The Stuff of Dreams, Chapter 2

The note had arrived promptly after young Kyrian's disappearance. “Quit the Oberon Project, or he dies.” Blunt, concise and utterly mystifying; Loryn Andiron, Kyrian's father and executive of Andiron Cybernetics, had no idea what the “Oberon Project” was or, more importantly, how to “quit” it. The issue was rendered unimportant, however, since the kidnappers -- ProsTech, Andiron's primary competition -- seemed to have made a most unfortunate choice in hostages.

Suffice it to say, ProsTech local headquarters disappeared in a massive explosion the following afternoon.

Kyrian did not escape unscathed, though: much to his chagrin, he had mistimed the explosives, was caught in the blast and was hurled through a ferro-crete wall. Loryn turned him over to his Critical Reconstruction Unit (or the CRU), and Kyrian was back on his feet in a matter of months: albiet with an artificial eye, a new hand and lower arm, and a new left leg from the knee down. Three weeks after his recovery, ProsTech struck back, firebombing Andiron Cybernetics headquarters, killing Kyrian's entire family.

Kyrian had been on his own for four years since the immolation of Andiron Cybernetics. With the elimination of all his ties, Kyrian fled his hometown of South Boston -- and ProsTech's increasing influence in the region -- for the relative anonymity of life in New York. Not long after his relocation, however, ProsTech found him. Why they were looking for him, Kyrian didn't know -- cleaning up after themselves, he supposed -- but he did know that they had tried to kill him on countless occasions.

And so far, though Kyrian as he entered his schizmatic apartment, I've come out on top. At first glance, his apartment was poor, but as spotlessly clean as one could hope for; upon a 90 degree turn to the left, however, his apartment degenerated into a massive pile of scrap metal, computer cards and wires. A small jury-rigged network of computer sat in the corner, connected to one massively thick cable jutting from the wall -- a dedicated line to the 'Net, which he'd finagled out of ComNet with a fake maintinance order.

Grabbing a beer from the fridge, Kyrian plopped down in front of one of the computers, pulled out a disk from his jacket, and popped it into a drive on the machine. After a few minutes of popping and whirring, the computer displayed: “12 Files. Documents. All Encrypted. Decrypt? (y/n)". Punching “y", Kyrian reclined in his chair, sipping at his beer, pulling up memories. He yawned, surprised at how tired he was. As he drifted off to sleep, his memory fired a couple more times. Home ... South Boston ... dad ... mom ... Sarah ... Oberon .... And he nodded off.

Fugue

• “Andiron--"
• “--girl--"
• “--Kyrian--"
• Boom.