• Looking down at the planet, I was unimpressed. It was ugly – no, not ugly, but repulsive to look at, bringing a distinct feeling that could only be described as nauseous distaste into the back of my throat with every glance – round, and small. My feet had never even touched the loose dust that was the planet's soil surface, but they itched inside of my boots at the mere thought of it. Personally, I didn't see how anyone could live on it. It looked somewhat like Earth, but its geology twisted and perverted utterly out of proportion by a dozen nuclear warheads that a madman had detonated twelve hundred years ago on its surface; the continents had been stripped of their soil, turned into a fine, orange dust not unlike Mars, its oceans and lakes a deep, polluted green and dead. It was land that could be lived on, just barely, but it was land, and the Kahr Hegemony had decided to erect massive megacities with filtering plants that stretched for dozens of miles of endless concrete at the edges of the continents.

    I was about to go down to that land, and I wasn't quite sure why I was going to do it. I drew my face back from the transparent sheet of metal that made up the particular window of the shuttle I was looking through, thinking about it. I closed my eyes, concentrating, bringing forth the flawlessly vivid memory of this dream. It had started at the nights, during my sleep, just dreams – maybe not dreams, but visions. A colossal city made up of thousands of buildings reaching hundreds of feet high, so huge they didn't make any sense, housing a thousand people each for home or work – the words were interchangeable at this place, as its populace was constantly depressed, worked like slaves without a moment of true rest for their weary souls. The city was framed by bright orange mountains, the natural color of the rocks that composed the planet's crust. In the sky, two deep grey orbs that danced with each other in the blackness of the night like graceful lovers, one far smaller than the other. Shapeless, soulless, thoughtless people shuffled along the streets, ignoring the crush of hundreds of automated cars that pushed forward through traffic at breakneck pace, ignoring those around them, ignoring me. I waded through them, drawing no attention even as I knocked some of them to the side, and finally came across an alley.

    Something about this alley screamed out to me, made my gaze dart from the men and women – were there differentiating genders? I couldn't tell, and couldn't care – and turned it to down the dark, shadowy depths. It was a wide space in between two of the colossal buildings that decorated the city, but the sheer height of the buildings cast great conflicting shadows on the alley. All I could discern from these shadows was a figure. Was the figure a man? I couldn't tell, but it had the basic shape of two legs, and a half of a torso. Shadows covered the rest, and I was wary about approaching it. I lacked weapons of metal, but I wasn't unarmed. But, still, I was cautious. I didn't know why I was cautious, but something about this figure screamed danger at me, and not a physical danger, but something deeper, something that could destroy me. That scared, no, frightened me, but did I care? No, for something drew me to this thing, and I didn't know what it was. It was something subtle, tugging at my subconscious like a child on his mother's sleeve when he wanted something, but more forceful, more demanding. What drew me closer moved my legs for me, my own volition not present as I darted among the shadows, growing closer.

    I stood face to face with the figure now, barely a foot away. He was human, without a doubt, and tall, looking bedraggled. A long, tan trench coat hung on his narrow shoulders, its leather length in tatters as it was riddled with holes and rips from wear and tear. That trench coat was the first thing that drew my eye, for it contrasted with the rest of the smelly, stained black cloth that adorned his frame, a pair of loose pants that had fit him thirty meals and thirty years ago and a shirt that clung to his skeletal frame. The man was thin, and I noticed truly how much when I saw the deeply sunken cheeks of his face, the chalk white skin so taut that it drew back from his chocolate eyes, most of his face obscured by a thick grey beard and a wide-brimmed fedora tilted low. Every inch of this man I did not know, but he seemed familiar, and memories tugged at the back of my brain, too vague and long ago to resurface.

    “You,” my voice surged forth from my mouth, deep and soft, even soothing, but it had done so not of my own volition. The word rang with familiarity, the memories almost breaking free from the cage that held them reigned in, and I didn't know why.

    “You,” he croaked weakly, his voice raspy and weak, something choked out of dying lips, the words filled with such an agony that they might be his last, but they brought forth so many questions. The man knew me, but I did not know him. His eyes filled with a piggy fear that could only be brought on by memories rushing to him, memories of terror, memories of who and what I am, and he backed away from me, screaming, “You!” over and over again, his throat becoming so strained that bloody spittle flew from his lipless mouth.

    “You!” he screamed a last time, and I didn't know what to do. I glanced behind me, and no one from the streets looked, the screams of a homeless man not their concern. My head spun back around to face the hysterical man... and I felt a sudden pressure against my stomach, as intense as being hit with a massive tree. My bones did not break and my organs did not rupture, but the pain! The pain rushed through me, coating every part of my body, paralyzing my half-turned head and the rest of me, greater than anything I had ever felt. This was a pain so great and that a blackness took over me, and I heard more than felt the resounding thud that my head made when it smacked against hard concrete... and I was back in the shuttle, drawn from my reverie involuntarily by its end.

    I rubbed my forehead with my fingers. The chip in my brain had allowed me to keep the memory, but it hadn't been installed until after the events that inspired the vague memories of the man in my vision. That was the explanation I liked, the Occam's razor, and that was the one that didn't scare me. The other explanation was that I deleted these memories, or that someone else did, and both scared me equally. I could understand someone not wanting me to know, but they would have to perform open skull surgery to get into the database of that chip. I could survive such a thing and bear no scars, but the thought of someone being able to subdue me or coerce me into such a thing frightened me. Just as frightening would be me not wanting to remember it, for I bore memories of actions I had done and let happen that would label me a monster beyond any creature that had existed before me in recorded history. That scared me in ways I did not like, scared me beyond the only fear I felt before this, the fear that pumped adrenaline both natural and artificial into my veins in battle. It was a true fear, something that caused men and women to wake up at night with screams in their throats and sweat on their sheets, something that I never feel. I didn't know if the fear or the thoughts unnerved me more, and I didn't bother hiding the shaking. I didn't need to.

    Looking out the window again, I didn't need to hide my body's shakes because the shuttle was shaking. I was one of the ten people on the luxury shuttle, and none of them were seated near me, either. None of them could see me look back at the finely stitched leather seat in front of me and lay my head against the vibrating metal of the shuttle, letting it distract me as the shuttle entered the orbit of the planet Orwell. The ship's temperature raised a few degrees, making my skim clam up and drawing sweat, but only because I had dressed improperly – a brown leather jacket that zipped up, black jeans, a red T-shirt that fit my form but was not too tight, and black boots did not constitute something to wear on a shuttle. Shorts and a T-shirt were, but the heat didn't bother me as I'd endured worse. Orwell was in its summer cycle as well, so the temperatures barely reached above ten degrees Celsius. The Kahr Hegemony hadn't bothered expunging the atmosphere and earth of the planet of the nuclear residue that poisoned it, causing such climate lows, because it wasn't their deal – a private company had been granted a charter to colonize after the company asked, and the company only cared if the people were alive enough to pay taxes.

    As the shuttle reached the midway point of the atmospheric entry, the pilot's calm voice came over the intercom system, reassuring us, “Ladies, gentlemen, and gentlecreatures, we are nearly through the atmosphere's outer layer. It will be all calm again shortly. Please bear with us for another minute.”

    I narrowed my eyes at the intercom, wondering why he bothered. We weren't panicking, and he obviously wasn't, so I didn't understand why he bothered to say that. My thoughts wandered from it as the shakes became tenfold more violent and I was forced to draw my head away from the window lest I do damage to myself. I heard a man yell out as his drink flew into the air and fell all over him, the sizzling from the hot against his skin reaching my ears two rows ahead of his seat. I snorted derisively, amused, and hoped he learned his lesson. Few things teach better than enough pain to bring on an adrenaline rush, and the man wouldn't stop screaming until I heard a resounding smack of skin on skin. He shut up then. The violent shakes stopped and it quieted completely once more as the shuttle exited the outer atmosphere and the pilot prepared to speak once more.

    That was, sadly, the high point of the entire shuttle ride.