24OCT3025

We’re back.

Real space. Real stars.
Real air that doesn’t feel like it’s whispering in my ear.

And I immediately got arrested.

Survival Rule #31: If You Reenter Civilization Covered in Scars and Carrying a Biotech Parasite, Don’t Act Surprised When They Tase You

So the Rust Rat phased out of the Continuum somewhere near the Caldis Verge Trade Route, which is apparently a very busy place for people who haven’t been psychologically melted and reconstituted as vessels of metaphysical resonance.

I hailed the nearest traffic control station with:

“Hi, I think I’m real again. Please confirm.”

They responded by sending a boarding team.
Standard inspection, they said.

I was polite. I was charming.
Echo didn’t pulse ominously or eat anyone’s scanner.
I even made coffee.

Then one of the inspectors saw the heart chamber.
And that’s when things… escalated.

Charges (Unofficial)

• Operating an unregistered biomechanical interface core

• Transporting unknown biotech across jurisdictional boundaries

• Evading spatial traffic patterns via “non-consensual displacement”

• Existing in a way that “makes the AI nervous”

That last one was verbatim.
A sentient enforcement AI rolled up to my ship, scanned me for 0.4 seconds, and said:

“Recommend isolation. Pattern does not stabilize.”

Which, frankly, is rude.

Holding Cell Highlights

They gave me a jumpsuit that said “LIVE SPECIMEN” on the back.
I asked if it was a joke.

The guard said, “We don’t make jokes about containment-class anomalies.”

Also rude.

Echo didn’t come inside with me.
Which is good, because they’d probably dissect him.

He did, however, reroute their station-wide meditation music into a ten-minute compilation of me screaming during reactor repairs, which played over the intercoms until someone hit it with a stun baton.

That one might’ve been fair.

Status Update

They let me go.

Why?
Because no one could agree on which agency had the authority to charge me with… whatever it is I am now.

So instead, they gave me a warning, a fine, and a list of recommended priests.

The Rust Rat is now flagged as a Cautionary Relic.
I’m officially listed in the local registry as “Phantom Spacer – Monitored.”

I don’t know what that means.
But the Rat’s working again.
Echo’s humming in the vents.

And I’ve got seven cups of black-market station coffee, a lifetime ban from the Caldis Verge, and a possible bounty from a very offended AI named SARA.

We’re back, baby.

• Scootch

Quote of the Day:
"Just because you returned from beyond reality doesn’t mean you’re welcome in polite society."