Well, I'm not dead, and as it turns out, neither was Mei-Yin. In fact, it was her who freed me, and insisted we follow Nerva through the portal in the cave.
A horrifying scene awaited us. All of Nerva's men lay dead amongst the shards of a mysterious metal, but Nerva's body was missing. Forgetting my present company, I suggested a peaceful approach if we encountered him. That earned me one hell of a knockout punch.
When I came to, I searched the whole station, but the only signs of Mei-Yin and Nerva were a few ounces of dried blood. No bodies, and no victor.
There, floating outside the window and surrounded by machinery, was the very island that I had been living on, and it too was orbiting high above the Earth along with countless other stations just like it. The ecosystem on the Island wasn't just curated, it was completely artificial from the ground up!
What in the hell is all this, why would anyone construct it, and how could they have possibly kept it hidden from the world? I don't have the answers to any of these questions or the dozens of others that keep popping into my head, but somehow, I mean to find out. Somehow, I'll find the truth.