"He was not dead yet, not exactly—
parts of him were dead already, certainly other parts were still only waiting
for something to happen, something grand, but it isn't
always about me,
he keeps saying, though he's talking about the only heart he knows—"
—Richard Siken, Road Music
So he's on Pandora, she thought, drumming her fingertips against the cool metal of the desk before her. The room was dark, save for a dim light that occasionally flickered in the corner of the room. She had rented a small room for the night on Promethea, a dismal little planet somewhere to the west of Pandora.
Over the years, she had grown to hate the planet. What had once been a stronghold of the Crimson Lance was now nothing more than a shadow of its former glory. Beggars filled the streets—most of them children—who would paw and beg for money as soon as you crossed their line of vision.
They were pitiful. How they lived with themselves, she didn't know. The deformed ones were the worst, coming at you with mutated arms or legs and the hope that their physical condition would spark some sort of empathy of your heart. She had none.
The former members of the Crimson Lance who had stayed behind on the planet stuck to the bars, filling glass after glass with liquor until their breath stank of alcohol and they had to be dragged from their chairs and pushed out the door.
After the defeat of the Atlas Corporation on Pandora, everything had gone to hell. Their mining operations had come to a halt, the search for new alien technology forsaken, and thousands of soldiers had been abandoned to the planets they were last stationed on.
Commandant Steele and General Knoxx were dead, and Athena, her former commander, had betrayed the Omega squad and fled after Knoxx forced her to murder Vesta. Even Admiral Mikey, the brat of a child, was dead, killed after being thrown down a flight of stairs.
Eris was the last remaining member of the Omega Squad, but she was not the only one still loyal to Atlas. They were few, but they were determined. The Atlas Corporation would rise again. It would only take time—time and bloodshed.
But they needed him, their ultimate weapon; the man who was engineered to kill. Atlas had birthed him, molded him into the perfect assassin. They had written murder into his DNA, turned him a killing machine. He was the human embodiment of anomie-a force to be reckoned with.
But he was gone. He had left years ago. Abandoned his orders and never to be heard from again.
Until now, she thought, twirling a lock of curly blonde hair with her index finger. Her lips, adorned with bright red lipstick, twisted into a smile.
Eris would leave Promethea victorious. Tomorrow, she would travel to Pandora.
She would find him.
A/N: I should have another (longer) chapter posted sometime in the next few days. I decided to keep this one short because it's the prologue and is mainly setting the stage for the plot. Please reviews! I have an outline for where this story will be going, but I'm always happy to include suggestions and the things readers want to see :)
