Nico's breath came in short, shallow bursts as he crouched behind the cracked remains of an old transport shell, its rusted hull barely enough to shield him from the drone's scanning grid. Beside him, Lira lay prone, eyes locked on the oscillating pattern of light as it swept over their position, undetected for now. The echo of its mechanical hum drifted upward into the skeletal remains of what had once been a bustling transit station.
New Lyra had many faces. The corporate towers gleamed above, an endless mirage of promise. But down here, in the Undernet—the decayed underlayer of the city—everything was carved in shadow and decay.
"Now," Lira whispered, and they both sprang into motion.
They darted across the gap, past the drone's reach, diving into a narrow vent shaft that led deeper into the service tunnels. Nico landed hard on his side, wincing as the cold metal floor bit through his jacket. Lira slammed the hatch shut behind them, plunging them into semi-darkness, lit only by the low amber glow of her wrist-lens.
"This is the only untracked path to Theta-Kilo," she muttered. "If Elian's signal is right, he should be there. Or at least what's left of him."
Nico didn't respond. He was too focused on steadying the pulse in his skull. The pressure behind his eyes had returned—another memory ripple.
Lira noticed. "You need to tell me how bad it's gotten."
He shook his head, voice taut. "Later. We have to find him."
Theta-Kilo wasn't on any official map. Not anymore. The facility had been wiped from public record after a rogue NeuroLease prototype allegedly shorted an entire memory hive—thousands of hours of borrowed lives lost, erased like corrupted data. But Elian's data trail had ended there two weeks ago, and even Lira admitted the timing was too suspicious.
They walked in silence through the labyrinthine tunnels. The air grew colder the deeper they went, a frost-tinged humidity clinging to their skin. Lira tapped her lens, bringing up the overlay.
"Two lefts, then a climb. We're close."
Nico blinked rapidly. Shapes moved at the edge of his vision.
No, not real. Not mine.
A flicker: a child's voice singing in a foreign dialect. A glimpse of rain falling on red sand. A scream muffled by water.
He stumbled.
Lira caught him. "You're fragmenting. You shouldn't have come."
He gritted his teeth. "I have to. He's the only one who knows what NeuroLease did to me. What they did to all of us."
She nodded, eyes flickering with something between worry and admiration. "Just stay with me. We're not far."
The hatch to Theta-Kilo was buried under a collapsed support beam and layers of decay. Lira planted a charge and they stepped back.
With a muffled pop and a hiss, the door fell open, revealing a gaping chasm lit by flickering emergency lights. The facility smelled of rust and bleach, an unnatural stillness hanging in the air like a held breath.
"Welcome to the graveyard," Lira said.
Inside, it was a tomb of forgotten science. Pods lined the walls, many cracked or empty. A few still held forms—motionless, genderless, half-erased. One had a face burned clean off by a neural feedback loop.
"This place is off-grid for a reason," she murmured.
Nico reached for the main console, fingers flying across the broken interface. "Give me time. I can ping the internal logs. If Elian was here, something will show."
Minutes passed in tense silence.
Then—
"Got something. Secondary file cluster. ID tag matches: E. Varas. Status: Redacted."
Lira frowned. "Try to force it. Use the bypass I gave you."
He did.
A low whine filled the air. Then static. Then...
A voice. Garbled. Familiar.
"If you're hearing this... I was right. They used Cole as the gate. Continuum isn't just theory. It's active. And it's failing. They think they can stack minds like data sets. But they're bleeding through. Personalities folding in. No host can handle it. Not even Harker."
Nico and Lira exchanged a look.
The voice continued. "I tried to stop it. I stole the backup key. They think it's deleted. It's not. It's hidden. It's in the failed cradle—Unit 7."
Nico shot up, racing toward the pods.
"There," Lira pointed. "Unit 7. Still intact."
Nico wrenched the hatch open. Inside was a neural cradle—scorched around the edges but intact. A sliver of silver glinted beneath the headrest.
He pulled it free. A memory shard. Custom encrypted.
"That's it," he whispered.
Then the lights died.
Lira was already pulling him toward cover. "They traced us. Move!"
A hiss of static echoed from the corridor. Then voices.
"Theta-Kilo breach confirmed. Two subjects inside. Orders?"
Nico pocketed the shard and ducked behind a support strut. Lira checked her weapon—a slim energy pulse blade she rarely used unless desperate.
"We can't fight our way out of here," Nico said.
"We won't."
She slid a signal jammer onto the floor. "But we can stall."
With a twist, she activated it. An explosion of white noise flooded the comms. They bolted for the alternate exit, bypassing the tunnels and heading for the emergency vent shaft Elian had marked years ago.
Behind them, footsteps. Mechanical. Human.
A hybrid retrieval unit.
They were sending NeuroLease's worst.
"Go!" Lira shouted, helping Nico climb the shaft.
He pulled himself up, every limb screaming. The pressure in his skull built again. But this time, he channeled it. Focused.
He saw Elian's face. Heard his voice.
"Cole is the gate. But you... you might be the key."
He reached the top. Lira followed, sealing the hatch just as the blast below sent a plume of smoke roaring after them.
They emerged into the freezing night air, a forgotten alley behind an old data bank tower.
Lira fell against the wall, panting. "We have the shard. We know Elian was right."
Nico stared out at the skyline. Somewhere out there, Cole Harker sat in his penthouse, unraveling.
"Now we bring the truth to light," Nico said, voice steady.
His hand tightened around the memory shard.
"Before it's too late."