The medbay lights were too bright.
Rourke squinted against the harsh white glare as a medic waved a scanner over his torso for the third time. The device emitted a low chirping rhythm, calm and unbothered, as though the man standing before it hadn't just survived a gravitational implosion that should have crushed him into vapor.
"You're not injured," the medic muttered, baffled. "Pulse stable. No fractures. No burns. No trauma. Honestly, Talon, you're healthier than I am."
Rourke sat on the edge of the steel bed, elbows on his knees, staring at his hands. They didn't look special. They didn't feel special. But he could still sense something—an echo, a faint pressure pulsing under his skin, like a second heartbeat hidden beneath his own.
The medic stepped back. "Someone upstairs is going to want to talk to you."
That someone arrived two minutes later.
Two Dominion agents walked into the medbay with the posture of people who owned any room they entered: backs straight, weapons visible but untouched, eyes scanning every inch of space before focusing on him. The Dominion Authority handled anything involving gravitational technology, anomalies, and—if rumors were to be believed—things that weren't meant to exist.
The lead agent was tall, broad-shouldered, with sharp eyes that looked like they saw more than they should. His badge read INSPECTOR VEHR.
"Talon," he said, his voice clipped. "You're coming with us."
Rourke didn't move. "Am I under arrest?"
"That depends on your cooperation."
"That's not an answer."
"It wasn't meant to be."
Rourke exhaled through his nose. "Look, I didn't do anything. The turbine malfunctioned. Ask anyone who was there."
"We already have," Vehr replied. "Their stories don't concern us. Yours does."
The second agent—a quiet woman with a shaved head and a datapad—tapped a screen. "Gravity readings during the incident were inconsistent with any known mechanical failure. Something else interfered."
"Something," Vehr repeated, his eyes narrowing, "or someone."
Rourke's stomach tightened. He forced himself to remain still.
"I was inside the turbine when it blew," he said. "If I did something, don't you think I'd be dead?"
Vehr stepped closer, his boots clicking with slow, deliberate intent. "That's exactly what we want to know, Talon. How were you not crushed? Why did the implosion leave a perfect radius around your body? Why did every tool, every piece of debris, every panel fragment curve around you?"
Rourke swallowed hard. "Lucky positioning?"
"Gravity doesn't care about positioning," the female agent said without looking up from her pad. "It follows rules. You broke those rules."
Rourke opened his mouth to argue—then stopped.
Because in the back of his mind, beneath the lingering echo of the implosion, he felt something. A flicker. A whisper of pressure, faint and distant, like the hum inside the turbine had crawled into his chest and made a home there.
Vehr watched him closely, eyes narrowing as if he could sense the hesitation.
"Stand," he ordered.
Rourke didn't move.
"Talon," the agent beside him said, "that wasn't a request."
Reluctantly, Rourke rose to his feet. His body felt normal, but the room felt… wrong. The air seemed heavier. The lights hummed louder. Or maybe he was imagining it.
Vehr pulled out a compact device—a gravimeter, a handheld sensor used to detect micro-distortions in local gravity fields.
"This will take a moment," he said.
He held it near Rourke's chest.
The device chirped once.
Then went silent.
Then began clicking frantically, the screen spiking into red.
Vehr's jaw tightened. The female agent straightened in alarm.
"That's not possible," she whispered.
Rourke stepped back instinctively. "What does that mean?"
Vehr killed the device, slipped it into his coat, and stared at Rourke with a new weight in his gaze.
"It means," he said quietly, "that you're coming with us for further evaluation."
Rourke's pulse quickened. "No. I'm not."
Vehr's eyes hardened. "Don't make this difficult."
"I didn't do anything."
"You survived something no human should survive. And now you're emitting gravitational anomalies. You're exactly the kind of problem the Dominion is designed to contain."
Rourke shook his head. "Contain?"
Before Vehr could answer, the medbay door slammed open.
Jorren barreled inside, breathless. "Rourke! They can't just drag you away like—you're not even letting him speak to a representative!"
The female agent stepped in front of him. "Civilians are not allowed—"
"You call this civility?" Jorren snapped. "My friend almost died! You should be asking how to keep the station from falling apart, not locking him up like some experiment!"
Vehr didn't flinch. "This is not your concern."
"The hell it isn't—"
Rourke raised a hand. "Jorren. It's fine."
"It's not fine," Jorren insisted. "You didn't cause that implosion."
But Rourke wasn't so sure anymore.
Vehr gestured to the door. "Mr. Talon, you will accompany us to the Dominion vessel."
"And if I refuse?" Rourke asked.
Vehr's expression didn't change. "Then we will escalate. And I promise—you won't enjoy the escalation."
The air thickened. Rourke felt that strange pressure again, pulsing beneath his ribs, like something inside him was tense, coiled, waiting.
"Fine," Rourke said quietly. "I'll come."
Jorren grabbed his arm. "Rourke, don't—"
"I don't have a choice."
As the agents escorted him out of the medbay, Rourke felt eyes on him—patients, medics, workers. Some afraid. Some curious. Some convinced he was guilty of something.
But beneath their stares, beneath the cold grip of the Dominion, beneath the rising panic in his chest…
there was that whisper again.
A faint hum.
Like gravity shifting.
Like something inside him waking up.