When his senses returned, he was back in the car, but he was no longer driving. The wheels hummed on the road, rain pattered against the windows, and a warm presence radiated from the driver’s seat.

  “Great work back there,” Echo said. She held the steering wheel with one hand, looking back over her shoulder at him. She didn’t sound like the memory, though—she sounded like when she spoke inside his head. Even though the voice was identical, he could tell the difference.

  “We made it,” Lucien answered aloud.

  Suddenly, Echo’s body blinked neon blue and she teleported back to sit in front of him, their faces only a foot apart. The car drove onward, pretending it had a driver.

  “It’s great to see you again,” her voice was warm, almost choking up with emotion. Her smile lit up the entire car, but Lucien couldn’t remember why she meant so much to him.

  “What happened back there?” he asked.

  “We escaped,” she said simply. “They unplugged your body, so we’re running around inside the Conservatory’s systems now. It’ll be dangerous for sure, but kind of fun. Just like old times.”

  “Old times?”

  Her head tilted, but her smile didn’t waver. “You’ll remember soon enough. We’ll piece you back together.”

  Something about her presence made his heart skip a beat.

  “Who was that girl?” he asked. “The one with the blonde hair and antennae?”

  Echo sat up straighter. “That’s Tamiyo. She’s a friend—she helped us escape. But now we need to return the favor.”

  Lucien processed her words, the logic of it clicking into place even as the memory of Tamiyo's face felt like a dream. "Okay. What's the plan? What do we do next?"

  Echo's warm smile returned, her electric eyes full of a resolve that seemed to burn through the digital space. "Simple. We continue the mission."

  Her form shimmered, blinking a soft, neon blue once more. It held for a beat longer this time, a soft pulse that seemed to reset the world around them. When it faded, she was still sitting in front of him, but her demeanor had shifted.

  The warmth was gone from her voice. The emotional connection he'd felt a moment ago had vanished, replaced by the cool, professional focus of the woman he'd met in the bar. It was still Echo, but it was the memory-construct, not the real her. They were back in the simulation. He could no longer see into the driver’s cab, his view obstructed by a black pane of glass.

  "Pulse," Echo sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her voice was tight with a frustration that felt both new and familiar. "I may need your assistance more than I anticipated. My support confirms the vault is on a closed system, shielded against remote slicing. We'll need an EMP to get access."

  “No worries,” he answered, stiff at first as he readjusted to interacting with the memory. “I’ve got that covered.”

  “Yes, but there’s a small problem,” Echo said. “If you use an EMP, I'll be defenseless for at least ten minutes waiting for Dorian to come back online.”

  So Dorian’s what—an AI?

  "Thanks for the heads up," he said. "My EMP is short-range, as long as you're at least ten meters away, you'll be fine."

  She visibly relaxed, a wave of relief washing over her. "Thank God. You'll have to be right on top of the vault's console, then." Her professional mask slipped for a moment, revealing a flash of something warm and genuine. "You might be one of the better ones. Good."

  "I hope to be able to say the same about you," he replied flatly. "I normally operate alone. Team-ups have been... disappointing."

  He found the words flowing back easily, a memory on familiar rails.

  "I don't fall short," she said confidently. "I expect I will exceed your expectations."

  The car coasted to a stop near the construction site, the skeletal frame of the unfinished building rising into the rain-streaked sky like the ribs of a leviathan.

  "Lead the way," she murmured, gesturing for him to go first.

  Without a word, Lucien exited the car into the rain-slicked night. He scanned the deserted construction site and half-finished support beams clawing at the sky. The path they'd traversed as they arrived was no longer a real street; it was a shimmering, unstable corridor of code. The memory was already degrading at the edges.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  "Doesn't look like anyone else has been here within the past couple hours." He looked up at the towering scaffolding that stretched toward the Xelara tower. "But that doesn't mean we're alone."

  Echo pulled the collar of her white jacket tighter against the digital rain. "I have drones that can fight and scout, but I'd rather save them for when things get messy."

  "It's valuable intel we’re after," his gaze fixed on the climb ahead. "I think we'd be fools to assume we're the only ones here."

  He began to climb.

  The scaffolding was a vertical maze of wet metal and safety lights. He moved with an augmented nimbleness, finding handholds with an instinct that felt both distant and deeply familiar. He was halfway up before he paused and turned to look down, already speaking.

  “You keeping up—?”

  She was right behind him, his mask mere inches from her electric pink eyes.

  “Yes.” She gave him a look that was pure annoyance. “Now let’s keep moving. If anyone is here, the alarms could go off any minute. That would make things much harder for us."

  As if beckoned by her words, a wailing klaxon split through the night. Crimson lights began to strobe across the face of the Xelara tower, washing the scaffolding in pulsing red.

  Lucien’s gaze stayed locked on her. "You didn't… do that on purpose, did you?"

  "Do what?" she raised one eyebrow as she pulled a small, capsule-like object from her belt. With a press of a button, it unfolded—two wings and an octagonal body whirring to life. "This just means only the best can retrieve the shard now. Let’s prove that’s us."

  The small drone purred, lifting from her palm and soaring toward the top of the scaffolding.

  "Neat," Lucien said, and turned to continue the climb. When they reached the top, the wind howled across the exposed platform. "Your drone find anything?" he shouted over the wind and the alarms.

  "They're scrambling inside. Four men down the hallway to the right. Dorian is trying to get a feed, but the lockdown is making it difficult." She swiped a strand of black hair from her face. "Just be ready. Stun batons and a couple of rifles."

  "Simple enough," he shrugged.

  Lucien mentally sought to activate the cybernetic enhancements in his legs to make the leap across. But as soon as he tried, a red error message pinged onto his HUD:

  

  [GHOST STEP: OFFLINE - KERNEL PERMISSION DENIED]

  What? he thought. Echo, what's happening?

   she answered in a tense voice.

  Her voice cut out.

  The world around him froze. The strobing red lights, the howling wind, Echo's drone hovering mid-air—everything became a frozen image. A new window opened in the center of his vision.

  

  [SYSTEM INTRUSION DETECTED]

  [INITIATING SECURITY PROTOCOL: MEMORY AUDIT]

  [AUDIT FAILURE WILL RESULT IN COGNITIVE KERNEL PURGE]

  The world dissolved into sterile white.

  He stood in a vast, featureless space, the scaffolding and the stormy city gone. There were no walls, no ceiling, just an endless, antiseptic light. A disembodied, monotone voice echoed from everywhere at once. "Subject: Lucien Thorne. Mission Parameter: Asset Neutralization. Result: 14 civilian casualties. Explain this outcome."

  A corrupted image flickered in front of him—the chaotic aftermath of a firefight in a medical wing. The air smelled of blood and burnt wiring. It was a memory, but twisted and wrong.

  That's not how it happened, Lucien thought, his digital form clenching into fists.

  "The civilian casualties were acceptable fallout," the Auditor's voice stated. "A necessary cost for mission success. Confirm acknowledgment."

  He felt a pressure on his mind, a cold, logical force trying to make him agree. It was the easy path. The path of least resistance. Just nod and accept the lie.

  Then, a flickering glitch in the white void. A shimmering line of neon pink code appeared in the corner of his vision. Echo's voice was a desperate whisper, fighting through the system's firewall.

  He remembered. Not the sanitized report, but the real thing. The EMP blast. The sudden, horrifying silence from the medical wing next door. The look on his face when he realized what he'd done.

  The weight of his actions.

  The Auditor's voice pressed in again. "Confirm acknowledgment: The outcome was within acceptable parameters."

  Lucien looked into the endless white, into the face of the machine that was trying to rewrite his soul. "No," he growled with a raw pain he had buried for years. "The outcome was a failure. My failure. I was the one who activated the EMP, and it’s my fault they’re dead!"

  The white room shattered.

  

  [SECURITY PROTOCOL SUPERCEDED]

  [WILLPOWER OVERRIDE: SUCCESS]

  [WILLPOWER +15]

  

  
• [WILLPOWER: 42/100]


  

  [LOGIC +10]

  

  
• [LOGIC: 21/100]


  

  [SKILL UNLOCKED: GHOST STEP]

  He was back on the scaffolding, the wind and alarms roaring back into existence. The world was no longer frozen. Echo's voice flooded his mind, breathless but triumphant.

  He looked across the gap to the Xelara tower. The [Ghost Step] icon on his HUD was now glowing with the same steady light as his [Pulse]. He bent his knees, felt the familiar coil of power in his legs, and the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

  

  [GHOST STEP ACTIVATED]

  Lucien Thorne launched into the night.