SciFi Pulp Noir
The Punishment of Natan Kane
by
Rodriac Copen
The night in Lumen City smelled of rust, decay , and cheap perfume.
The sky was a dirty neon plate, punctuated by the fumes of factories and
machines. Floating cars glided between the skyscrapers like metallic
flies scavenging for carrion. In the streets, the lights flickered like
the eyes of a dying man.
I was part of that gray and empty landscape.
A
former boxer with more scars than memories. The guy people hired when
they needed to beat someone up. My job was to sell myself to the highest
bidder. Back then they called me Natan Kane , and police records showed me as chronically unemployed with a history as a small-time thug .
The night it all began, I stumbled back to the apartment drunk, smelling of sweat and whiskey. Leena was waiting for me, sitting tensely and silently in the dim light, her hands clasped in her lap.
She
had that look that clearly indicated she couldn't stand me anymore, but
at the same time she tried to hide it. I, like a bewildered idiot,
mistook her submissive attitude for defiance.
—“You’re late again,” he said, without raising his voice.
—“Business isn’t run with watches, doll”— I replied, dropping my jacket onto the chair.
—“Business…”— he gave a cynical laugh —“You beat up guys for coins. I wouldn’t call it business.”
That stung my pride.
I shouldn't have gone near her, but I did. She held my gaze for one
second too long, and that second was enough to make fury boil in my
head.
The rest was noise and silence.
When I could breathe again, Leena was on the floor. Blood trickled a dark line from her mouth. I'll always remember her hateful gaze.
—“Damn it…”— I muttered. But it was too late for apologies.
I grabbed my jacket and went outside. Outside, a fine, acidic rain was falling, stinging my skin. I walked to The Pit , a clandestine club where men bet on who would pass out first. It was like a church to me.
The entrance was guarded by a huge guy with a glass eye. He recognized me and let me in without a word.
Inside,
the air smelled of sweat and old oil. There were lots of people
shouting, flashing lights, metal hitting flesh. The sound of decay with
its own soundtrack. In the back, an aging stripper swayed, trying to
increase the shower of bills the drunks were giving her.
“Kane!” a familiar voice shouted. It was Myles Korven
, a disgraced doctor now playing at being a scientist in the criminal
underworld. He wore a long coat and carried an e-cigarette that emitted
blue smoke.
—“Doctor of miracles,” I said, with a crooked smile , “What are you doing among the living dead?”
—“Observe, as always. And offer impossible deals.”
He offered me a glass of synthetic liquor.
—“You look tired, Natan.”
—“Men don’t get tired”— I replied, repeating a stupid thing I had heard in the ring.
—“No, of course not. Until they break.”
I laughed. But her eyes didn't move an inch.
—“What do you want, Korven? Or is your visit a courtesy call?”
—“I want to show you something,” he said. He pulled out a card with a spiral logo. —“I have a new project. Transferable Memory , shared experiences. I’m looking for volunteers. You could earn a good sum if you participate.”
—“Money is always welcome. What kind of project?”
—“Let’s say… one for those who no longer feel guilt.” — he said mysteriously.
I don't know why I agreed. Maybe because I didn't want to go back to the apartment. Maybe to give Leena something and somehow make up for the beating. Or maybe because deep down, something inside me needed to feel something .
They took me in a windowless vehicle to a makeshift clinic under an old stadium.
Everything smelled of metal and formaldehyde. A pale nurse connected
some wires to my skull and smiled at me as if she were saying goodbye.
—“Relax, Kane,” Korven said from behind a pane of glass . “You’re going to sleep for a while and dream about another life.”
—“Is that all? And then what?”
—“Then… we’ll see if you were able to learn anything.”
The cold IV fluid ran up my arm. The ceiling dissolved into a swirl of white lights.
When I woke up, I was somewhere else. Silence was my companion.
The
roof was made of rusty sheet metal. My whole body ached, as if I'd been
through a recycling machine. I tried to sit up… and began to notice
strange things. Something wasn't right.
My hands were small and delicate. My nails were painted. My chest felt heavy.
I crawled as best I could to a broken mirror.
A woman was looking at me from the other side. She had dark hair and sunken eyes.
—“What the hell?”— I whispered, and noticed that the voice wasn't mine.
A door opened.
—“Mara, you fell asleep again,” said a gruff voice. It was a fat guy in an oil-stained t-shirt . —“If you don’t go to work, I’ll dock half your pay.”
—“Who are you?”— I asked.
The guy burst out laughing.
—“Stop acting, honey. Customers don't pay for theater.”
He stormed out, slamming the door.
I stared at my reflection, trying to understand.
I wasn't dreaming. Nor did it seem like a simulation. Something had stolen my body.
I
went out into the street, barefoot, in a yellowish rain. In the car
windows I saw the face of the woman who was now my face. Nobody
recognized me. Nobody heard me.
I tried to get to The Pit , but they wouldn't let me in. — “No unaccompanied girls allowed” — said the guard with the glass eye.
And when I tried to explain to her who I was, she laughed so hard she almost choked.
—“Sure, you’re Natan Kane.” — The thug slapped my ass —“Stop doing drugs, doll.” —
I walked all night, aimlessly.
Every shadow seemed like an insult. Every glance, a threat. For the first time in my life, I was afraid of men .
I
went back to the building with the fat guy. It was that or live on the
street. I made up some excuse. He took me to a room and the clients
started coming in. It was disgusting.
Days passed. I started to get to know the people in the building.
There was an old woman cooking soup with rainwater, a boy repairing used
prosthetics, and a woman with a cybernetic eye who claimed to have
worked for the police.
Everyone called me Mara .
One night, the boy with the prosthetics approached me.
—“I saw you arrive a few days ago. You seemed lost. Is everything alright?”
—“I don’t know,” I replied . “I’m not who you think I am.”
She thought he was philosophizing —“Nobody is in this city,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Sometimes, in the reflections of the dirty water, I saw my true face. Natan 's . He watched me with a sneer of contempt.
I started writing in an old notebook I found on the floor:
“If this is a punishment, I still don’t know why. But I’m beginning to understand what it means to be weak.”
Time passed. Winter arrived without warning.
In Lumen City, the cold is not measured in degrees, but by the color of the smoke: the grayer it is, the colder it is.
I was still trapped in that unfamiliar body. As soon as I could, I left prostitution.
I started working at a neighborhood laundromat for a few coins. Nobody remembered Natan Kane . Not even the news mentioned him. It was as if he'd never existed.
One night, as I was closing the shop, I heard a voice behind me.
—“So this is where you're hiding, Mara .”
I turned around, my heart in my throat. It was Korven , the damned doctor. He had a new coat and a scalpel-like smile.
—“What did you do to me?”— I yelled at him.
—“Nothing you didn’t deserve,” he replied calmly . “You participated in the Empathic Rehabilitation Program . You signed the papers.”
—“I didn’t sign up for this!”—
—“Of course not. Nobody does. But the experiment was supposed to last three days. A network failure made it… permanent.”
I approached him, trembling with rage.
—“Give me back my body, Korven.” —
—“Your body no longer exists. You’re brain dead.”— He lit an e-cigarette and exhaled a blue cloud —“But, if it’s any consolation, it seems the treatment worked.”
-"Treatment?" -
—“You’re feeling guilt, aren’t you? Remorse, empathy, fear. You didn’t know those words before.”
—“You don’t know what it’s like to live in fear every day.”
—“And do you know what it was like for them to live with you?”— he retorted, raising an eyebrow.
Rage surged through me like wildfire. I grabbed him by the collar of his coat and shoved him against the wall.
—“If you think this is going to redeem me, you’re crazy.”
“It’s not about redemption, Kane. Or rather, Mara . It’s about balance.” She looked me straight in the eyes . “The universe collects its debts, even the small ones. You know. Karma.”
I let go of his coat. I was dizzy. Confused. I didn't know if I wanted to kill him or thank him.
—“And Leena?”— I asked.
"She's recovered. And she seems happier now." She paused, letting the sentence hang in the air. "But she doesn't want to see you, or hear from you."
—“I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
—“Exactly,” he said, with a sad smile . “That’s why the punishment is perfect.”
He
left me some wads of cash as payment for my participation in the
experiment. Then he walked away into the fog. His silhouette dissolved
into the shadows like a nightmare that leaves behind the scent of ozone.
Months passed after that meeting.
I learned to move with Mara
's body , though I still felt like a guest. Sometimes, in the darkness, I heard her voice inside me saying, "Don't ruin what little is left."
I didn't know if it was an echo or if his conscience was still alive, hidden away.
I
started working at a women's shelter in the lower district. I treated
their wounds, served them soup, and listened to stories that tore me
apart inside.
One night, one of the girls, who had a swollen eye and a broken voice, took my hand and said:
—“Thank you for helping us.” —
—“You don’t have to thank me.”
—“You know how it feels,” he whispered.
I was speechless.
Yes. I knew it.
One
afternoon I returned to the building where I had first woken up.
Everything was closed. On the floor I found a metal box with a name on
it: Eidolon Labs .
Inside was a tape recording. I listened to it.
The voice was Korven's:
“Final report: subject 07-B.
Original name: Natan Kane.
Successful transfer. Level of empathy acquired: total.
Consider the elimination protocol: unnecessary.
The punishment stands on its own.
The tape stopped with a click.
I stared into space, my hands trembling. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
The punishment was to live.
To live being what he had most despised.
Finally, winter gave way. The streets filled with noise, people, and music.
I remained silent. Sometimes I looked in the mirror and thought that maybe Mara and I were already the same person.
One night, while walking through the old industrial district, I saw a man slam a woman against a wall.
I approached.
—“Let her go”— I said.
The guy turned around, laughing.
—“Go home, doll, don't get involved.”
I didn't think. I just acted. I pushed him, knocked him to the ground, and slammed my knee into his face.
The woman ran away. The guy squirmed and looked at me in fear.
For a moment, I felt an old, almost pleasurable rush: the power of fists, the adrenaline of control.
And then I heard it.
My own voice, inside my head, saying, "This is how it all began."
I stood still, my heart pounding like an alarm.
I let go, I let it escape, and I collapsed against a wall.
In the puddle of water in front of me I saw my reflection: Mara 's face , with Natan 's eyes behind it.
An impossible mix. A living scar.
—“Who am I now?”— I asked the void.
The echo responded with Korven
's voice :
"The punishment, Kane, was not to die. It was to understand."
Today I work at a clinic in the southern district. Nobody knows my story.
I heal wounds, clean other people's blood, and every now and then, when I hear a scream in the street, my pulse quickens.
Sometimes I dream about Leena . Not about her injured face, but about her laughter, the one I killed long before I could touch her.
The world keeps turning indifferently.
But there are nights when I think the universe is still watching me, waiting to see if I've learned my lesson.
And I'm still here, inside a skin that isn't mine, living a borrowed life.
Perhaps that is true redemption: understanding that one cannot escape what one once was.
THE END
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