Chapter 1

The cycle was late, stretching long into the hours where all reasonable folk would be asleep. Yet heat rose from the station's industrial heart, humming through rusted metal corridors like a rising tide, pushing residents still caught awake towards the farthest modules for succor.

A radiator vane had failed, and maintenance was currently awaiting parts. Or so they had said for the previous 8 cycles. From the administration to the dock hands, they knew that Kothar-7 was a relic of a past frontier, producing less gadolinium every annum, and crewed only by those of no other recourse. It was being taken by the inevitable entropy of space, dying so slowly one might imagine a recovery. Unfortunately, the idealists had left on the next ship after the engineers.

It was there, in a section at the station's edge along the outermost ring, that the gears of history once more were put into motion. A bulbous extension of the bulkhead alongside the station's pier, sprawling corridors from iterations of unregulated construction burrowed into the standardized corporate architecture like a tick. The inside thrummed and churned, as the collective humanity passed the time with any manner of debauchery their time on leave might require. It was bar, brothel, concert hall all in one, and a million just like it were spread across the stars. Latched onto every port lax enough to allow their growth. Yet even of that dubious myriad, The Opener as it was called, was particularly mediocre.

As bodies covered in neon plasts and sparking holos jostled and gyrated, a young man wearing a suit only describable as antiquated cut through the crowd with a hard edge. An acrostic sharpness set in both his face and tread.

Behind him streamed a number wearing outfits of a littany of styles from other places and times. Many of those as youthful as he fanned out, mingling and flirting with the fervor that only those stuck seeing the same faces overlong ever had. Yet even those only somewhat older steered well clear, keeping their own company and quickly occupying a set of adjacent booths.

Ignorant of the expanding scene his arrival caused, or at least insensate towards it, he strode to the barside kiosk and began to wait. The whole run of the bar was covered in dirt, sweat, grime, spilled spirits and all manner of other questionable substance. Cracks ran through the kiosk's surface terminal projecting an optimistically sputtering hologram, fritzing as it attempted to display some sort of user preset.

The individual behind the bar, nearly as old and worn down as the facility they tended, raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the kiosk display. The Opener had stopped making new user presets before she had even started sweeping the floors as a child. Something about a faulty software change that they could never get the licenses to update. A similar story told half a thousand times elsewhere on the station.

So it was a curious thing to see menu flairs winking in and out for the first time since old Dan passed 80 annum back. Particularly at the fingers of someone who by all accounts seemed a rich tourist playing dress up far beyond their own transit arc.