend. Our friendship might have been a little dysfunctional, but eh, it worked for us.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I whisper. “I’ll make them pay, whoever these bastards are!”

Leto chuckles. “Now that is something we can both agree on.”

“The only question is… how?”

“I think you have the key in the palm of your hands Caia. Literally.”

“My powers?”

He nods. “I’d summon Luan, but he’s not good at opening doors.”

I take a deep breath and try to focus… but I can’t. Try as I might, my thoughts keep turning to Kariza, and to the horrors that might await her on this awful ship.

The metal that’s all around us, the only thing shielding is from the darkness of space, groans loudly every few seconds. I’m afraid this whole ship is going to cave in at any moment.

I grab the cold bars and close my eyes. I need to find my focus. My strength, my core… but my mind just keeps slipping.

As I sigh deeply, full of frustration, a door in the distance opens.

I jump back. Leto instinctively wraps his big arms around me, shielding me with his massive frame.

A mechanical synth walks up to our cell, and I hope furiously that he’ll pass us by.

We have no such luck, of course. The robot stops right in front of our cell and unlocks the door.

“Zoran,” he says. “Come with me.”

He notices us glancing at one another, and raises his fingertips at the both of us.

“I would advice against that course of action, or I will be forced to stun you both.”

Undeterred, Leto leaps out at him — and my Zoran mate is hit square in the chest with a laser beam. He collapses on the ground, gasping for air, and a shriek leaves my lips.

“Foolish organics,” the synth says. “I process reality at a much faster pace than you do. My heliographic motherboard and quantum processor make me superior to you in every way. Now, follow me, Zoran.”

“How can you do this?!” I say. “Work for them?! You’re not like any other synth I’ve ever met!”

The synth turns to me, his face cold and completely devoid of emotions. “Those were mistakes. Feeble attempts at reproducing humanity by ZuberiSynth. Wellington Consortium doesn’t make the same mistakes. We are programmed to do our jobs — and nothing more.”

He points his finger at Leto once more.

“Don’t make me repeat myself, Zoran. Follow. Me.”

Leto scrambles up to his feet. “I’ll be back,” he says to me. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Wait,” I plead. “Don’t leave me here!”

He glances at the robot. “I have no choice — but I will return. I promise that on my very life.”

“How touching,” the synth says sarcastically.

It seems he does have some semblance of a personality... but it’s far from charming.