Timewalkers Odyssey

Volume One: Part One

By: Old Dead One

Chapter 1: The Nameless Son

The World Before the Empire

He lived in Old Vel-Hadek, though those who called it home knew it only as The Scrapyard. A city long discarded, stripped of purpose and left to rot beneath the weight of progress. Above it stood New Vel-Hadek, gleaming and untouched, built atop the bones of its predecessor.

The Scrapyard sprawled beneath the pristine Upper City like an open wound, a vast graveyard of discarded technology, broken dreams, and forgotten lives. From above, its rusting remains formed a labyrinthine circuit board corroded by time and neglect. Jagged pathways wound between mountains of twisted metal and shattered glass, the sun casting fractured light that burned in sharp reflections while leaving whole districts trapped in perpetual shadow.

Now and then, through gaps in the wreckage, the sterile brilliance of New Vel-Hadek could be glimpsed, a world so clean, so distant, it may as well have belonged to another reality. The people above never looked down. And those below knew better than to look up.

Before the Empire came, the Scrapyard had its own brutal balance. It was chaos, but it was predictable chaos. Everyone knew their place. Everyone understood the unspoken rules of survival. There was a certain comfort in that predictability, knowing exactly who might kill you and why.

Life in the Scrapyard was dictated by the gangs. If you belonged to no one, you were nothing, less than nothing. You were simply waiting to be consumed.

The Rust Crows controlled the meat markets. Their hands perpetually stained with blood, they provided what passed for food in the lower districts. Their territory smelled of offal and death, and their laughter could freeze the blood in your veins. But they were necessary. Without starvation would claim far more lives than their knives ever did.

The Circuit Men kept to themselves, hoarding lost technology like treasure, treating old knowledge like scripture. They lived in the shells of ancient server towers and spoke in a language that borrowed terms from forgotten coding manuals. They didn't kill for sport, only for information, for the preservation of what they called the "Great Digital Archive." They were the closest thing the Scrapyard had to priests.

The Wire Kings were the true power. They controlled access to valuable salvage, maintaining a stranglehold on the valuable routes up to the Upper City's waste disposal chutes. Their territory was marked by intricate patterns of copper wire woven into barricades, beautiful and deadly. Cross them, and your body would be found displayed as a warning, suspended by those same gleaming wires.

And then there were the Gear Mothers, not exactly a gang, but a necessity. They guarded young orphans, but only those who showed potential, only those who could be useful. Children who could squeeze into tight spaces, whose small fingers could manipulate delicate circuitry. They protected their charges fiercely, but it wasn't love. It was an investment.

He had been born into this world and had survived it longer than most without a gang's protection. The boy with no name had learned early that existence here meant remaining invisible.

He was never given a name. No one had bothered. His mother had died in childbirth, or so he'd been told by the Gear Mother who had found him wailing beside a cooling corpse. His father had never existed, or at least had never come forward to claim him. When he grew too big for the tight spaces the Gear Mothers valued, he was cast out to survive on his own.

A name could get you killed in the Scrapyard. It made you traceable. Vulnerable. So he made himself a ghost, unseen, unnoticed, unclaimed. He learned to move through shadows, to speak only when necessary, to become so unremarkable that even the gang lookouts' eyes would slide past him as if he were just another piece of discarded metal.

After he had been rejected by the gear mothers he survived by scavenging what others overlooked, by sleeping in spaces too small or precarious for anyone else to risk, by always, always remaining alert. And for fifteen years, it had worked.

Until today.

The Mistake That Should Have Killed Him

The narrow alley was empty when he slipped through the gap in the rusted barricade. He'd been watching this particular spot for weeks, noting the patrol patterns of the Wire Kings' sentries. There was a seven-minute window between shifts, and he'd timed it perfectly.

What caught his eye wasn't immediately impressive, just another piece of discarded tech half-buried in a pile of scrap. If you didn't know what to look for, it could easily be missed. Perhaps that was why it was still there when Ryke noticed it. But something about it seemed different. The faint blue glow pulsing beneath its tarnished surface. The strange warmth it radiated despite the chill in the air.

He excavated it carefully, prying it loose from the surrounding debris. A power cell, but unlike any he'd seen before. Most were dead by the time they reached the Scrapyard, drained of all useful energy. This one still hummed with life, its core emitting that faint, hypnotic blue light.

He'd already slipped it into his ragged pack when the shadow fell across him.

"That's claimed salvage, rat."

The voice was flat, emotionless. He turned slowly, already calculating escape routes. Three Wire Kings stood blocking the alley's exit. The middle one, tall, with a face marked by ritual scars that formed complex circuitry patterns, stepped forward.

"I didn't see any markers," he said, knowing the excuse was futile. There were no markers because this was too far into Wire King territory. Everything here was claimed.

The leader smiled, a cold expression that never reached his eyes. "You know what happens to thieves in our territory."

He ran because running was all he knew, even when escape was impossible.

The blow caught him mid-stride, a length of metal pipe across his back that sent him sprawling into the dirt. He tried to roll with the impact, to regain his footing, but they were on him in seconds. Boots connected with his ribs. Fists found his face. The taste of blood filled his mouth, metallic and warm.

"Nothing personal, rat," the leader said, retrieving the power cell from his pack. "Just business."

They made an example of him. Each blow calculated, delivered with professional detachment. This wasn't rage. This was a demonstration. A lesson for anyone else who might consider taking what belonged to the Wire Kings.

They dragged him to the edge of Wire King's territory and left him so others could see what happened to anyone who stole from the Kings. When he came to, he could barely move. Each breath sent spikes of agony through his chest. His ribs cracked, maybe broken. One eye swollen shut. Blood pooled beneath him, soaking into the perpetually thirsty dust of the Scrapyard.

He knew this was the end. No one survived a Wire King beating unless they were meant to. And he had been meant to, but only long enough to serve as a warning to others. Long enough to suffer. Long enough to die slowly.

He dragged himself a few feet, leaving a smear of blood behind him. Then a few feet more. Each movement was agony, but something in him refused to die in that alley. If he was going to die, and he was, it wouldn't be there. Not where they expected to find his body.

Darkness was falling by the time he collapsed in a narrow space between two massive heaps of discarded machinery. The temperature dropped sharply, as it always did at night in the Scrapyard. He felt the cold creeping into his bones, a different kind of pain that almost numbed the others.

As his consciousness began to fade, a shadow blocked out the stars. A figure, massive and hulking, stood over him. He couldn't even summon the strength to flinch away.

A gruff voice cut through the haze of pain.

"Still breathing, are you?"

The Old Man's Workshop

Consciousness came and went in disjointed fragments. Rough hands lifting him. The jarring pain of movement. The faint smell of oil and hot metal. Warmth against his skin after so much cold.

When he finally awoke fully, he found himself lying on a narrow cot in a cluttered space, surrounded by tools and half-assembled machinery. A workshop of some kind. Oil lamps cast a warm, flickering light across surfaces crowded with projects in various stages of completion.

The old man sat at a workbench nearby, his back to the cot, hands moving with surprising dexterity as he manipulated small components with a set of fine tools. He didn't turn when the boy shifted on the cot, a small groan escaping his lips as pain flared through his battered body.

"Awake, then," the old man said, still not turning. "Good. Hate to waste a trip."

The boy tried to speak, but his throat was too dry, the words refusing to form. The old man finally turned, revealing a face weathered by time and hardship. His beard was gray and unkempt, his eyes sharp beneath bushy brows. He looked like he'd been carrying the weight of the Scrapyard on his shoulders for decades.

He approached with a cup of water, helping the boy lift his head enough to drink.

"Wire Kings?" he asked, though it wasn't really a question.

The boy nodded slightly, wincing at the movement.

"Figured. They've got a particular style." The old man returned to his workbench, picking up a small device and turning it over in his hands. "You're lucky. Another hour out there and you'd have been scavenger food."

The boy managed to find his voice, though it emerged as little more than a rasp. "Why help me?"

The old man's hands paused briefly in their work. "Maybe I needed an extra pair of hands around the shop. Maybe I got tired of stepping over corpses on my doorstep. Does it matter?"

It did matter, but the boy had learned long ago not to press for answers people didn't want to give. He let his eyes wander around the workshop instead. It existed in a space between gang territories, a neutral ground. That shouldn't have been possible.

As if reading his thoughts, the old man spoke again. "You're wondering how I manage to exist here without gang protection."

The boy nodded slightly.

"Simple. The Rust Crows need weapons repaired. The Circuit Men need knowledge preserved. The Wire Kings need salvage refined." His hands resumed their work, manipulating tiny components with surprising precision. "Years ago, I made them an offer. I'd provide my services to all of them, favor none of them, if they agreed to one condition: my shop's territory is sovereign."

He set down his tools and turned to face the boy fully. "A sanctuary in chaos. That was my price. And they agreed because it was cheaper than killing each other over who got to claim me."

The boy had never heard of such an arrangement. In the Scrapyard, neutrality was death. You chose a side, or you died. Yet here was this old man who had carved out a space between, a place where the brutal rules of the world outside seemed held at bay.

"You had no one to claim you out there," the old man said. It wasn't a question. "That's why they felt free to make an example of you. No gang would retaliate."

The boy said nothing. There was nothing to say.

"Pain means you're still alive," the old man said, returning to his work. "Remember that."

For three days, the boy drifted in and out of consciousness as his body struggled to heal. The old man treated his wounds, not gently, but efficiently. He set the broken ribs, cleaned the cuts, and applied salvaged medical supplies with the same focused attention he gave to the machines on his workbench.

When the boy was finally able to sit up without feeling like his chest was being torn apart, the old man pointed to a rusted sign hanging above the main workbench. It read: "Ryke's Restoration."

"Previous owner died owing me money," the old man explained. "You can borrow it until you find something better."

"Borrow what?" the boy asked, confused.

"The name. Ryke. Unless you've got one already."

The boy hesitated. A name was dangerous. A name could be tracked, remembered, and targeted. He had never had a name, did he really need one? He had lived a solitary life in the shadows. The few people he did interact with never really cared to know anyway, what was the point? But here, in this strange sanctuary between territories, perhaps the rules were different. After all, he was only borrowing it, he could discard it if it didn't fit.

"Ryke," he said, testing the sound of it. It felt strange on his tongue but not unpleasant. Not a gift, not really. Just a loan. Something borrowed until he found something better.

He took the name. Not because it meant anything. But because it was better than nothing.

Life With the Old Man

Work began as soon as Ryke could stand without doubling over in pain. The old man, who never offered his own name and whom Ryke never thought to ask, made it clear from the start. There would be no handouts. If Ryke wanted to stay, he would earn his keep.

"I didn't save your life so you could be a burden," the old man said, tossing him a rag to clean components. "I saved it because waste offends me."

The old man never asked about Ryke's past, never questioned where he had come from or how he had survived so long without a gang's protection. It was as if the boy's history had been wiped clean the moment he crossed the threshold of the workshop, replaced by the simple, focused present of the work before them.

Instead, he taught Ryke how to fix things. How to identify salvageable components in seemingly ruined machinery. How to clean connections corroded by time and the Scrapyard's caustic atmosphere. How to join disparate pieces into functioning wholes.

"Everything is broken," the old man would say, his hands steady despite their weathered appearance, "but that doesn't mean it can't be fixed."

At first, Ryke's tasks were simple. Clean this, sort these, hold that steady. But as days turned to weeks, and weeks to months, the old man began to trust him with more complex work. Ryke discovered he had a talent for it, for seeing the potential in broken things, for understanding how separate pieces could work together.

"People throw away good things before they even try to fix them," the old man observed one evening as they sat eating a simple meal after a long day's work. "Up there," he gestured vaguely toward the Upper City, "they replace instead of repair. Down here, we don't have that luxury."

Ryke nodded, understanding more than the old man realized. In the Scrapyard, everything and everyone was used until they broke beyond repair, then discarded. He had been discarded more than once.

"Sometimes," the old man continued, watching Ryke with those sharp eyes that seemed to see more than they should, "things just need a reason to keep working."

Ryke never realized the old man was talking about him. Or perhaps he did but couldn't bring himself to acknowledge it. Acknowledgment would mean attachment, and attachment was dangerous. So he buried the realization deep, focused instead on the work, on the simple satisfaction of taking broken things and making them functional again.

The old man never called him son, but he treated him like one in small ways that Ryke pretended not to notice.

When Ryke struggled with a particularly delicate repair, the old man would adjust his grip on the tool, his weathered hands guiding Ryke's younger ones with the patience of a father teaching a child. He never commented on it, never made it a moment of significance. It was simply what needed to be done.

When Ryke returned to the workshop after venturing out to deliver repaired items to clients, the old man would check him for injuries, eyes scanning for new bruises or cuts. He never asked questions, never expressed concern aloud. But his inspection was thorough, assessing, protective in its silent way.

And there was always enough food. The old man would leave an extra portion out but act as if he hadn't, grumbling about his own failing appetite or claiming the food would otherwise go to waste. Ryke would eat it without comment, and they would both pretend it wasn't deliberate.

Ryke pretended not to notice these things. And the old man pretended not to notice Ryke's pretending. It was a delicate balance, an unspoken agreement between them. Neither acknowledged the growing bond, the tentative trust that had formed in this sanctuary between territories.

Life settled into a rhythm unlike anything Ryke had known before. For the first time, he wasn't just surviving, he was living. Learning. Growing. Becoming something more than just a nameless scavenger. He was Ryke now. He had a place. A purpose. Someone who, in his own gruff way, seemed to care whether he lived or died.

It couldn't last, of course. Nothing in the Scrapyard ever did.

The Finality of a Life Well Lived

Ryke noticed the changes gradually. The old man moved slower, his steps more deliberate, as if each one required careful planning. His hands, once steady despite their age, now trembled when he held his tools, forcing him to pause in his work, to take a breath, to will the shaking to subside.

Neither of them spoke of it. There was no need. In the Scrapyard, death comes for everyone eventually. The only remarkable thing was that it had taken so long to find the old man.

He had lived longer than most, not because he was lucky and not because he was particularly dangerous, but because he was needed. The gangs valued his skills too much to let him die prematurely, and he had been clever enough to make himself valuable to all of them equally.

But even that protection couldn't shield him from time itself.

One day, the old man stopped working altogether. He sat at his workbench, tools laid out before him, but his hands remained in his lap. Ryke watched from across the workshop, pretending to be absorbed in his own repairs, but keenly aware of the old man's stillness.

Finally, the old man looked up, his eyes finding Ryke's with unexpected clarity. "You're ready?" he asked.

Ryke hesitated, uncertain of the question's meaning. "To fix things?" he replied finally.

The old man shook his head slightly, a faint smile touching his lips. "To survive."

That night, the old man sat by the forge, staring into the embers long after the workshop had grown cold and dark. Ryke offered him a blanket, which he accepted with a nod. They didn't speak. Words seemed inadequate, unnecessary in the face of what they both knew was coming.

When Ryke awoke the next morning, the workshop was filled with an unfamiliar silence. No tools clinked against the workbench. No gruff voice called him to work. No fire crackled in the forge.

The old man was still sitting where Ryke had left him the night before. Slumped forward slightly, his eyes closed, his expression peaceful. One hand rested on the armchair, fingers curled around a small gear, the first component Ryke had successfully repaired on his own.

Gone, but not taken. That was a rare thing in the Scrapyard, where most deaths came violently, at the hands of others. The old man had simply... stopped. Like a machine whose power source had finally been depleted after years of faithful service.

Ryke stood motionless, staring at the still form of the only person who had ever truly seen him as more than just another piece of Scrapyard trash. The workshop felt suddenly vast and empty, its warmth gone with the old man's life.

Mourning didn't change the past. But something inside Ryke broke and stayed broken. A part of him that had just begun to trust, to hope, to believe that perhaps the Scrapyard's brutal rules didn't have to define his entire existence.

He retreated to the surviving street rat he had started as. Not physically, he remained in the workshop, continued the work, honored the agreements the old man had made with the gangs. But emotionally, he withdrew, erected walls around the soft, vulnerable parts of himself that the old man had coaxed into the open.

He was Ryke now, but Ryke was still alone. Still fighting for survival in a world that cared nothing for his pain.

And then the Empire arrived.

The Empire Arrives

The change came without warning. One day, the Scrapyard operated as it always had, brutal, chaotic, but predictable in its violence. Next, everything was different.

The gangs fell overnight. Their leaders vanished without a sound, there one evening and gone the next morning. No bodies were found. No succession battles erupted. They were simply... erased.

At first, Ryke thought it was just another power shift. The Scrapyard had seen them before, one gang rising, another falling. But this was different. This was systematic. Coordinated.

The Empire's soldiers appeared in the streets, their armor gleaming with an unnatural luster, their weapons humming with energy Ryke had never seen before. They didn't speak. They didn't threaten. They simply established a presence, and their presence alone was threat enough.

The Scrapyard became silent. Too silent. Where once there had been the constant background noise of survival, haggling, fighting, the clash of metal on metal as salvagers worked, now there was just the rhythmic footfall of armored boots on pavement and the occasional scream quickly silenced.

Ryke watched from the shadows of the workshop. He continued his work because work was what he knew, what the old man had taught him. But the clients stopped coming. No one from the gangs arrived with broken weapons or salvage needing refinement. The agreements that had protected the workshop no longer meant anything.

The people who resisted disappeared. The people who complied suffered anyway. The workshop, once neutral ground between warring factions, was just another decaying memory of a past that was being methodically erased.

Ryke often thought of the old man in those dark days. A man who had seen value in broken things was gone. The metaphor was not lost on him. Had the old man been talking about discarded tech? Or discarded people? Was he talking about me?

It didn't matter. The Empire saw no value in either.

The Transformation

They came for the workshop on the seventh day of the Empire's occupation. Three soldiers, their faces hidden behind gleaming visors, their movements precise and unhurried. They didn't knock. They simply entered as if the space had always belonged to them.

Ryke stood at the workbench, a half-repaired circuit board in his hands. He set it down carefully, watching the soldiers scan the workshop with emotionless efficiency.

"This location has been designated for reclamation," one of them said, voice distorted by the helmet's respirator. "All salvageable technology will be cataloged and removed."

Ryke said nothing. Words wouldn't change what was about to happen.

"Identify yourself," another soldier demanded, stepping closer.

For a moment, Ryke hesitated. The nameless boy he had once been whispered from the depths of his memory, urging him to remain anonymous, unnoticed, unclaimed. A ghost in the Scrapyard had a better chance of survival than someone with an identity.

But the old man's words echoed louder. "Pain means you're still alive. Remember that."

He straightened, meeting the soldier's visor with a steady gaze. "Ryke," he said, his voice stronger than he expected. "My name is Ryke."

The nameless boy became Ryke. The borrowed name had more meaning now than when he had first accepted it. It wasn't just a label, a convenient way for the old man to address him. It was an identity. A history. A promise.

The old man's words stayed with him as the soldiers began systematically dismantling the workshop, cataloging and removing anything of value. "Broken things can be fixed." But fixing things was a luxury he could no longer afford.

He no longer restored. He survived. He watched, and he learned, and he waited. The Empire's soldiers paid him little attention once they determined he was just another Scrapyard dweller, insignificant in their grand designs. That suited him perfectly. He disappeared into the streets, nameless no longer, but invisible still by choice.

Ryke moved through the shadows of the occupied Scrapyard, gathering information, observing the Empire's methods, learning their rhythms just as he had once learned the patrol patterns of the Wire Kings' sentries. Knowledge was survival. Patience was power.

And deep within him, where the pain of the old man's death still ached like a broken bone that hadn't set properly, a new purpose began to form. Not just survival, but resistance. Not just existence, but defiance.

The Empire had broken the Scrapyard, but Ryke knew better than anyone that broken things could be fixed. It would require time, and patience, and pain. But pain meant you were still alive.

And Ryke intended to live long enough to see the Empire fall.