CONSPIRATOR
EPISODE 02 | SCENE 04
19 YEARS EARLIER • YEAR 328
Renegade slides his loaded gun into the holster as the shaft doors part. He steps through without a sound and, moments later, moves with steady purpose across the ground-floor atrium.
“Dr. Renegade, sir!” a voice calls. An android rolls up behind him. “May I be of service?”
“No, android. I’m on an errand,” Renegade says, not breaking stride.
The android keeps pace. “But, sir, those are the main entrance doors.”
“Thank you for stating the obvious.”
“Ah, well, let me summon your car. It will only take a moment.”
“I’ll be walking tonight.”
“But, sir!”
Renegade stops short and turns, his glare sharp and impatient.
“You can’t just wander the city alone,” the android protests.
“Why not?”
“You’re… Renegade. The Dr. Renegade. It would be like one of the Elders entering battle without armor or weapons.”
“I’ve got weapons.”
“…But the Elders would have bodyguards. And it’s well past dusk.”
Renegade laughs to himself.
“Is something funny, sir?”
“Oh, no. No… Just a bit jovial tonight, that’s all.”
The android emits an artificial chuckle. “Happy to see that, Dr. Renegade, sir.”
Renegade takes another step, then stops. “You know what, android? You can help.”
“Delighted!”
He scans the atrium, then motions the android toward a secluded corner.
“Ooh, secrets?” the android whispers. “I might know some.”
“Oh, really? Very good. It’s about Miles.”
The android stills.
“Did Miles ever go out, android?”
“Well, of course, sir. He did have legs—just like you.”
“Right. What I mean is—did he ever sneak out?”
The android’s eyes flicker with brief digital distortion. “Not that I can recall.”
“Has he ever asked you to keep secrets?”
“No.”
“Would you tell me if he had?”
“Certainly.”
“You know, I can override your memory logs to confirm that.”
“You’re welcome to, sir. But you’ll find nothing unusual about his whereabouts…Why? Is he mysteriously absent?”
Renegade straightens, voice even. “I suppose you could say that.”
“Do you know if this has been a pattern?”
“Yes…well, I suspect it has been.”
“Around this time?”
“Possibly.”
“I can tell you with ninety-nine percent confidence that Miles has not shown strange patterns by me.”
“Ninety-nine?”
“Well, there can always be a discrepancy.”
“Scan for it,” Renegade orders.
The android locks up, eyes twitching. “I am now one hundred percent confident that Miles has not shown any strange patterns by me.”
Renegade exhales. “Fine.”
“What I can say, sir, is that if he is behaving strangely, he is at least not doing so through those main entrance doors.”
Renegade gives the android a pointed look.
“In other words, he must be using another exit. Likely the garage. He may have even taken his hoverol.”
Renegade’s eyes lift sharply. “That’s it.”
Moments later, he and the android emerge onto the lower garage level. The concrete expanse stretches wide and tall, its textured ceiling arching like the interior of a grand hall—an entry reserved for distinguished guests.
“I’ve just called your car,” the android reports.
“It’s not my hoverol I want,” Renegade says. “Bring me Miles’s vehicle.”
“But if Miles is away, he may have already taken it.”
The look Renegade gives it makes the android falter. “Just a moment, sir.”
Less than a minute later, Miles’s sleek blue hoverol glides to a stop before them. The door swings open, and Renegade slips inside.
“Show me driving history for the past thirty days.”
The windshield flares to life, a wash of shifting color. A violet bar sweeps across the bottom, loading. Then—
“He apparently hasn’t driven at all,” Renegade tells the android.
“That sounds likely, sir,” the android responds, leaning in. “Miles never goes out.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible, sir. You said so yourself in one of your speeches.”
Renegade rolls his eyes. “Override,” he tells the vehicle.
“…Denied,” the vehicle says back.
“Override!”
“…Denied.”
Renegade slams his fist against the dashboard.
“Only Miles can override his own car,” the android explains.
“I’m sure he’s not the only one.”
“You certainly can’t be the one to do it, sir,” says the android.
Renegade’s eyes sweep the cabin, calculating. “But you can.”
“Me?”
“Override it.”
“Sir,” the android says, backing away slowly. “I don’t want to be unworthy of Miles’s trust.”
“When has privacy ever been a thing in Penumbra?”
The android straightens. “I won’t do it, sir.”
“Oh, really?” Renegade sneers. “Override.”
The instant the command leaves his mouth, the android collapses into itself, systems powering down. Renegade steps out of the hoverol and lifts its head. A tiny light blinks on its forehead. He presses his thumb against it.
Moments later, the android powers back on.
“Override Miles’s hoverol,” Renegade orders, his voice flat.
Without hesitation, the android rolls to the car, flips open a small panel, and inserts its arm into the socket. The hoverol’s lights flash once—then twice.
“Overridden, sir.”
Renegade smiles faintly at the machine, then turns to the car. “Show me Miles’s driving history.”
“No records found,” says the hoverol.
“Show me deleted files.”
The system scans. “No deleted files detected.”
Renegade’s expression tightens.
“I’ll check the hidden files for you,” the hoverol offers. After another scan, the result is the same—nothing.
Renegade exhales, defeated, and slips back into the hoverol. The door seals behind him.
“Welcome, Renegade,” the vehicle intones.
He pulls the coin from his pocket and studies its glinting face. “Northwest.”
An hour drifts by. The hoverol weaves through the northwest streets. For most of the ride, the coin in Renegade’s hand keeps pointing in the same direction. Then, slowly, it shifts—north. The hoverol adjusts course, gliding several blocks upward before the coin pivots west. Renegade follows its lead. Block after block, turn after turn, the coin remains steady in his hand.
Time stretches. The coin begins to twitch—left, right, up, down. He’s close. After several more turns, the hoverol finally stops before a narrow storefront, the coin’s light steady and sure, aimed straight ahead.
Renegade glances at the digital map across the windshield: Zone Two. Then his eyes lift to the flickering neon sign above the door: Northwest Repair: Single-Day Digital Repairs.
He steps out into the chill air and approaches the entrance. Locked. Naturally. He looks left—only boarded-up shops. Right—same thing. Not a soul in sight.
He exhales, then raises his gun. Bang! The window bursts inward, shards cascading to the floor. To Renegade’s surprise, no alarm goes off.
He steps over the broken pane, careful with his footing. With a flick of his wrist, a beam of light shoots forward from his watch.
Inside, the shop is a cluttered wreck. Dust thickens the air. Obsolete devices line the shelves, their metal shells scarred and dull. Worktables sag beneath half-assembled relics, old circuits, cracked lenses. Renegade surveys the chaos. His lip curls faintly, reminded of Miles’s lab back at Anima Corp.
He lifts his watch to his mouth. “Go home,” he orders the hoverol. “I’ll call when I need pickup.”
The glossy blue vehicle rises into the air and fades down the dark street. Renegade doesn’t look back. He draws the coin from his pocket—and stops. The pulsation on the compass side is gone. When he flips it over, the teardrop and its encircling ring glow softly, the light breathing in and out in measured rhythm.
He scans the room. It’s here. Somewhere. His eyes sweep the walls, tracing shelves, scanning corners. He moves slowly, combing through the shadows. Several minutes blur together. He realizes he doesn’t even know what he’s hunting for.
Opening his hand, he waits for the coin to react, but it only keeps beating slowly. The weight hasn’t changed. When he waves it around the shop, there’s no tug, no pull. His arm falls to his side.
“Well, great,” he mutters.
He exhales sharply, then angles his wrist light toward the coin. Its sharp glow dances across the etched surface. Squinting, he catches faint markings—tiny letters circling the edge.
“Verum,” he whispers.
Renegade’s gaze shifts from the coin to the floor beyond it. The beam flashes past his hand, washing over the uneven laminate—grimy, cracked, worn by years of neglect. Only now does he notice the faint circular impression near the WALL’s plastic kick board, tucked beneath a shelf stacked with obsolete gadgets. The indent is roughly the size of the coin.
Renegade kneels, glances both ways, and extends his hand. The coin slides perfectly into the hollow.
He jumps back, half expecting the floor to split open. Nothing. Renegade scans the wall for movement, a hidden shaft, a panel—anything.
With a grunt, he crouches again and pries the coin free. At that moment, the teardrop emblem flares, light swelling to a brilliant drum. Then the circular imprint on the floor begins to oscillate as well.
Bracing himself against a shelf, he waits for a tremor, a blast, something seismic. Instead, the light seeps outward, threading through the cracks in the floor, winding its way toward the back wall.
Renegade follows the luminous trail until it stops—at what was once a blank section of wall in one of the short back rooms. Now, a slender opening gapes where solid surface had been.
He unclips his gun, flicks off the safety, and steadies his other wrist so the light cuts ahead of him.
Slowly, he steps inside. The moment he crosses the threshold, a steel door slams up from the floor, sealing him in. He hesitates, then inches forward. Warm, hydrogen lamps brighten overhead, one by one, flooding the space with an amber color. Renegade lowers his gun and shuts off the flashlight.
He stands in what appears to be a forgotten control room—part office, part bunker. Every surface is buried under an unfamiliar chaos: stacks of paper. Renegade bends over a desk, scanning the yellowed sheets. The writing is dense, indecipherable, though one name repeats again and again unmistakably—Miles.
He straightens, eyes narrowing at a row of monitors hanging loosely along one wall. As his movement triggers them, they flicker to life in grainy black-and-white. The feeds show a commissary—people gathered around tables, eating, laughing. Renegade leans closer. Among the faces are not only adults but children. Boys and girls are mingling with workers as though this were an ordinary world.
He steps back, jaw tight, and turns away. Determined to search the rest, he moves through a short hall that opens into a bathroom and a compact kitchenette. Both are empty—no signs of life, no voices, not even the drone of equipment.
Pressing his palm against the concrete surface, he tests for hidden seams or doors. Nothing gives.
Frustration turns to curiosity. He checks the kitchen, opening every cabinet—empty. Just a few cans of condensed soup, a sleeve of stale crackers. The refrigerator holds only a single apple. The freezer, barren—even of ice.
When he reaches the pantry, Renegade expects to find a lone, half-eaten piece of chocolate at best. Instead, he discovers another door—short and tapered. He doesn’t need to search for a latch; it slides open on its own as if it senses him.
He ducks inside and finds what looks like a scaled-down version of the Pod. He steps in. The walls are tight around him, pressing from every side.
When the door seals shut, the walls liven.
“Hello, guest,” a voice says.
“Where am I?” Renegade demands.
“You are inside Pod Mini.”
“I mean, where am I?”
“Are you asking for your physical location?”
“Is that not obvious?”
“You are currently pinned at Northwest Repair in Northwest Two, located on Seventy-Eighth Street.”
“But what is this place?”
“I’m sorry, but I cannot provide further details.”
“Why?”
“Because you are a stranger.”
Renegade reaches into his coat. “But I’m not.” He pulls out the coin and holds it up. “See? I’m no stranger.”
“Ah,” the Pod responds, shifting tone. “You are in possession of the Verum.”
“The what?”
“Allow me to gather contact details from you before we proceed.”
“No, no, it’s okay. I’m a friend of Miles.”
“Got it. I have gathered that you are a friend of Miles.”
“Listen, I just want to know what this is.”
“Are you referring to the Verum?”
“Yes,” Renegade says, exasperated.
“Of course. It is a multi-purpose relic—functioning both as a compass to this location and as a document containing the Verum itself.”
“And what is the Verum?”
“The Verum is an ancient historical document predating Penumbra’s existence and containing truths about the world in which you currently live.”
Renegade hesitates. “Play it.”
The white, backlit walls go dark. Then, in a deep, resonant voice, he hears, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
A burst of radiance tears through the void. Beams cut the darkness like blades, spreading in rippling waves. A vast, luminous orb floats in the black, soon joined by smaller ones flaring into existence.
“God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.”
Renegade raises his hands. “Wait. Pause.”
The interstellar scene freezes.
“What is God?”
“God,” the Pod begins, “is not an inanimate object or a mere force but a personal being. Therefore, God is not a what but a who.”
“Show me,” Renegade says.
“God cannot be seen by human eyes, nor does He allow Himself to be depicted by human hands. God is spirit. And as a spirit being, He is invisible. I can, however, describe Him for you.”
Renegade frowns. “What’s a spirit?”
The cosmic scene dissolves into warm hues of gold and scarlet.
“A spirit,” the Pod explains, “is a personal, living, rational being unseen by the naked eye. God is not only a spirit but the most powerful spirit in the universe—often described as the Greatest Intelligent Being. He is the cause and reason for all intelligent life on Earth.”
“And what is Earth?”
“I see,” says the Pod. “You know absolutely nothing about the Verum. Let me make it very plain.”
A holographic diagram of the solar system appears, each planet orbiting in quiet precision. The Pod highlights the green-blue sphere.
“This is Earth. All these planets were created by God in the beginning. Yet it is Earth upon which the story of God centers. When time first began, God made—out of all the worlds in the vast universe—this one to bear life. His most special creation was the human race, of which you are a part. You are not merely a spiritual being, but also a physical one—two in one, like all humankind. You were created to be like God.”
“I was created to be God?”
“To be like God,” the Pod emphasizes. “There is a difference.”
“But I still don’t understand who this God is. Where does He come from?”
“God is not a created being. Before time and space or any form of generation, God simply is. He is the source of all life—the uncaused cause. And to humanity, He has revealed Himself as three persons sharing one divine name.”
Renegade scratches his head.
“As I said, God is one spirit being, and He has revealed His name to be Yahweh.” A radiant orb materializes before him. “But over time, Yahweh revealed that His nature is more complex than that.”
The orb divides into three. “It was made known to mankind that Yahweh has always existed as three distinct persons, each fully and equally God, sharing the same divine essence.”
Two orbs brighten before Renegade. “While two of these persons have always remained pure spirit, one took on something new.”
The other two fade as the remaining orb grows. It meets a smaller, flesh-toned sphere. The two merge—light and matter intertwining—shaping a figure with arms and legs.
“That one person added a human nature to His spirit nature,” the Pod continues, “so that He could come to Earth and live among His creation as one of them.”
Form begins to bloom—bones knit, sinew stretches, flesh wraps over it. A body manifests. A baby hovers before Renegade, naked and helpless.
The scene shifts. The child now lies swaddled in a feeding trough. “He lived and grew up on Earth by the name Yeshua,” says the Pod.
A rapid montage follows. In seconds, the infant becomes a man—bearded, weathered, walking beside twelve others dressed in rags. The scenes flicker: teaching, healing, then betrayal. Renegade watches as Yeshua is stripped, seized, and thrown onto rough beams.
Renegade flinches when the nails drive through his flesh. Yeshua’s body jolts and trembles as the cross rises, then drops into its socket with a brutal, dull thud.
“I don’t understand,” Renegade says.
“Yeshua was killed.”
“I see that. But why? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense when you understand what sin is.”
That word again. Renegade’s heart kicks. “Sin? What is sin?”
The image dissolves to black.
“Sin,” the Pod says, “is also invisible. But it is not a spirit, nor a person. Yet it infects all living things on Earth.”
A gleaming android appears beneath a single spotlight. “Sin is like rust.”
Renegade watches as corrosion spreads across the metal surface, darkening, cracking, until the entire figure disintegrates into ash.
“Sin is like a poison.”
A tall glass of bright, bubbling orange liquid fades into view, along with an artificial image of Renegade holding it. He watches himself lift it to his lips and drink greedily. Moments later, the imitation Renegade clutches his throat. Black veins splinter across his body. Within seconds, he collapses—lifeless.
The image fades. In its place appears Auggie.
Renegade stiffens. “What is this?”
“Sin,” the Pod says, “is the singular cause of death.”
Auggie stares at his father, confused and afraid. Then, unseen hands strip the boy of his clothes. He takes a faltering step forward, his skin wrinkling, drying, aging in seconds. His eyes roll back.
“Auggie!” Renegade shouts, slamming his fists against the Pod’s digital surface.
The boy crumples to the ground. Ravens descend, tearing at the small body. Worms writhe through what remains until only bones lie in the dust.
Renegade thrashes, his knuckles split and bleeding, his voice raw. “No! Not my boy!”
“There is indeed only one end for all humanity because of sin,” the Pod recites.
“Let me out!” Renegade screams.
“And it is an endless sea of wrath,” the Pod goes on, voice cold and unfeeling.
Renegade scrambles, searching for the door, but his bearings vanish in the next scene. Before him, Auggie’s bones knit back together, flesh and sinew re-forming, only to ignite in a sudden blaze. Flames surge, devouring everything. The air itself burns, a sea of living fire licking upward in twisting tongues.
“LET ME OUT!” Renegade roars. “I SAID, OUT!”
Every screen in the Pod snaps to black. Then, with a motored wheeze, the door slides open.
Renegade tumbles out, gasping, and looks up—straight into two pairs of eyes staring down at him.
