The corpse was still warm when Saevus found it.
He crouched in the alley, rain hammering the metal overhead, and checked the dead man's pockets. Thirty credits in a scratched chip. Not bad. The guy's jacket was torn but the boots looked good—too small for Saevus, but he could sell them.
"You're getting slow," a voice called from the alley entrance.
Saevus didn't look up. "You're getting loud, Nox."
The kid—maybe thirteen, skinny as a pipe—jogged over and crouched beside him. She wrinkled her nose at the body. "What killed him?"
"See the eyes?"
Nox leaned closer. The dead man's pupils were blown wide, white film creeping over the irises. She jerked back. "Shit. Hollow Sickness."
"Yeah." Saevus pocketed the credit chip and stood. His knees popped. Seventeen and he already felt thirty. "He went into the Hollow without a Keeper license. Probably thought he could grab a Remnant, make it big."
"Idiot."
"Desperate." Saevus walked past her, out of the alley. "Different thing."
Zenith Span stretched above them in layers. The rich lived in the upper levels where sunlight actually reached. Down here in the Lows, everything was neon and rust, buildings stacked so high you could barely see the sky. Somewhere up there, Keepers were diving into the Hollow, pulling out crystallized consciousness, becoming superhuman.
Down here, people like Saevus picked through trash.
"You coming to Idris's tonight?" Nox fell into step beside him, hood up against the rain. "He's got news about something. Wouldn't say what."
"Maybe."
"You always say maybe. You always show up."
Saevus smiled despite himself. Kid had a point.
They walked in comfortable silence, navigating the maze of market stalls and food vendors. Someone was frying synthetic meat, the smell almost good enough to cover the garbage. Saevus's stomach growled. He'd eaten yesterday. That would have to be enough.
A commotion ahead made them both stop.
The crowd was pulling back from the street corner, people shouting, and Saevus felt it before he saw it—that weird pressure in his head that meant the Hollow was too close. His vision doubled for a second. Tripled. The world felt thin, like paper.
"Rift," Nox whispered.
The air above the corner was tearing. Not like cloth—worse. Like reality was a screen and something was pushing through from behind. The tear spread, edges shimmering with colors that didn't have names, and through the gap Saevus could see *nothing*. Not darkness. Actually nothing, like his brain couldn't process what was there.
The Hollow.
"We need to run," Nox said, already backing up.
People were screaming now. A woman stumbled too close to the rift and her arm went through. She yanked it back, shrieking, and Saevus saw the skin was gray, dead tissue spreading from where she'd touched it.
Then something came through.
It looked like a dog, if a dog was made of broken glass and screaming faces. A Remnant. Wild ones sometimes slipped through rifts, attracted to the living world like moths to flame. It moved wrong, too fast and too slow at once, and when it opened its mouth there were teeth made of bone-white light.
The crowd scattered.
Saevus grabbed Nox's arm and pulled her into a side alley. They ran, feet splashing through puddles, and behind them the Remnant *shrieked*—a sound that made Saevus's ears ring and his thoughts scatter.
"Where are the Keepers?" Nox gasped.
"Upper levels, probably. We're on our own."
They burst out of the alley into a wider street. Bad move. The Remnant was already there, cutting through someone's market stall like it was smoke. It saw them. Locked on.
Saevus pushed Nox ahead. "Go! Get to Idris's!"
"What about—"
"GO!"
She ran. Smart kid.
The Remnant leaped, and Saevus dove sideways, rolling behind a dumpster. His shoulder hit the ground hard enough to make him see stars. The creature landed where he'd been standing, and the concrete cracked, spider-webbing out in fractures.
Saevus's hand closed around something metal. A pipe. He picked it up, knowing how stupid this was. You couldn't hurt a Remnant without a Vestige, without being a Keeper. Regular people died when they fought Remnants. Everyone knew that.
But he was already moving.
He swung the pipe with everything he had. It passed through the Remnant like it was mist, and the backlash hit him—cold so deep it burned, and something else, something that felt like his thoughts were being pulled out through his skin.
The Remnant's mouths laughed at him.
Then it lunged, and Saevus couldn't move, couldn't think, could only watch as those light-blade teeth came for his throat—
The air *snapped*.
A woman appeared between him and the Remnant, just suddenly *there*, like she'd stepped through a door nobody else could see. She wore a gray suit and her silver hair was pulled back in a practical bun. She didn't move like she was in a hurry.
She raised one hand.
The Remnant exploded into particles of light that faded like dying stars.
Silence. Rain on metal. Saevus's heart hammering.
The woman turned. Her eyes were gray like her suit, analytical and cold. She looked at Saevus the way someone might look at a bug on the sidewalk. Curious. Mildly interested.
"You touched it," she said.
"I—what?"
"The Remnant. You made physical contact. I saw." She tilted her head. "You should be dead. Or at least infected with Hollow Sickness. But you're not."
Saevus realized he was still holding the pipe. He dropped it. "I don't know what—"
"Are you a Keeper?"
"No."
"Unlicensed?"
"No, I mean—I'm a Null. I can't access the Hollow at all."
Something flickered in her eyes. Interest, maybe. She stepped closer, and Saevus fought the urge to back up. This woman had just erased a Remnant with a gesture. Running would be pointless.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Saevus. Saevus Kain."
"Saevus." She repeated it like she was filing it away. "I'm Lyric Ashenthorn. Valdris Corporation, Keeper Division." She pulled out a card—actual paper, expensive—and held it out. "If you start developing symptoms of Hollow Sickness, call this number. We have treatment facilities."
"I can't afford—"
"It would be free. You're an anomaly. We like anomalies."
She turned and walked away, and the rain seemed to avoid her, like even the weather knew she was important. After a few steps she paused and looked back.
"Out of curiosity," she said. "When you swung that pipe through the Remnant, what did you feel?"
Saevus thought about lying. Decided against it. "Cold. And like something was pulling at my head. My thoughts, maybe."
Lyric smiled. It didn't reach her eyes.
"Interesting," she said, and then she was gone, disappeared into the crowd like she'd never been there.
Saevus stood in the rain, card in his hand, and wondered what the hell had just happened.
---
Idris's place was four levels down, in the maintenance tunnels nobody official cared about. Saevus found Nox already there, sitting on a crate and kicking her legs, talking rapid-fire to Idris about the Remnant attack.
Idris was old—fifty, maybe sixty, hard to tell—with scarred hands and eyes that saw too much. He'd run this little corner of the underground for as long as Saevus could remember. Information broker, fence, occasional shelter for kids with nowhere else to go.
"There he is," Idris said when Saevus climbed down the ladder. "Nox said you played hero."
"I tripped."
"He saved me!" Nox insisted.
"I tripped near you. Coincidence."
Idris laughed, the sound rough as gravel. "Sit down, kid. Got something to show you."
The old man's workshop was cluttered with tech, scavenged parts, things Saevus couldn't identify. Idris cleared off a table and set down a metal case. When he opened it, the inside glowed faintly blue.
Inside was a crystal the size of Saevus's fist, geometric and perfect, pulsing with inner light.
"Is that—" Saevus started.
"A Remnant. Yeah."
"Holy shit," Nox whispered.
Saevus stared. He'd never seen one this close. They were supposed to be kept in Valdris Corporation vaults, in Keeper facilities. Not in underground workshops. "Idris, if you get caught with that—"
"I know what I'm doing." The old man looked at the crystal with something like sadness. "Question is, do you know what you are?"
"What?"
"Nox said you swung at the Remnant. Touched it."
"Yeah, and it didn't do anything. Some Keeper showed up—"
"If you touched it and you're still standing here, something happened." Idris closed the case. "Nulls can't interact with Remnants at all. It's like oil and water. But people who *can* touch them..." He tapped the case. "They're Keepers. Or they could be."
Saevus felt cold again, that same pulling sensation. "I'm not a Keeper."
"Maybe you are. Maybe you just haven't Integrated yet."
"That's not how it works. You either can access the Hollow or you can't."
"Usually." Idris met his eyes. "But I've been around a long time, kid. I've seen weird things. And you're the weirdest thing I've seen in a while."
Saevus wanted to argue. Wanted to say this was crazy.
But his hand was tingling where he'd held the pipe. Where it had passed through the Remnant.
And he couldn't shake the feeling that something had changed.
"Get some sleep," Idris said, not unkindly. "Tomorrow, if you're feeling up to it, we'll run a test. See if you can actually touch this thing. And if you can..."
He didn't finish the sentence.
He didn't have to.
If Saevus could touch Remnants, if he could Integrate, if he could use Vestiges—everything changed. No more scraping by in the Lows. No more picking through dead men's pockets.
But also no more being invisible. No more being safe.
Keepers died all the time. Everyone knew that too.
Saevus looked at the case, at the pulsing blue light.
"Okay," he said. "Tomorrow."
Idris smiled.
Nox cheered.
And Saevus felt like he'd just agreed to jump off a cliff.