The morning light filtered through the cracks in the blinds, pale and thin. Neo Lyon’s sky was the same muted grey it always was, clouded with the remnants of battles and industry. It felt like a dream I couldn’t shake off, except it wasn’t a dream—it was reality. A maddening one, with memories clawing at the edges of my mind like stray cats.

  I had barely managed three hours of sleep, but my body didn’t ache with exhaustion the way it should have. It was strange, unsettling even, but I supposed this was another "perk" of my powers. My reflection in the cracked bathroom mirror mocked me—a face too awake for the circumstances. The dark circles under my eyes were lighter than they had any right to be.

  I dressed in a loose hoodie and jeans, tugging the fabric over the scars and cuts I hadn’t bothered to heal properly. A small, deliberate choice to remind myself I wasn’t invincible. Every scrape felt like a penance for mistakes I hadn’t yet defined.

  The shop was quiet when I arrived, its familiar scent of old vinyl and faded leather washing over me. Paul’s haven, his pride and joy, was one of the few places in Neo Lyon that still felt human. Rows of records stretched like soldiers at attention, each sleeve a relic from a simpler time. The warm hum of an old amplifier buzzed softly in the background, its rhythm almost comforting.

  Paul waved at me from behind the counter, a coffee cup in one hand and a clipboard in the other. His concern was etched in the furrow of his brow.

  “You sure you’re good to be here today?” he asked, setting the clipboard aside. “You look… better than I expected, but still.”

  I offered him a half-smile, shrugging off his worry. “Better here than staring at the walls of that apartment.”

  He nodded, his expression softening. “Fair enough. Just… take it easy, alright?”

  As if I knew how to do that anymore.

  I set my bag behind the counter, the worn strap catching briefly on the edge of the stool. Paul had already started sorting through the new arrivals, his meticulous nature evident in the neat stacks of records on the workbench. As I began to organize the returns, my mind drifted—unbidden, but inevitable.

  Tempus.

  His voice lingered in my head, soft and mocking, tinged with a peculiar warmth that didn’t match our first interaction

  "You’ll know where to find me."

  I didn’t. The labyrinthine tunnels of the underground maze still haunted my thoughts, their twists and turns etched into my memory. I could still feel the damp air pressing against my skin, hear the distant echo of my footsteps chasing me. But Tempus had navigated it as though it were his living room, unbothered by the oppressive darkness or the weight of the secrets buried there.

  Was it arrogance? Confidence? Or was it something else? The way he had smiled at me, the way he had called me by name—like we were old friends or comrades-in-arms—sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Liz? You good?”

  Paul’s voice jolted me back to the present. I blinked, realizing I had been holding the same record sleeve for far too long.

  “Yeah,” I said quickly, placing it on the rack. “Just spaced out.”

  He didn’t press, though I caught the faintest flicker of concern in his expression.

  The bell above the door jingled as a customer walked in—a wiry man in his mid-forties, wearing a trench coat that had seen better days. He muttered a greeting before disappearing into the jazz section.

  “Another regular?” I asked Paul, nodding toward the man.

  Paul grunted in affirmation. “Benoit. Comes in every week, always looking for Coltrane or Monk. Quiet type, but decent enough.”

  Benoit lingered by the shelves, occasionally muttering to himself as he flipped through the records. I turned my attention back to the task at hand, but my thoughts betrayed me once again.

  Why was Tempus so friendly? I literally betrayed him and stole from him, and yet he was only joking and almost… flirting… with me. It didn’t make sense. Was it some kind of game to him? A calculated maneuver to disarm me? Or did he see something in me that even I couldn’t fathom? The questions swirled like smoke, leaving me restless and uneasy.

  The tunnels themselves were another mystery. At first, I had thought they were an elaborate trap laid by the Red Hands. But the more I replayed the events in my mind, the less certain I became. The sheer complexity of the maze, the sleek architecture that didn’t match the rest of Neo Lyon—it all felt out of place. The tunnels had a purpose, one that seemed so far removed from some gang turf war. Were they really just a base of operations, or something more? And if they weren’t tied to the Red Hands, who or what had created them?

  The bell chimed again, and a woman in a heavy wool coat stepped inside. Her sharp heels clicked against the floor as she made her way to the counter.

  “Excuse me,” the woman said, her voice clipped but polite. She placed a small slip of paper on the counter, listing a few albums she was searching for. Her hands were gloved, the wool of her coat slightly damp from the drizzle outside.

  “Let me see if we have these in stock,” I replied, pocketing my daydreams.

  The list included some old French chansons, the kind that brought an air of melancholy to any room. As I checked the inventory on Paul’s antiquated system, she idly mentioned, “The weather’s been dreadful, hasn’t it? Almost as if the skies themselves are exhausted by this city.”

  I murmured in agreement, trying not to think too hard about her words. The city’s suffocating atmosphere mirrored the haze in my mind.

  As the woman waited, she adjusted her gloves and glanced around the shop. Her gaze lingered on a framed poster of a jazz quartet in its heyday, the edges of the frame cracked with time. “I saw something like this in a shop back in Vienna,” she remarked. “Lovely city, though it’s been tense lately.”

  “Vienna?” I asked, curiosity piqued as I sifted through inventory. “I thought things were quieter there compared to Neo Lyon.”

  She offered a tight smile. “Not this week. There are whispers of the League of Chaos stirring. Some say they were seen on the outskirts.”

  The words hung heavy in the air, and for a moment, I forgot the search. The League of Chaos. Just the name sent a chill racing down my spine.

  “If they’re moving west…” I began, trailing off as the implications set in.

  “Then they might end up here,” she finished grimly. “That’s the fear, isn’t it? That nowhere is safe anymore.”

  I forced myself to nod and returned to the system, though my hands trembled faintly on the keys. Finding her albums didn’t take long, and she left with a murmured thank you. The sound of the door’s bell as it swung shut felt unnervingly final.

  “As If this place was any safe anyway…” I said under my breath, unconsciously smiling wryly.

  The thought of safety—or the lack of it—hung over me like a storm cloud as I returned to organizing the stack of returned records. I didn’t need another reminder of how precarious life in Neo Lyon had become. The scars running through the city’s skyline were proof enough. Yet my thoughts couldn’t escape the labyrinth beneath it, the strange, sterile tunnels that seemed to exist out of time and place.

  I replayed the events of the maze in my mind, trying to make sense of it all. The sleek walls, the uniform lighting that didn’t flicker like most of Neo Lyon’s failing infrastructure, the unnerving precision of the architecture—it all screamed of something larger, more deliberate.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  If this had been Corsair’s lair, why wasn’t there more evidence of that? The thought gnawed at me as I stacked records mechanically, muscle memory taking over while my mind spiraled into the depths of the underground maze. Corsair was not one for subtlety, from what I’d gathered. The Red Hands were brash, messy, and territorial. They left marks wherever they went—graffiti, discarded weapons, sometimes even blood. The tunnels, however, were sterile. Too clean, too calculated.

  Could Corsair have stumbled upon the maze and decided to use it? Maybe it was opportunistic—a place to stash his goons or misdirect potential intruders. But why would a gang like the Red Hands need such an elaborate setup for a mere decoy? That didn’t sit right.

  The bell above the door jingled again, and I looked up, startled. A young man with a mop of unkempt hair and a backpack slung over one shoulder stepped in. He nodded awkwardly at me before heading straight to the rock section. I breathed out a quiet sigh of relief. Paul was flipping through an old inventory list behind the counter, blissfully unaware of the storm raging in my head.

  “Liz, you’re holding that record upside down,” Paul’s voice cut through the haze.

  I blinked, glancing down at the sleeve in my hands. Sure enough, the bold, colorful cover of Teenage Hero was inverted.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, flipping it the right way and sliding it into the rack.

  Paul gave me a long look, the kind that made it clear he was debating whether to say something. Thankfully, he didn’t press. Instead, he turned his attention to the young man browsing the shelves.

  “Need any help finding something?” he called.

  The customer shook his head without looking up, mumbling something about “just browsing.” Paul shrugged and went back to his list.

  The tunnels nagged at me like an itch I couldn’t scratch. The air down there had been heavy, oppressive in a way that went beyond the physical. It was almost as if the walls themselves were watching, listening. And then there was Tempus—his calm, his ease, his damned smirk as though he belonged there.

  Had he known about the tunnels before, or was he improvising? The way he moved, how he’d anticipated every twist and turn, suggested familiarity. But if that was true, what did it mean? Did Tempus have a deeper connection to Neo Lyon’s underbelly than I realized?

  “Earth to Liz,” Paul’s voice broke through again, this time laced with humor. “Where’d you go?”

  “Just thinking,” I said, grabbing another stack of records.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Thinking, huh? You’ve been staring at that same spot for the past minute. Want to share what’s so fascinating?”

  “Not really,” I replied with a half-smile, trying to deflect.

  Paul didn’t push further, but I caught him watching me out of the corner of my eye. I busied myself sorting records, focusing on the physical task to keep my thoughts from spiraling again. It worked for a while—until another customer came in, this time a teenager with brightly dyed hair and an armful of punk pins.

  She was looking for something specific, flipping through the punk section with an air of determination.

  “Let me know if you need help,” I offered, but she didn’t respond, too engrossed in her search.

  Paul snickered. “Teenagers. Punk rebellion one minute, on their phones the next.”

  I smiled faintly but didn’t respond. My mind was already drifting again.

  The thought that the tunnels beneath Neo Lyon were more than just a gang hideout clung to me like smoke. If they weren’t Corsair’s base, what were they? A military relic, perhaps, abandoned and repurposed? Or were they something older, something buried deep within the city’s history, waiting to be rediscovered? The smooth walls and precise angles didn’t fit the ramshackle aesthetic of the Red Hands or even Neo Lyon itself.

  But who else could they belong to? I couldn’t shake the sense that I had stumbled into something bigger than I’d intended.

  “Curse those goons for having drawn us there…” I muttered to myself.

  The bell jingled again. A pair of middle-aged women strolled in, chatting animatedly as they made their way to the pop section. One wore a floral scarf draped dramatically over her shoulders; the other carried a large canvas tote that swung dangerously close to the shelves. Their conversation was loud enough to cut through the faint hum of music in the shop.

  “I swear, if he forgets my birthday again, I’ll—”

  “Marie, he’s terrible with dates. Get over it,” the other interjected, pulling out a record and examining the cover with theatrical disinterest.

  I forced a polite smile and greeted them with a nod. Their chatter was oddly grounding, pulling me away from the oppressive thoughts of the tunnels and their mysteries.

  Paul glanced over, a bemused expression on his face. “Think we should start charging for relationship counseling?”

  “Only if we can add ‘amateur therapy’ to the shop’s sign,” I quipped, trying to match his light tone. The interaction steadied me more than I cared to admit.

  The women lingered, flipping through records and debating song choices with an intensity that bordered on academic. Paul returned to his clipboard, humming absently as he scribbled notes. I fell back into the rhythm of organizing, letting the task distract me.

  The tunnels below Neo Lyon nagged at me relentlessly. I wasn’t sure what unnerved me more—their sleek, clinical design or the fact that they seemed so… wrong for a city like this. It was as if they didn’t belong in this reality at all, a piece of some other world that had been misplaced beneath our crumbling streets. The Red Hands’ presence there had been the cherry on top of an already troubling puzzle. Were they the architects of the maze, or had they simply stumbled onto something they didn’t understand?

  The thought of Corsair and his crew meticulously designing such a labyrinth seemed absurd. They were blunt instruments, good at causing chaos but not at crafting intricacies. No, it felt more like they had hijacked the space for their own purposes—hiding out, laying traps, or misleading their enemies. Still, the tunnels had felt deliberate in a way I couldn’t articulate, as if they were built for a purpose far removed from petty gang wars.

  “Need a refill, Liz?” Paul asked, gesturing to my half-empty tea cup. His voice tugged me back to reality like a lifeline.

  I glanced at the cup, its contents tepid from neglect. “Sure,” I replied, handing it over.

  Paul took it with a quick nod, his expression neutral but his eyes darting to me for a moment longer than necessary. I could tell he was keeping tabs, worried but unsure how to pry. He didn’t need to. I knew I looked distracted—I was distracted—but putting words to my thoughts felt like admitting defeat. Instead, I immersed myself in the task at hand: alphabetizing the returns.

  The bell above the door jingled, followed by a burst of laughter. A group of college students shuffled in, their energy instantly altering the shop’s mood. They scattered toward different sections, flipping through records with an air of carefree excitement. One of them—a girl with cropped green hair and a studded leather jacket—beelined for the punk rack.

  “Hey, do you have anything by The Hyenas?” she asked, glancing at me with a hopeful smile.

  “Let me check,” I replied, grateful for the excuse to focus on something tangible. I scanned the shelves quickly but came up empty. “Doesn’t look like it. We might have something in the back, though. Hold on.”

  I stepped into the storage room, letting the cool, musty air calm my fraying nerves. As I sifted through boxes, my thoughts returned to the tunnels. It wasn’t just their design that felt strange—it was their very atmosphere. The air had been damp, yet clean, without the stench of decay or grime that plagued most of Neo Lyon’s underground. And the walls, polished and seamless, had seemed impervious to time or wear. They had no graffiti, no marks of ownership, nothing to indicate who or what had created them.

  The strangest part was how Tempus had moved through them. He hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t needed to think about which path to take. His confidence had been unnerving, as though he belonged there in a way I never could. That smirk of his, equal parts charm and mockery, lingered in my mind like a splinter I couldn’t remove.

  “Found it,” I said aloud, grabbing a Hyenas record from a dusty crate. I brushed off the sleeve and headed back to the shop floor, where the girl was still waiting.

  Her face lit up as I handed it over. “You’re a lifesaver,” she said, clutching the album like a treasure.

  “No problem,” I replied, returning her smile.

  The group lingered for a while, their chatter a low hum that blended into the shop’s ambient noise. Paul returned with my tea, placing it on the counter with a faint smile before turning his attention to a clipboard.

  I sipped the drink absently, letting the warmth settle in my chest. Outside, the muted drizzle continued, the shop windows fogging slightly from the temperature difference. It was a rare bubble of peace in a city that seemed allergic to it.

  The shop emptied as the afternoon slipped into early evening, leaving me alone with Paul’s quiet hum and the soft crackle of a vinyl playing in the background. I leaned against the counter, the mundane rhythm of sorting returns grounding me, if only for a moment.

  But Tempus’s words echoed in my mind. “You’ll know where to find me.”

  He had said it so casually, with that infuriating smirk, as if the answer was obvious. Yet here I was, grappling with the weight of what I didn’t understand. His ease in the maze, the almost otherworldly calm in his demeanor—it all pointed to a man who thrived in chaos. Or one who orchestrated it.

  I sighed, my gaze drifting to the shop window. The rain had intensified, streaking the glass and blurring the view of Neo Lyon’s grimy streets. Something about the rain felt fitting—a cleansing that never quite reached the rot beneath.

  “Liz,” Paul’s voice cut through my reverie, quiet but steady. “You know you don’t have to carry it all on your own.”

  I looked at him, startled by the unexpected softness in his tone. “I’m fine,” I said quickly, brushing it off.

  His eyes lingered on me for a moment before he returned to his work. “Just remember that.”

  As I sorted the final stack of records, I felt the tether of Neo Lyon’s shadows tightening around me. Answers weren’t going to come easy. But somehow, I’d find them.