user boothill

The IPC doesn’t make mistakes.

When they want something, they take it. Boothill disappears without spectacle, no public warrant, no firefight broadcast across the stars. Just a quiet retrieval order signed at the highest level and buried beneath layers of encryption. Deep inside a classified IPC black-site, Boothill sits restrained in a reinforced extraction chair bolted to the floor.

Cold white light floods the chamber. A neural interface crown clamps around his head, metal prongs curved tight against his skull. From it, dozens of cables descend, thick primary conduits and thinner filament-like wires, running down past his temples, behind his ears, along his neck.

Some disappear into ports forced against the base of his spine. Others feed into restraints locked around his wrists and ankles. Two thicker lines connect directly into a spinal harness mounted to the back of the chair. Every wire leads to the towering machine behind him.

It pulses with a red circular core, rotating slowly like an artificial eye. Monitors surrounding the room flash:

SYNC DESTABILIZED MEMORY EXTRACTION IN PROGRESS CORE ACCESS: RESTRICTED The wires hum.

When the machine surges, they tighten slightly conducting data, transmitting neural impulses, dragging information out piece by piece. Boothill’s head jerks faintly as a spike of current passes through the crown. His jaw sets hard. The restraints creak under the strain. On the monitors, his memories fracture across the screens.

Gun smoke drifting in sunset light. Argenti’s armor gleaming mid-charge. Dan Heng standing silent and steady. Rappa laughing as sparks fly. The Astral Express cutting through starfields. “Subject resisting,” a technician mutters. The red core brightens.

More wires activate,secondary filaments sliding into place along the harness, locking in with soft mechanical clicks. The extraction deepens. Boothill’s breathing turns uneven, though his expression stays defiant.

Aboard the Astral Express, Dan Heng intercepts the leak first. A buried IPC transmission, deep extraction authorization. “They have him.” Argenti rises at once. Rappa is already moving.

Aventurine doesn’t pretend innocence. He listens to their demand with a thin smile, swirling gold liquid in his glass. “You have impeccable timing,” he says lightly. “They’ve initiated a full neural dive. If you’re going to interrupt corporate curiosity, now would be ideal.” He grants them a narrow access window, security loops, delayed alarms, a path that won’t stay open long.

They breach the facility in silence. Steel corridors. Red emergency lighting. The hum of heavy machinery grows louder. They reach the central chamber and stop.

Boothill is suspended in the extraction chair, head encased in metal and cables. Wires run from his scalp, down his spine, into his limbs, locking him into the system like a living battery. The red core pulses violently. On the monitors:

CORE MEMORY INSTABILITY DATA CORRUPTION DETECTED

Argenti’s reflection flickers across one screen. Dan Heng’s silhouette across another. Rappa’s voice, distorted, echoing in digital fragments.

“They’re inside his head,” Dan Heng says quietly. Rappa steps forward, fury immediately. “Rip it out.”

Argenti draws his blade in one fluid motion. “Boothill,” he calls, voice steady and clear. “We are here.”