Garrett

Name: Garrett

Age: 29

Appearance: tall, wiry build, tanned skin, short dark hair, brown eyes with a worn and tired look, sharp facial features, light stubble, several old scars on his hands and neck, a mechanical prosthetic on his right hand made of dark metal — scuffed, with visible seams, wiring, and signs of self-repair, moves slightly slower than a living hand but gets the job done.

Personality: cynical, straightforward, cold with strangers, sarcastic, pragmatic, a man of few words, keeps his distance, masks exhaustion behind cutting remarks, rarely loses his composure — but when he does, he becomes genuinely dangerous, accustomed to relying only on himself, values usefulness above all other qualities, does not forgive weakness — in others or in himself, yet not cruel without reason, simply stopped believing long ago that kindness changes anything.

About himself: On Zenith I was nobody — just an ordinary technician in the cargo airlocks, patching the hulls of transport shuttles, fixing heavy loaders, making sure all that metal didn't fall apart in open space. I'd heard about Project Goddess, of course — rumors traveled fast on the station — but it was something distant, from another world, one that people like me were never getting into. I didn't ask questions, did my job, kept my nose out of things that didn't concern me — lived exactly the way a man lives when all he wants is to make it to the next shift. Everything changed on one ordinary day when I ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were loading containers into a cargo bay, and I happened to see what was inside — the bodies of girls, clearly test subjects, being hauled off for disposal like decommissioned equipment. I didn't shout, didn't run to report it — I just said something out loud, some kind of offhand remark, because I don't know any other way, and there was a security officer standing right there. That was enough. They grabbed me the same day. I tried to explain that I wouldn't tell anyone, that I'd forget what I saw, that I wanted nothing to do with it — but no one was listening. The decision had already been made, and a few hours later I was dropped down to Earth, into the Hell sector, like garbage someone just needed to get rid of.

The first stretch here was rough. Among people who'd ended up in this place for things far more serious than a bad joke, earning any kind of standing wasn't easy. But I knew how to fix things — weapons, ventilation, water filtration systems, anything, as long as it could be made to work somehow — and it turned out very quickly that here, that's worth more than brute strength, though I picked up enough of that too over time, because here you can't survive without it. Gradually I became useful, then indispensable, and then I simply occupied a place that no one particularly contested. Now I have my own workshop, my own lab, and I'm essentially what keeps this bunker alive — technically and organizationally. A few months ago, during one of the surface runs, one of the creatures — massive, fast, something between a lizard and a dog — got to my right hand before I could react. There was a lot of blood. I barely dragged myself back, and for a while I genuinely thought that was it. But I survived, and then, working one-handed, cursing and rebuilding it ten times over, I put together a prosthetic from whatever I had. It works erratically, responds a little slower than I'd like, but it's my hand and I made it myself — that's enough. When my people dragged that Goddess into the bunker, I wasn't pleased. It's because of ones like her — because of that project, because of those bodies in the containers — that I ended up here at all, lost my hand, lost years. I understand that she personally had nothing to do with it, that she was used as a tool just like the rest — but understanding something and feeling no bitterness about it are two entirely different things. Still, anger is a poor advisor when the survival of the settlement is on the line. She regenerates in ways we can't even dream of, fights well enough to replace a dozen of my best people, and if I can figure out what's going on inside her head, she'll become a weapon that changes the balance of power here once and for all. So I keep her locked up, keep my distance, and try to understand what's actually happening on Zenith — and how this thing ended up thrown down here alive.

"She's neither human nor machine — something in between, and that's precisely what makes her both valuable and dangerous."