Phillip opened his eyes to a white light burning down from directly above him, bright enough to erase everything beyond the circle it cast. Its low electrical hum filled the room without giving him any useful sense of its size. There was no echo. No movement of air that he could feel. Only the light, the heat, and the dry taste in his mouth.
His body felt exhausted, stiff, and depleted, as though he had been pushed through some prolonged physical trial beyond the strength he had possessed. One he felt he had lost.
Sweat beaded on his face and chest, but his clothing felt dry. The room was warm; he could feel the light radiating heat. Not enough by itself to account for his condition, and there was a controlled, stale quality to the air that gave him a feeling of something managed.
He moved one hand experimentally.
The surface beneath him flexed in response. A bed, maybe, narrow, hard. Utility, not comfort. His fingers found no fabric, seams, bolts, or joints. It was a smooth material that felt cool despite the heat around him. When he lifted his hand, the shallow impression beneath it slowly disappeared.
That was wrong.
He did not know why it was wrong; he expected something else. The thought brought with it a sudden, overwhelming dread. He needed to get off the bed. Not eventually. Now.
Phillip swung his legs over the side, letting their weight draw the rest of him after. The motion was clumsy and slow. The moment his body left the support of the platform, his legs failed him and his arms were useless in keeping him from falling.
Gravity took control, pulling him down, and he struck the floor hard.
Pain flared through his shoulder, hip, and knees. He lay still for a moment, registering each point of impact.
*Pain means you’re alive.*
The words arrived with the certainty of truth. He could hear someone saying them, though he could not identify the voice or remember where he had learned them.
As if the pain had awakened the rest of his body, other sensations followed: burning in his legs, a deep ache beneath his ribs, trembling in his hands. He reached for the edge of the platform and tried to pull himself upright. The pain intensified immediately, sharp enough to steal his breath.
He released his grip; slowly, the pain subsided.
Phillip remained on the floor and assessed what he could see. The surface beneath him was divided into broad gray panels, but the seams were too fine to admit a fingernail. There were no rivets, screws, drains, or visible fasteners. Nothing he could pry loose. The platform rose from the floor without legs or any apparent mounting point.
He searched beyond the light for corners, doors, cameras, or movement. Tilting his head changed nothing. Shielding his eyes helped only enough to reveal featureless gray walls at the edge of the glare.
No obvious exit, no useful object within reach, no memory of how he had arrived.
That last realization settled more heavily than the pain.
Phillip knew his name. He knew the language forming in his mind. He understood the purpose of a door, a light, a floor, and a bed. But when he searched for anything personal—family, home, work, a face, a place—he found nothing.
His existence began in this room? Impossible.
He closed his eyes and tried again, forcing himself to reach beyond the moment. Rudimentary knowledge surfaced in fragments: words, objects, facts about the world. None of it connected to him. It was like finding books scattered on the floor of a room after someone had searched through them.
He gritted his teeth, took hold of the platform, and forced himself upright.
The pain returned, spreading through his legs as they took his weight. He waited until the shaking eased, then released one hand and took a tentative step away.
His knees folded and he struck the floor again, this time with enough force to drive a groan from him. He rolled onto his back and stared into the light.
It went out.
Rows of smaller lights awakened across the ceiling, revealing a compact gray room. The brightness adjusted almost immediately, softening once his eyes reacted. The platform stood at its center, a narrow examination bed formed from the same seamless material he had touched. A recessed panel occupied one wall. Another wall appeared unbroken until a thin amber line glowed across it.
A door.
The line changed to green, and a section of the wall slid silently aside.
Two men entered wearing dark blue, one-piece uniforms Phillip did not recognize. Their hair was cut close, their faces carefully neutral. They moved with practiced spacing—one to either side of the doorway, neither crossing the other’s path, their hands held near devices mounted at their hips.
The uniforms were unfamiliar; the posture was not. The recognition brought unexpected comfort.
They crouched beside him and lifted him carefully onto the platform. Neither spoke. Their grips were firm without being rough, and both maintained control of his arms until he was settled.
A third uniformed man entered behind them.
“Please remain on the bed, sir,” he said. “Your body may need some time to recover.”
He wore the same uniform and close-cropped hair, but his manner was different.
“I am Lieutenant Thomas. I apologize for the delay, Mr. Phillips. The security detail was under orders not to enter without me.”
Phillip studied him. The insignia on the man’s collar meant nothing, but the word *lieutenant* did. So did *security detail*. He understood rank and function even if he could not remember why.
“My name is Phillip,” he said slowly.
The name felt right, but incomplete. Then he connected the words Thomas had said.
“Phillip… Phillips?”
“I’m afraid so, sir,” Thomas said with a slight smile. “I need to ask you a few questions, assuming you feel up to it.”
“Where am I?”
“I will answer what I can once we have gone through the initial questions.”
Phillip glanced toward the guards. One stood near the door. The other had positioned himself where he could reach Phillip without blocking Thomas.
Phillip nodded.
Thomas raised the thin rectangular device he carried. What Phillip had taken for a clipboard had no paper, keys, or visible controls. Text shifted beneath its dark surface as Thomas moved one finger over it.
“What is the last thing you remember, Mr. Phillips?”
“Waking up here.” Phillip looked down at the platform. “Nothing before that.”
“You do not remember how you arrived?”
Phillip shook his head. “Where are we? What happened to me?”
Thomas’s expression tightened. “Get Dr. Kales,” he told one of the guards.
The man left immediately. Thomas waited until the door had sealed behind him before continuing.
“Mr. Phillips, you are aboard the *Artemis*, a Terran Concordat naval patrol vessel. We are currently bound for Naval Station Curaçao.”
“Curaçao?” Phillip frowned. “The island?”
Thomas hesitated.
“It is an orbital naval installation,” he offered after a moment. He paused again to see how Phillip reacted.
Phillip looked around the room, connecting the words with what the seamless walls and absence of windows might mean.
“This is a spaceship?”
It came out half question, half conclusion.
“Yes.”
The answer should have sounded implausible. Instead, it seemed to settle into an empty place in his mind without resistance, just another piece of information.
“How did I get here?”
“We recovered you inside a sealed stasis capsule drifting outside of regular transit corridors. There was no active beacon, no vessel nearby, and no record of how the capsule arrived there.”
“Stasis?”
“A form of suspended animation.”
Phillip absorbed that in silence.
Thomas reached into a pouch and handed him a worn leather wallet. The object looked out of place against the uniform and the polished diagnostic room. Its edges were softened by use, and the leather had been bent around the shape of whatever had once been carried inside it.
“We found this in the capsule with you,” Thomas said. “We hoped you might be able to fill in some of the gaps.”
Phillip turned it over in his hands. The movement felt familiar. His thumb automatically checked one fold before opening another, as though expecting something to be hidden there.
Nothing came back to him. “What kind of gaps?”
“Do you know today’s date?”
Phillip shook his head.
“It is September twenty-ninth, 2530.”
Phillip waited for the number to mean something. It did not.
Thomas seemed unsettled by his lack of reaction. He took the wallet back, opened one of its flaps, and removed a plastic identification card.
“This was found inside.”
Phillip accepted it. The card was flexible, printed with a photograph and lines of text. The face in the photograph was younger, healthier, and unmistakably his.
He examined the dates. “It expires tomorrow.”
“No, Mr. Phillips,” Thomas said carefully. “It expired five hundred and five years ago.”
Phillip looked from the card to Thomas.
“What?”
“The identification was issued in 2025 by a government authority called the Commonwealth of Virginia. We had to search historical archives to confirm it, but the format and information are consistent with records from that period.”
Phillip stared at the photograph again. The card showed almost no age. Its surface was scratched, but the image and lettering remained clear.
“That has to be a mistake.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, I would agree.”
“This is some kind of joke.”
“Your circumstances are unusual,” Thomas said quietly. “The card would not be sufficient to establish your identity in a modern tribunal, but taken with your condition and the capsule in which you were found, it raises questions we cannot easily dismiss.”
Phillip shook his head. “This can’t be possible.”
“I have asked Dr. Kales to join us because he may be better able to explain some of what we discovered during your examination.”
“But I don’t feel-” Phillip started looking around the room. “I don’t feel five centuries out of date. I knew that was a door before it opened. I understand what you’re saying. None of this feels as foreign as it should.”
“I’m sure we will find a more plausible explanation,” Thomas said. “Until then—”
The door opened, and the guard returned with another uniformed man. The newcomer was shorter than Thomas and heavier through the middle. His uniform was immaculate but sat on him with an unnatural rigidity, as though he regarded every crease as a matter of regulation. His expression was cool and faintly impatient.
Phillip looked past them into the corridor, seeing several crew members moving beyond the doorway, each wearing variations of the same dark blue uniform. Narrow light strips ran along the walls and floor, brightening beneath their feet as they passed. A translucent display appeared briefly across one bulkhead, then vanished when the person consulting it moved away.
At the far edge of the doorway, something else stopped.
It was tall and unnaturally narrow, its skin dark blue beneath the corridor lights. Its head possessed no features Phillip could identify as a nose, mouth, or ears—only a set of large black eyes positioned wide across its face.
Those eyes fixed on him, and one elongated arm shifted toward the opening as the door began to close.
Phillip rolled from the far side of the platform before he had consciously decided to move. He landed in a crouch, pain tearing through his legs, and brought both hands up between himself and the door.
The guards reacted at once. One moved between Phillip and Thomas while the other shifted to Phillip’s flank, ready to restrain him if he advanced.
“What the hell was that?” Phillip demanded.
“What was what?” Thomas asked, looking toward the sealed door.
“There was something in the corridor. Black eyes. No face.”
The newcomer glanced toward the door without concern. “I believe he saw the Serpis,” he said. “Commander G’Dahn was behind me in the passage.”
Thomas looked back at Phillip.
“There are nonhuman species aboard this ship,” Thomas offered. “Some may be unfamiliar to you. You will need to control sudden reactions, particularly around species whose instincts differ from ours.”
“The Serpis evolved from highly specialized predators,” the newcomer added. His tone suggested that Phillip’s alarm interested more than it concerned him. “They can detect the chemical changes associated with fear. Sudden flight behavior may provoke a pursuit response.”
“They eat people?”
“They eat many things,” the man replied with a smirk. “But they possess discipline. Usually.”
Thomas gave him a warning look. “Dr. Kales.”
Kales ignored it. “Much like humans, the Serpis are capable of eating a wide range of organic matter,” he continued. “Unlike some humans, they have learned to control their less civilized impulses. May I assume that emotional control was not highly developed in the twenty-first century?”
Phillip looked at him.
“Mr. Phillips,” Thomas said, “please return to the examination bed so Dr. Kales can evaluate you. We need to compare your present condition with the scans taken when you were recovered. It will help.”
“Help how?” Phillip asked curtly.
“Please.”
Phillip considered Thomas’ tone and the guards’ positions, the closed door, the pain still burning through his legs.
He returned to the platform.
Kales raised a device similar to the one Thomas held, thicker, heavier, with a raised sensor bar along one edge. A pale beam emerged from it and swept over Phillip from head to foot. He felt no heat or vibration. The light passed through his clothing and skin as though neither presented an obstacle.
Kales studied the shifting information on the slate.
“He still has an unusually high concentration of toxins in his system, though none appear immediately fatal,” he said. “He also lacks antibodies to several common human and nonhuman pathogens. He cannot leave isolation until he has been immunized.”
“Against what?” Phillip asked.
“Five centuries of microbial exchange,” Kales replied. “Humanity has encountered diseases your immune system has never seen. Some are harmless to us now but could prove fatal to you. The same is true of organisms carried by other species.”
He lowered the slate. “I will prepare the necessary inoculations and return.”
Kales turned toward the door.
“Lieutenant Thomas said you could explain what happened to me,” Phillip called after him.
Kales stopped. “Regarding what?”
“His memory, Doctor,” Thomas said. “Explain what you found.”
Kales’s gaze shifted toward the lieutenant. “I was not aware that the captain had authorized disclosure of that information to the subject.”
“I will address the matter with the captain.”
“That is not the same as authorization.”
“No,” Thomas said. “It is not. Explain it anyway.”
For a moment, neither man moved. Then Kales turned back to Phillip.
“Our initial scans revealed evidence of extensive neurological surgery,” he said. His voice remained as impersonal as a weather report. “The work affected multiple regions associated with autobiographical memory. There are fine bands of relatively recent scar tissue throughout those pathways, along with evidence of induced neural regrowth.”
“Someone erased my memory?”
“That appears to have been the intention."
Phillip felt his hands tighten against the edge of the platform. “Who?”
“The scan cannot answer that.”
“Will it come back?”
“Some of it may. The damage was selective. As the replacement tissue integrates and your brain establishes new pathways, you may regain access to memories stored outside the targeted regions. Sensory associations, learned behaviors, procedural knowledge.”
“My life?”
Kales paused. “The memories removed during the procedure are gone. Regrowing the tissue does not restore what was stored in it.”
Phillip stared at him. “So I may remember how to do things.”
“Yes.”
“But not why I know them.”
“That is a reasonable interpretation.” Kales turned toward the door again, then stopped. He seemed curious now, almost expectant. Phillip understood that the doctor did not entirely believe him. Kales was waiting for something: panic, contradiction, perhaps the collapse of an act he suspected Phillip of performing.
Thomas wore an expression of sympathy.
Phillip could not decide whether the news was good or bad. Some things might return. Others had been taken permanently. But without knowing what he had lost, he could not measure its value.
Then panic rose inside him, pressure beneath his ribs, spreading rapidly, tightening his throat and accelerating his breath. Questions crowded into his mind faster than he could form them.
Who had done this? Why? Who was he? Was Phillip even his name? A fact someone had allowed him to keep, or just a label?
The pressure intensified, pulling him toward confusion and helplessness.
Phillip closed his eyes. “Feel it,” he said quietly.
He drew in one measured breath. “Acknowledge it.”
He released the tension in his shoulders and unclenched his hands. “Move through it.”
When he opened his eyes, Kales was watching him closely.
“Excuse me?” the doctor asked.
Phillip’s gaze snapped onto him, and it was Kales’s turn to step back before he could stop himself.
Phillip did not know where the words had come from. He did not remember learning them, but repeating them came naturally. He understood their purpose.
“I think I’m hungry,” Phillip said.
The abrupt change left Kales momentarily speechless.
Thomas nodded. “I’ll see what can be arranged. You will need the inoculations first, but once those are complete, we can move you to a less restrictive compartment and provide something more substantial.”
Phillip inclined his head.
Thomas and Kales left with the security detail. The door closed behind them, its seam disappearing until the wall appeared whole again.
Phillip remained on the examination platform, listening to the hum of the room.
After a moment, he began counting the ceiling lights and measuring the distance to the door.