"Traitor?"
The word hung in the damp air of the bunker, heavier than the humidity.
Lyric stared at Rook. The kid wasn't backing away anymore. He was sitting on a crate, leaning forward, his goggles reflecting the dim orange light of the radio scanner.
"Think about it," Rook said, his voice dropping low. "The Guild doesn't send hunters after a glitch. They send mechanics. But they sent hunters after you. That means you made a choice. You left."
Lyric looked down at their hands. I left. The idea sparked a strange feeling in the hollow space of their mind. Not fear. Defiance.
"If I'm a traitor," Lyric whispered, "then I need to know what I'm capable of. I need to know why they're afraid of me."
Rook nodded. He kicked a rusted bolt across the concrete floor until it stopped at Lyric's feet. He opened his notebook, the fear in his eyes replaced by scientific curiosity.
"Exactly," Rook said. "So let's stop guessing and start testing. Pick it up. Do it again."
Lyric sighed. The headache from the drone incident hadn't fully gone away. It sat behind Lyric's eyes like a bruise, throbbing in time with their heartbeat.
"I'm tired, Rook."
"We need to know the rules," Rook insisted. He tapped the notebook with a pen. "If we go out there, you need to know what happens when you touch stuff. Just pick up the bolt."
Lyric reached out.
The moment Lyric's fingers closed around the cold, gritty metal, there was that familiar sensation—a sudden drop in stomach pressure, like missing a step on a staircase in the dark.
Pop.
Lyric blinked. The hand was closed in a tight fist.
Lyric opened the hand. Empty.
Lyric looked at the floor. No bolt.
"Okay," Lyric said, looking up at Rook. "I'm ready. When are you going to give me the bolt?"
Rook stopped writing and looked at Lyric with a mixture of awe and fear. "I just did. You just erased it."
Lyric stared at him. "No, I didn't. I'm still waiting for you to hand it to me. I just reached out, and…" Lyric trailed off.
"And what?" Rook pressed.
"I don't know."
"Check your hand," Rook said. "Is there rust on your fingers?"
Lyric looked. The tips of the index finger and thumb were stained orange with rust dust.
A cold shiver went down Lyric's spine. The evidence was there, but the memory was gone. Not just the image of the bolt, but the action of picking it up. To Lyric, the last ten seconds hadn't happened. The timeline had skipped.
"That's the rule," Rook muttered, scribbling fast in his book. "Object vanishes physically. Subject—that's you—loses all memory of the object and the interaction. Observers—that's me—remember it, but it feels… fuzzy. Like a dream I'm waking up from."
Lyric wiped the rust onto the mattress. "It's dangerous. If I erase a person, I won't know I killed them. I could kill a hundred people and think I'm innocent."
"Which is why we gotta figure out who you were," Rook said. He closed the notebook with a snap. "You ready to move? The radio is getting loud."
Lyric listened. The scanner in the corner was buzzing with voices. They sounded angry, distorted by static.
"...Sector 4 sweep complete. Negative on the drone. It's just… gone. Dispatch, clarify orders?"
"...Search for the anomaly. Protocol Red. If you find a blank spot, shoot it."
"Protocol Red," Rook said, standing up and grabbing his backpack. "That means they aren't looking to arrest anyone. We need to get out of the industrial district."
"Where do we go?" Lyric asked, standing up. The canvas coat felt lighter without the photo in the pocket. The loss still stung, a phantom ache that made Lyric check the pocket again, just in case. Still empty.
"Down is a dead end," Rook said. "We go up. Mid-Level. I know a guy. He used to work for the Guilds before he got his brain scrambled. If anyone knows what a 'Silent' looks like, it's him."
The climb up was brutal.
They avoided the main elevators. Rook said they had "memory scanners" that would flag Lyric immediately. Instead, they used the service ladders inside the walls.
It was tight, dark, and hot. Pipes hissed steam next to Lyric's face, and the rungs vibrated with the heavy machinery of the city.
"So," Rook said, his voice echoing in the metal shaft. "Why trust me?"
Lyric paused, hand gripping a rung that was slick with oil. "What?"
"You could have erased me," Rook said. "Back in the market. When the drone came down. You could have touched me and poof, no witness. Why didn't you?"
Lyric thought about it. The memory of the drone was gone, but the feeling of panic remained.
"I don't know," Lyric admitted.
"You don't know?"
"My head is empty, Rook. I don't have a past to tell me who I am. So I have to decide who I am right now, every second." Lyric looked up at the circle of light far above. "And right now, I decided I'm not someone who erases kids."
Rook grunted. "Good choice. Keep climbing."
Twenty minutes later, they pushed open a grate and stepped out into an alley.
The air here was different. It didn't smell like rot and rust; it smelled like cheap perfume, ozone, and fried food. The neon signs were brighter, buzzing in blues and pinks, reflecting off the wet pavement.
This was the Mid-Level. The residential zone for the workers who weren't rich enough for the penthouse suites but too rich for the slums.
People walked by on the main street. They looked tired. Most of them had ports behind their ears—small metal sockets where they could plug in memory vials.
"Keep your head down," Rook whispered. "Hands in pockets. Don't make eye contact."
They walked past a shop called The Recall Bar. Through the window, Lyric saw people sitting in booths, drinking glowing blue liquid from shot glasses. They were laughing, crying, shouting—riding the high of artificial emotions.
A man stumbled out of the bar, bumping into Lyric's shoulder.
"Watch it!" he slurred. His eyes were wide and unfocused. "I just bought a wedding day! Don't ruin it!"
Lyric stepped back, hands jamming deep into the coat pockets to avoid skin contact. "Sorry."
"Disgusting," Lyric whispered to Rook as they hurried away.
"It's life," Rook said. "Imagine you work twelve hours a day welding pipes. You come home, your back hurts, you're lonely. You got ten credits. You can buy a loaf of bread, or you can buy ten minutes of 'First Date on a Beach'. What do you pick?"
Lyric didn't answer. They walked until the crowds thinned out, reaching a quieter street lined with closed storefronts.
Rook stopped in front of a door that had no handle, just a heavy steel plate. He knocked—a complicated rhythm. Tap, tap-tap, bang.
A slot slid open. A pair of bloodshot eyes peered out.
"We're closed," a voice croaked.
"It's Rook. I got a processor for you. Clean. Pre-war."
The eyes narrowed. "Show me."
Rook pulled a small microchip from his bag and held it up.
The slot slammed shut. A heavy lock clanked, and the door swung open.
"Get in. Quick."
The room inside was a workshop, cluttered with screens, wires, and jars of memory fluid glowing faintly on shelves. In the center sat an old man in a wheelchair. His legs were gone, replaced by mechanical struts that looked like they hadn't worked in years.
"Who's the stray?" the old man asked, looking at Lyric with suspicion.
"Friend of mine," Rook said, placing the chip on a table. "This is Lyric. Lyric, this is Silas. He used to be a tech for the Enforcers."
Silas snorted. "Used to be. Until I saw too much and they took my legs as a severance package." He picked up the chip and inspected it under a magnifying glass. "Good quality. What do you want for it?"
"Information," Lyric said, stepping forward.
Silas looked up. He studied Lyric's face, then his eyes drifted to Lyric's hands, buried deep in the coat pockets.
"You stand like one of them," Silas said softly.
"One of who?"
"The Silents. The Guild Enforcers." Silas wheeled himself closer, the motor of his chair whining. "Shoulders squared. Weight on the balls of your feet. Chin tucked. You're ready to fight, kid. Who trained you?"
"I don't know," Lyric said. "I woke up yesterday with no memory."
Silas laughed, a dry, hacking sound. "No memory. That's the Guild's favorite retirement plan. They wipe you clean when you're done."
"Rook thinks I was one of them," Lyric said. "Is there a way to tell?"
Silas spun his chair around and rolled to a filing cabinet. "The Silents aren't just thugs. They're elite. They don't just erase debts; they handle the 'high-risk' targets. Political dissidents, rogue memory dealers, people who know too much. They use a specific fighting style. And they carry… tools."
"I have this," Lyric said.
They carefully pulled out the silver pendant.
Silas froze. The room went dead silent. Even the hum of the servers seemed to stop.
"Where did you get that?" Silas whispered, his face losing all color.
"I had it when I woke up."
Silas backed his chair away, crashing into a stack of books. "That's a Damper. An anchor. The Silents use those to keep from losing their own minds while they work. If you have one of those… you weren't just a grunt. You were an officer."
Lyric looked at the pendant. It wasn't just jewelry. It was a shield.
"So I was a bad guy," Lyric said, the words tasting sour.
"The worst," Silas said. "But if you have that, the Guild will be tracking it. It has a resonance signature."
Rook's eyes went wide. "You mean they can trace us?"
"If it's active? Yeah. They're probably halfway here right now."
CRASH.
The front door didn't open. It exploded inward.
The steel plate flew across the room, smashing into a shelf of glass jars. Blue fluid splashed everywhere, sizzling on the floor.
Two figures stepped through the smoke.
They wore sleek, matte-black armor that seemed to absorb the light. Their faces were covered by smooth, featureless masks—just like the figure on the fire escape in the alley.
"Target identified," one of them said. The voice was modulated, robotic.
Rook dove behind a desk. "Silents!"
Silas grabbed a shotgun from under his wheelchair, but before he could raise it, the second Silent raised a hand. He didn't fire a gun. He just clenched his fist.
Silas froze. His eyes glazed over. The shotgun slipped from his hands and clattered to the floor. He looked around, blinking, completely confused. "Why… why am I holding a gun? Is someone here?"
He erased the threat, Lyric realized. He erased Silas's will to fight.
The first Silent turned to Lyric.
"Unit 7," the Silent said. "You are awol. Submit for re-calibration."
Panic surged in Lyric's chest. But under the panic, something else clicked into place. A cold, hard instinct.
As the Silent lunged, Lyric didn't think. The body moved on its own.
Lyric sidestepped to the left, ducking under a grab that would have crushed a normal person's windpipe. It was a perfect, efficient movement.
I know this move, Lyric thought. I've done this a thousand times.
The Silent swung a shock-baton. Lyric caught the wrist—not with a grip, but with a flat palm, pushing the arm away to redirect the momentum.
Don't touch the skin, Lyric's brain screamed. If you touch him, you erase him, and you lose the intel.
"Rook! The back door!" Lyric shouted.
"Way ahead of you!" Rook yelled, kicking open a ventilation grate near the floor.
The second Silent moved to intercept Rook.
"No!" Lyric yelled.
Lyric grabbed a heavy glass jar of memory fluid from the table and threw it.
It wasn't a random throw. It was calculated. The jar smashed against the wall right next to the second Silent's head.
The blue gas exploded outward.
The Silent staggered, the concentrated memory gas overwhelming his filters. He stumbled back, clutching his helmet, suddenly living through someone else's childhood trauma or first kiss. He screamed, dropping to his knees.
"Go!" Lyric grabbed Rook by the collar and shoved him into the vent.
Lyric looked back at the first Silent. The figure was recovering, pulling a jagged knife from his belt.
"You cannot run from your nature, Unit 7," the Silent said.
Lyric looked at the knife. Then at the heavy workbench beside them.
Lyric slammed a hand onto the wooden leg of the workbench.
Erase.
The leg vanished.
The heavy table collapsed instantly, sliding down and pinning the Silent's legs against the wall with a crunch of metal and bone.
The Silent struggled, but the angle was impossible.
Lyric didn't wait to see if he got free. They dove into the vent after Rook, crawling into the darkness.
They scrambled through the ducts for ten minutes until they spilled out into a drainage tunnel three blocks away.
Rook was gasping for air, covered in dust. "That… was… insane."
Lyric leaned against the damp wall, chest heaving. The headache was back, pounding like a hammer.
"You moved like a ninja," Rook said, looking at Lyric with wide eyes. "Silas was right. You're one of them."
Lyric looked at their hands. They were shaking.
"I knew his reach," Lyric whispered. "I knew he was going to lead with his right. I knew the armor had a weak point at the neck."
"Muscle memory," Rook said. "Your brain forgot, but your body remembers."
Lyric reached into the pocket and gripped the silver pendant.
"They called me Unit 7," Lyric said. "I'm not just a traitor, Rook. I think I'm a fugitive piece of property."
Rook adjusted his goggles. "Well, Unit 7, we got a problem. Now they know exactly where we are. We can't stay in the city."
"Where else is there?"
"The Outskirts," Rook said. "The Memory Graveyards. It's where all the unwanted memories go to rot. It's dangerous, but the Guild doesn't go there."
Lyric pushed off the wall. The fear was still there, but the confusion was fading. The fight had clarified things.
"Let's go," Lyric said. "But first, I need to know something. Does that pendant really block the signal?"
"Silas said it's an anchor," Rook said. "Maybe it works both ways? Keeps you sane, but broadcasts your location?"
Lyric unclasped the chain. The silver was cold against the skin.
"Then I need to figure out how to turn it off," Lyric said. "Or we use it as bait."
Rook grinned, a nervous, jagged smile. "Now you're thinking like a criminal. I like it."