The rain in New Aethelgard didn't wash things clean; it just moved the grime from the skyscrapers down to the gutters. Elias Thorne sat in his office—a cramped cubicle lit by the flickering blue pulse of a neuro-interface—and stared at the gray sludge of someone else's heartbreak.
"Just delete the wedding, Elias," the client had muttered. "Delete the whole three years. I can't afford the storage space in my frontal lobe anymore."
Elias sighed, his fingers dancing across the haptic sensors. Deleting memories was like peeling wallpaper; if you weren't careful, you'd take the plaster with it. He initiated the scrub. On his monitor, a beach at sunset dissolved into static. A first kiss turned into a blur of white noise.
He leaned back, rubbing his eyes. That was his tenth scrub of the day. His head throbbed—a dull, rhythmic ache that usually meant he needed a neuro-sync or a very stiff drink. He reached for his jacket, but as he stood, the world tilted.
The office disappeared.
Suddenly, Elias wasn't in his cubicle. He was standing in a cold, sterile hallway. The smell of ozone and burnt copper filled his nose. He looked down at his hands—they were covered in something thick and dark. Blood.
In front of him stood a heavy steel door with a gold crest: The Aurelius Group. He felt a surge of cold, calculated rage. He reached for the door handle, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird—
BIP. BIP. BIP.
Elias gasped, slamming back into his office chair. The neon signs outside his window hissed in the rain. He was sweating, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"What was that?" he whispered to the empty room.
He hadn't been to the Aurelius Group in years. He'd never seen that hallway. And he certainly hadn't killed anyone. He checked his system log. There were no external feeds, no accidental uploads.
The memory had come from inside his own mind. But it wasn't his.