A hospital ward. An old room, pale green paint. The corner television had been ripped from the wall some time ago. No window. The bed was plastic and old, the kind I'd seen my mom in before she died. Not a great start.

I reached for the touch-pad buttons, the ones that allowed the patient to sit up. My right hand was cuffed to the rail: clink. First time for everything. What if I'd had to use the bathroom?

No button had been pressed to summon anyone, but the door opened and an alarmingly hot nurse swept in. She wore scrubs, had a few instruments I didn't recognize and hoped weren't tools of torture.

"Good morning, Owen!" She said cheerily. I almost had to shield my eyes from the adorability. Hair up in twin pigtails, chubby, short, freckles. A hint of asian in her eyes, full lips. Skin like coffee with lots of cream. "How are you feeling?"

She hustled up and did something to the cuff around my wrist. It popped loose. I could move.

I stood, wearing a hospital gown and the weird isekai-land underwear. The nurse stepped back.

"Not attacking you," I said. "Won't attack anyone."

"Never crossed my mind," she said breezily.

"Just wanted to be clear." But I didn't know what the instrument at her belt was. A stunner? Peligro, dude. "How long?"

"A day. They hit you with an NMI, and that doesn't knock someone out usually. You had us worried."

"I'm…new. New body."

"That's so interesting," she chirped. I suspected it wasn't. I think this girl already knew everything. "Hungry yet?"

"No thank you. I'd like my stuff. Please."

"Sure, of course." It was over in the closet, neatly washed and folded. Backpack too.

No phone. No access to Lux Interior, who actually had seemed to be on my team. I didn't ask about it. If I'd stunned someone and chained them to a bed without permission I wouldn't let them have a phone either.

"I wanna leave," I said, because what else would one say?

"You can go," she said.

"Really?" A surprise. "Where's my phone?"

"I'm sorry, it was broken. We have a new one for you." She reached into her scrubs and gave me a little boxy affair, scratched screen and armored in a rubber case. "It's all set up."

I'll bet. Lots of things I wouldn't be able to do with it. She handed it over and her fingertips lingered on my palm. She kept eye contact, gave me a twinkling smile and left.

Oh. Oh boy!

I'd never been the target of a honey trap before. I wondered if I'd have the willpower to resist. I sure hoped not; I could be a real stick in the mud in social situations. A honey trap sounded great!

Especially with Thicc Nurse Pigtails. I should have asked her name so I could be more easily seduced.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But I wanted to find Lux. Was she a prisoner as well? What would an Ai incarceration be like? Or had she been able to simply zap herself somewhere else, in the cloud, I suppose?

It was bothering me. Lux was all right in my book.

The hospital building was old, being repaired here and there. Medical personnel going from room to room, an older gal working the front desk who waved cheerily. It was just a hospital. I'd been expecting…well, another jail.

I didn't know where we were; had we made it into Tropical Canada yet? Surrounded by jungle. Canadian forest probably didn't have a lot of cycads, palms or banana trees, which is what these looked like. Notably missing were the round trunked-plants that people had lived in, the ones I'd noticed in Chicago.

Hmmmm.

It wasn't a town. It was a camp based around the hospital. The notable thing here was that the whole place was draped in black tarp. Everyone walked under canopies of the stuff, they ran all along the paths between buildings. The roofs were black. A tall chain-link fence surrounded the place. No barbed wire, but plenty of that black cloth.

And on the roofs were a symbol. I didn't know what it meant; it didn't look like Russian or Korean or anything I might have had a little familiarity with. It was all the same symbol. Looking directly at it for too long gave me a headache. Magic?

Either that or some kind of evil villain thing, like a swastika or a Tesla logo or whatever.

Everyone met my eye. Nobody wore a uniform, but they did have t-shirts or armbands with the symbol. Very cultish.

And keeping with the honey-trap theory: all of them were so very, very friendly. I remembered my time as a kid, when the school system had no idea what to do with me. The teachers had all been terribly nice, as if I couldn't have smelled a rat.

I smelled that same rat.

"What do you think?" It was Trenchcoat Guy. Todd Covenant Preston Peterson, or whatever. He'd emerged from one of the little tents nearby. "Not too shabby, right?"

It was very shabby. "It's very impressive." No it wasn't. "I'd like to leave."

He shrugged. "Let us make our case."

"What had that been on the train?"

"I'm not very persuasive. Come on, don't be like that. You need to be around your own kind. To hear what they're going through."

"When will I be tortured?"

"You won't be tortured, Owen, Jesus Christ."

"I've failed enough history classes to see where this is going. Oh look, a wall around the place. Keeping me in. Oh look on top of the wall there, the towers. Guards with machine gun emplacements."

"Those guys are keeping the animals out. Will you please relax? Besides, guns don't work anymore. Haven't for five years."

"What?" I'm afraid I goggled. "No guns? Do you mean you can't get them anymore, or just the ammunition?"

"The physical laws changed. No guns. Other things work, like engines and fireworks, demolition charges. No guns. It seems to be a matter of intent."

"No guns?" It was stunning. You hide under enough school desks in your time, you think you can rely on something. "What do … " I'd almost said what do school shooters do.

"It's a big change. Our science guys are working on it. What other questions, while I'm here?"

I pointed at the symbol, the one all over the roofs, the tents. "What's that mean?"

"It's a Rune. It's called Stealth. It allows us to live in peace."

"It allows…" I thought. "It lets you hide."

He nodded, looked at me challengingly. "A lot of us have those as tattoos, that's how important it is." He opened his work shirt and there it was: the same symbol, just beneath his collarbone. "We don't like being tracked by our enemies."

"Oh. Will I be getting one? Do I have a choice?"

"You already have a Rune, but it's not Stealth. Look on your arm. You probably missed it."

It wasn't easy to see without a mirror. A new tattoo, right there on my upper arm, difficult for me to examine unless I pulled the skin around. About the size of a credit card. "That's…not the same one. What is it?"

"Just in case." His easygoing friendliness vanished, and the bird of prey was back. Then he smiled. "Let's introduce you to some of my freedom fighters."

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