7.6

  We roll up to The Pulseworks in Fingers’ old Fragment Roamer at twenty-two to nine, the engine coughing up one last death rattle before going still. The building squats ahead of us, all rusted steel ribs and twitching neon, the signage above the door flaring bright. Smaller than I imagined, nothing like The Ghost in Satin back north, but maybe that’s what makes it worse. This part of Sector Six is all uneven rooftops, half-hung wires, whole streets that seem as though they forgot what decade they were born in. Not poor, not really. Just... unsettled. Like it’s waiting for something to come back and finish the job.

  We’re dressed in black business suits, no wrinkles, no loose threads. The kind of look that doesn’t ask questions but demands answers. I catch myself in the Roamer’s side window as I step out: Scorcher’s Black hair slicked back, all the softness burned away. It suits me. Makes me look less like someone who clawed her way out of a pit and more like someone who dug it—then tossed the body in after. If Cierus remembers me, I’m counting on this ‘mask’, this armour, this lie to be enough to blur the edges. Not erase the past.

  I follow the crew through the walkways and up the concrete steps, the wind sharp on my neck, the money shard burning cold in my front pocket. No guards at the door, no scanners, only an open space and bad ideas waiting to happen. The doors to The Pulseworks slide open soundlessly, and the music hits with a steady pulse that snakes along the floorboards and up my ankles. Inside, bodies move like they’re all tied to the same wire. A wave of people tearing up the dance floor, shoulders jerking, hands twitching, eyes glassy under seizure lights. High above them, on a raised steel nest rigged with speaker cables and holo-panels, stands the man himself: Rhythm of Rhythm. He hunches over the deck, hands fast across a mess of knobs and sliders. He doesn’t look at the crowd. Doesn’t need to. After all, he owns the rhythm. Everything in here moves because he says it can. His coat is long, metallic blue, stitched blinking circuitry that pulses in time with the bass. His face is hidden behind a black mask with no mouth, just two glowing red circles where his eyes should be, and white dreadlocks bunched up like a flowerpot that couldn’t stop growing.

  But there’s something... wrong. Not loud-wrong, not obvious, but more beneath the surface. My skin prickles, not from cold, but from the kind of static that makes your teeth itch, and my optics, damn things, they blur, enough to make the world shiver sideways. Maybe it’s nerves, maybe it’s nothing. Then Rhythm of Rhythm drops a bassline so heavy it seems to suck the air out of the room—woooosh!—and my vision stutters, jerks left, then right. I can’t keep a straight line; my steps go crooked, staggered, and I nearly eat the floor when Cormac slides in beside me, one chrome arm hooking me upright. His servo’s vibrating hard, whirring off-beat like it’s chewing through grit, and I realise it’s not just me: our tech is glitching. Everyone’s cheering, drenched in sweat and colour and noise, while my head’s ringing.

  Something’s definitely not right here.

  I follow Dance up the narrow side stairs, pushing through the current of synthweaves, digital goggles, and body odour. We reach the top, where a scratched-up staff door waits. Dance punches in the code and the lock gives. We slip inside, into a space that, for once, feels like it forgot how to scream.

  It’s dark in here, and it smells off, like old cardboard left to sweat in a damp basement, equal parts sour and papery. And that’s when I see the security: big bastards in stretched black T-shirts, arms thick with muscle and belts jangling with tools meant to hurt. One of them grunts that the office can’t take too many at once, too cramped, too sensitive, so we split: Dance and I go in while Cormac, Fingers, and Vander hang back under their watchful, bored eyes. Through the chrome door we go, pushing past a curtain of low-hanging beads that whisper against our shoulders like ghost fingers, and into a booth so dim it might as well be buried. The centerpiece is a glowing holographic woman, projected mid-swing on a translucent pole that cuts through the middle of the table, spinning slow, hips swaying, face blurred just enough to make it more uncanny than erotic. Whiskey glasses all around her. No money. Must have been a bad night, I guess.

  For ten minutes, there’s nothing but the thrum, and that’s okay. At least this room is soundproofed. I’ve frankly grown sick of the same music rattling in my ears like some stained melody that feels less like a song and more like a virus that won’t stop whispering in the cracks of my skull.

  The door slides open with a hiss, and there he is, Rhythm of Rhythm, Mr. Bigshot, stepping through the shadow. Still wrapped in dark blue, his lightstrips clinging to him, that eerie mask swallowing his face, all smooth and void eyes. But I can see him clearly now, below the waist. There it is, strapped to his side: some kind of cube-shaped device with sharp edges and twisted knobs, a glowing square at its heart. I run a quick scan, more out of instinct than strategy:

  Interesting. There must be some link between the cube and that distortion then. Is it a… scrambler? But why? Why would a musician want to mess up everyone’s eyes?

  I guess for some it might add to the whole ‘synthwave experience’, but seriously? People are insane.

  Rhythm of Rhythm eases himself down onto the arc of velvet, saying nothing at all for a long moment. He breathes, the slow churn of something brewing behind those eyes. He reaches under the table and taps a hidden button, and a cooling unit slides out with a hiss, mist curling up around the neck of a bottle that looks like it’s worth more than most people’s apartments. Might be champagne, might be something worse. He presses another button—click, soft blue glow—and out comes a whiskey glass. He pours slow, unbothered, watching the bubbles rise. Then he sets the bottle aside, doesn’t even glance at us, let alone offer a glass. This ain’t no Rico. No greased-up charm or fake laughs.

  He takes off his mask, revealing a dark-skinned face with those same red-glowing eyes. No whites in the irises, all black. At first glance you might think this guy is an android, but something about his mannerisms is a little too… wrong.

  “In the sound waves,” he says randomly, like it’s part of a private sermon, then chuckles to himself and glances my way. Lifts his glass, sips slow. “Gotta admit, you’re a pretty one for a collector. Even with the missing arm. Most women into braindances, especially the deep-cut shit, the real hard splices, they’ve got a look about ’em. Hollowed out. Eyes like empty sockets with lights still on. But you?” He shrugs, amused. “You don’t look the type.”

  “I suppose not,” I say, folding the words in a crisp, practiced British accent—not too posh, not too dull. Just enough polish to catch. I guess I have Cormac to thank for that. “Just because I’m rich doesn’t mean I neglect my health. Quite the opposite, Mr. Rhythm. I have excellent health.” I lean forward slightly. “And my pockets are even healthier.”

  He snorts at that, eyes narrowing. “That’s why you’re here, after all. If I didn’t think you were worth my time, we wouldn’t be having this chat. Still… gotta say, I’m impressed. Couldn’t find a damn fingerprint of you on any of the waves. No trails. Like you dropped out of the clouds.”

  “Crikies,” Dance cuts in, impatient, and I’m pretty sure that part’s not acting. “Can we get on with this shit? Ms. Castane doesn’t have all day, mate. We’re looking for high-tier cuts. Originals. 2040s. And yeah, we already know you’re not sitting on ’em directly. Hear this, mate.”

  Rhythm of Rhythm raises an eyebrow, something mean curling under his grin. “Oh, I'm not, am I?” he says. “And tell me, friend, how exactly do you know what you’re looking for… if you haven’t seen it yet?”

  “Because I know you’re not the kind of man who lugs around bulk cargo with high-value goods tucked under his arm,” I say, cool on the surface, though my pulse is running fast enough to punch through my ribs. “The woman I want is Cierus Marlow. She’s got what I’m after—you don’t. Originals. But you’re still here, which means you’re profiting off her. Commission, maybe. Access fee. Call it whatever you want.”

  Rhythm of Rhythm leans back, takes a slow sip, never taking his eyes off me. “You’re good,” he says. “And you’ve got balls. Real ones. I like that. Not many people can sit in my chair, in my building, and tell me how my business runs without getting a bullet in the teeth.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Rhythm, you’re not the only one with power.” I might be pushing it with that line, but it feels natural. Right, even.

  “I know,” he says, voice lowering, putting his drink down. “Truth be told I’ve not had a big buyer come along in years; most of ’em already know Cierus. But yeah, I can broker a deal, if I think you’re worth it. So in that sense, while you have power, Ruelle, I’m the only one who can get you to Cierus without your body getting torn to shreds. And I don’t mean that disrespectfully. It’s a matter of truth, and I only speak truth. You understand?”

  He must be referring to the snakes. The thought unnerves me, but I stave the feeling off.

  “Look,” I say. “What do you want from me? This interview is frankly disconcerting.”

  “First,” Rhythm of Rhythm says, “show me the shard.”

  I reach into my pocket and pull out the money shard containing over eight hundred thousand eddies. I hand it to him, and he scans it, perhaps for a little too long. Just when I’m about to ask for it back, he gives it back, and now his smile is more genuine.

  “Looks good,” he says. “How would you like to speak to Cierus right now?”

  My eyes go wide, and suddenly I'm caught for words. “Right now?”

  “Mhm. Right now, Ms. Castane,” he says, swirling the drink in his hand like he’s stirring up trouble. “She actually wanted to sit in on this meeting. Have a look at you. Not sure why.”

  “She’s… here?” I ask, the real accent slipping out before I can catch it.

  Rhythm of Rhythm doesn’t seem to notice. “No.” He reaches under the table, taps the panel controlling the poledancer hologram. The image flashes once, twice, then vanishes in a blink, plunging the room into near-total darkness, save for the warm orange glow of burner-lamps pulsing in the corners like dying embers. He pulls a neural cord from under the table and jacks it into the slot behind his ear. A second later, the panel lights up again, but this time, it isn’t neon legs and swinging hips. It’s a new figure. A woman, maybe. Barely. Holographic from the shoulders up, but there’s no face, only smooth, shifting static in the vague shape of a head, and a thin outline that glitches like it’s being pulled from a bad dream.

  It doesn’t take long for the other end of the line to pick up. At first, nothing happens, only dead air and that pulsing orange haze in the corners, thick as swamplight. For a moment, I think the connection’s bugged or dead. Then the figure in the hologram shifts, turns ever so slightly towards me, and says, “Is that her?”

  My eyes fly wide again.

  The voice—

  “Come a little closer, Ruelle,” the woman says. “I like to know what my important clients look like.”

  I know that voice. Low, rasping, a crawl across gravel soaked in oil. It drags out every syllable like it’s scraping them off bone. Like Cormac, but colder. Older. But from where? Is it my mind playing tricks on me? No, it can’t be. There’s history there.

  “Are you Cierus?” I ask, keeping the British lilt tight in my throat. “If so… it’s a pleasure to meet you, even if the circumstances are a touch unorthodox.”

  She chuckles smokily. “You have one arm.”

  My heart sinks. “You can see me?”

  “I can see a great many things,” she says. “I might be entirely blind, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see you, Ruelle.”

  “… Blind?”

  “Mhm,” she hums, almost playful. “Lost my sight years ago. But thanks to some rather cutting-edge innovations—courtesy of Ourovane—I kept my vision in ways most people never will. Right now, I see you perfectly. You’re sitting in a dark booth, opposite my broker. Next to you is Dance Fletcher—ratty face, too much mouth, criminal record full of illegal synth production and academic failure. And you…. You’re more interesting.

  “Your I.D. says you’re a bulk buyer from Sunreach Colony. Clean record. No flags. No priors. You went dark for four years, then popped back up like a ghost with credits to burn. Most people disappear like that when they’ve been caught, when a warrant goes out and they need to hide. But you? Oh, it’s spotless. No record. No explanation. So…” A pause. “… Tell me, Ruelle. Why the act?”

  She’s clever, maybe too clever, and a sour little voice in the back of my head starts whispering that this might’ve all been a colossal mistake. That we walked into something we can’t walk out of. But then Dance jumps in, as he often does:

  “If you ask me, Ms. Castane, it seems they’re not actually interested in our money. Just sayin’. I think we should pack it up, take our business elsewhere. That’s my advice to you. These individuals don’t exactly scream trustworthy.” And for once, his Aussie drawl isn’t as thick. More measured, nicer. That part, I know, he’s acting. But what’s the play? Is he trying to spook her? Bluff a retreat? Or does he actually think we’re in too deep?

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  Before I can speak, the woman interrupts:

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested.”

  I look up at the blurred holo-woman, studying the silhouette, curious.

  “I’m simply intrigued,” she says. “Big names tend to catch my attention. I apologise if I came off... abrasive. Please, my name is Cierus Marlow.” She pauses. “And I hear you’re looking for some very old, very raw material. I can assure you, I have a library of things that might meet your needs.”

  My spine loosens, but only just. “That’s excellent.”

  “We should meet,” she says. That voice again—low, steady, unsettling in the way rust is unsettling when it spreads. If this were any other circumstance, I wouldn’t trust her tone, wouldn’t trust anything about this. But I’m not in a position to be picky. “The Spindle. Tomorrow morning. Say… nine o’clock? I know you already know the direction, but I can arrange transport. You’ll be escorted by Rhythm of Rhythm himself.”

  “She will?” Rhythm of Rhythm says, chuckling.

  “Hire a limo,” she replies flatly. “My client deserves your respect as much as she does mine.”

  “I’ll come,” I say, “but on one condition.”

  “Yes?”

  “I bring my bodyguards,” I say calmly. “Forgive me, it’s simply protocol.”

  “I understand completely,” she says. “But be aware: only you and I will be allowed access to the vault. Your bodyguards will remain in the lobby.”

  “That’s okay,” I say. But the truth is, it’s not. Not really. Not at all. I’m nervous about being alone with her, even if she supposedly doesn’t recognise me. I guess if she did, she’d already have sent someone after me, maybe would have told Rhythm of Rhythm to activate that sonal cube and fry my circuits, but no. She wants to meet. She must be interested.

  Rhythm of Rhythm and I shake hands. Not to seal any deal, but only to acknowledge the game is still in motion, that we’ll meet again soon enough. After that, Dance and I slip out into the darkened lobby where the air still carries the buzz of secondhand sweat, and we find Fingers, Cormac, and Vander waiting under the cold eyes of the security detail. Miraculously, no fights, no bodies, no scorch marks. We’re ushered out with polite hostility, even though most of the clientele have already cleared out after closing time left the building hollow and echoing.

  Back in Fingers’ jeep, the rain spitting lightly against the windshield, I lay it all out: the meeting, the conversation, the fact that Rhythm of Rhythm and Cierus bought it. Bought the act, the accent, the whole damn package. Dance snorts and cracks a joke about how ironic it is that she’s blind, completely blind, and still managed to call out every detail like she’d been standing right in the room with us. And yeah, that part still gnaws at me. If she’s as blind as she claims, then what the hell kind of eyes did she use to see me in that booth? But it doesn’t matter. Not really. What matters is that she believes the lie. So, I’ll keep it going. The dyed hair, the borrowed name, the swagger stitched into every step. Because if something in her brain ever switches back on, if some corrupted file reboots and starts whispering who I really am, I need her to see someone else entirely.

  The sky’s overcast when the limo glides up to The 404 the next morning, rain tapping at the tarmac like nervous fingers. We don’t waste time. Just slide in, heads low. The interior’s plush, excessive, all legroom and glinting drink trays stacked with liquor but not a single non-alcoholic in sight. Rhythm of Rhythm’s already inside, legs crossed, smoking something that smells like scorched vinyl and burnt citrus. He’s wearing that same metallic blue coat, and his staff, two stone-faced brutes in mirrored visors, sit opposite us, silent as tombstones. The only sound is the low music, courtesy of R.O.R., am I right?

  The crew and I decided to link up to a Cloud Room in case things get hectic. There’s no guaranteeing that things will go so smoothly in this operation, so if we’re far apart and need to communicate… well, let’s just say that if they ask, it’s a security measure.

  We travel the long route, skimming the outskirts of Paxson where the roads narrow and the skyline starts to lean inward like the city’s folding in on itself. The limo hums beneath us, smooth and silent, but outside it’s a different story: pavement cracked like dried skin, overpasses rusted to hell, stray cables hanging like spider legs from the underside of collapsed walkways. The sun’s just starting to peel through the low clouds, bleeding orange across the skyline as we follow it south towards Sector Four, and I can almost see part of it in the distance: a dark scar on the horizon. A shadow of a district, all crumbling towers and vertical scaffolds, the buildings locked together like broken H’s, steel beams bridging concrete husks where windows used to be.

  It takes us an hour and a half to reach the Spindle, crawling through the edges of the city where the road turns patchy and the air starts to smell like burning plastic and rust. At first, I don’t even know what I’m looking at. Just this massive wall of scrap rising out of the ground like a dam built by lunatics, stretching down the street so far I can’t see where it ends. But then it hits me. It’s not just a wall. It’s a box. A fortress. A solid perimeter of welded junk—buses, cars, support beams, crunched machinery—stacked four stories high and packed tight like bones in a tomb. It runs the length of a mile at least, maybe more, all surrounding the heart of this place: the Spindle. The junkyard isn’t exposed; it’s somewhat contained. Hidden. Caged in something that’s not supposed to be breached. Not unless you’re meant to be let in.

  Much different than what showed on the web; that’s for damn sure. The wall looks freshly built: new welds, new structure, not something slapped together years ago. Which means someone went through a lot of effort to box this place in tight, to keep things out, or more likely, to keep things in. And if we screw this up, if we don’t play our parts just right, we’ll be locked in there with the snakes, the guards, and Cierus herself.

  The thought makes my gut clench, and I shiver it off as best I can, stepping out of the limo into the cold breath of scrap-metal air. Rhythm of Rhythm strides ahead, his two guards flanking him, and we follow, boots clanking against the metal ramp as we approach what looks like a massive gantry platform—yeah, that’s the word, gantry. A wide industrial lift, bolted into the base of the wall, big enough to hold a truck and steady enough to carry us all without a creak. It groans as the hydraulics kick in, and we start rising, up and up, past the twisted crown of wall. At the top, it doesn’t stop. The gantry slides forward, grinding along a suspended track that cuts straight over the junkyard below. Ahead, I see it: the large building shaped like a gigantic spindle turned on its head, with a platform that coils around in carbon steel; maybe it once twisted and pulled all the junk in towards its burners, coughed up black smoke like some dying god. Now it’s still, gutted, repurposed, renovated into a braindance rig.

  I look down once and wish I hadn’t. Mountains of twisted metal, shattered machines, and slithering shapes as long as city buses. The mechanical snakes glide through the wreckage like shadows hunting for sound. And they pause suddenly, looking up at us, at me, as the platform slides downwards at a diagonal, getting closer to the ground.

  I can see why people avoid this place. Those deep-black eyes, watching from beneath piles of scrap, are enough to make your skin crawl. But it’s not just the snakes that make the hair on your neck stand up; it’s the thing standing above them.

  An enormous machine, towering at least five storeys, half-buried in the junk like a goddamn sleeping titan. A junkyard robot: old, maybe even ancient by Paxson standards, but still deadly-looking. Its arms are thick as train cars, ending in claws the size of tanks, each joint reinforced, designed to crush metal no doubt. The torso’s a bulbous core of gears, cables, and plated armour, with one glowing eye in the centre like it’s waiting to wake up and pick a side.

  “A Clawfather?” Vander mutters, squinting through the gantry haze.

  Rhythm of Rhythm turns to him, one brow cocked. “You know your machines, huh?”

  Vander leans an elbow on the railing, staring down at the Clawfather like he’s seeing a ghost from his own past. “I—I er, deserned one back in the ’80s,” he says, voice quiet, like he’s not sure he’s allowed to admit it out loud.

  “Deserned?” Rhythm of Rhythm repeats, eyebrow twitching in confusion.

  “Designed,” I clarify. “He was an engineer. Before all this.”

  “Never gert to operate one though,” Vander says, a bitter smile playing on his lips. “They er only let you build the toy, not play with it.”

  Fingers crosses her arms and smirks. “Here’s hoping that changes someday, if you can ever manage to keep your eyes off the moving parts long enough to do your job as a bodyguard.”

  Rhythm of Rhythm lets out a dry laugh, eyes settling on her. “You’re small and mean, aren’t you?” he says. “I like that.”

  Fingers doesn’t blink. “You wouldn’t if you knew me.”

  “You have a nice pair of shoulders on you,” he says. “I can tell who calls the shots in your platoon. The other guy… you.” He points at Cormac. “Yeah, well you look like you were ex-military, maybe even ex-force. I right to say that?”

  Cormac shrugs. Doesn’t speak; any word out of his mouth might blow this whole thing out of the water.

  “He doesn’t speak,” I say. “Besides, focus on what’s important, Mr. Rhythm. We’re here to do business. Not chat.”

  Dance is still hunched over his brickie, flipping through schematics, and I catch a glimpse of something on the screen: blinking red dots crawling like ants beneath a skeletal map of the Spindle’s underside: tunnels. Hidden ones. Just like The Ghost in Satin. Makes sense. Where else would they extract memories or run whatever awful experiments they don’t want the public to see? Down below, where it’s always cold and no one asks questions.

  I don’t know the specifics of why he's looking, and honestly, I don’t care. Dance does a lot of strange things.

  The gantry grinds to a halt at the centre of the Spindle with a shudder that rattles through my boots. Then the rails hiss, pivot, and drop us down into the belly of the structure. Blue streaks of light whip past the windows as we descend, bright, fast, hollow, like ghosts being dragged towards the void. When we reach bottom, the doors part with a thick sigh, and we step out into a cavernous, dim-lit chamber longer than it is wide, carved deep into the bones of the earth. The walls are steel, sweating with condensation, and lined with glass pods like coffins, most of them occupied. Figures float inside, still as corpses, suspended in sloshing blue ice-bath fluid. Tubes run into their skulls, wires into their spines. The room stinks of antiseptic and something colder than death.

  Techs in long black coats move between the pods, expressionless, their faces half-covered by filter masks and optic lenses that pulse with faint green data. They don't interact with us; they only check readings, adjust valves, and vanish into the gloom again. And maybe it's better that way.

  “Memory extraction,” says Rhythm of Rhythm. “If you’ve ever wondered how your infamous BDs are made, this is how.”

  “Are these people dead?” asks Fingers.

  “No,” he says, “but the way they lived their lives, they sure as hell would want to be. Most of these people wanted to be here. Thanks to Ourovane’s development of memory replacement, we can take out trauma and replace it with something kinder.”

  Fingers scoffs, just once, like she’s trying to hold something back and doesn’t quite succeed. “Right. Kind, but not free. Rewritten pain, sold to the highest bidder. That’s not mercy. That’s marketing.”

  I glance at her, surprised at her sudden snap, but she’s already moving on, unreadable as ever.

  “You mentioned most,” I say to Rhythm of Rhythm, matching his stride as he guides through the underground. “Does that mean some aren’t volunteers? That you perhaps kidnap people?”

  He shrugs, that oily grin twitching at the corners of his mouth. “What Cierus does, I have no clue. You’ll have to ask her that yourself. But between us?” He leans in slightly, voice dropping enough to make the hair on my neck rise. “She doesn’t take kindly to that kind of question. Just a tip.”

  We reach one of the pods after only a minute of walking, a towering tank of glass. Inside floats a woman, slender, motionless, pale as wax, her limbs slack, her hair billowing like silk in the blue suspension fluid. A scientist in a black lab coat types commands into the control panel beside her. Then the pod thrums, and the wires threaded into the woman’s spine and skull begin to twitch—pump, pump, pump—sending sharp jolts of electricity pulsing through her body.

  Above, the monitor bursts to life, scrolling data in rapid green slashes, too fast to follow. Maybe code. Maybe something else entirely. Something not meant to be read with human eyes.

  “Cierus,” Rhythm of Rhythm says.

  Wait… that’s her?

  The woman turns as the fluid drains, rising slowly as if death itself is letting go of her. Her face is sharp, unnaturally still, almost regal in its construction: high cheekbones, skin pale as ceramic. But it’s the absence that hits hardest.

  Of course, she has no eyes.

  Where her sockets should be, a sleek, obsidian visor is embedded directly into her skull, fused to the bone. It pulses with thin white light and seems to shift ever so slightly as it scans the room. She’s blind, but there’s no mistaking it; she sees us alright. Not with light. With something deeper. The kind of sight that doesn’t need eyes to know you’re lying. And her hair: it’s crimson, and it’s slicked back like mine.

  I run a scan:

  God... that's a lot of tech for one person. If that really was her in the picture, then she’s sure changed a lot. I mean, how doesn't she go insane having that much power in her system? Or maybe she already has.... Either way, Arden had a point when she said she's dangerous. I do not want to fight that.

  “Omari,” Cierus says, and her voice is just as eerie up close, like something scraping against synthwire. Deeper than I expected. “I told you not to bring that cube into the compound.”

  He glances down at the sonal device strapped to his hip, the soundbox, then shrugs. “You know me,” he says, and a queer grin comes over his face. It lifts his upper lip and makes it wrinkle like the snout of a dog. “I don’t like walking into caves without a little music.”

  “This is your last warning,” she says, and there’s no breath behind the words. Instead, there’s pressure, like something heavy pressing down on your lungs. “That device can be very disruptive to my operations. I understand it’s been years, but you should remember basic protocol. I do not like your technology on my ground. Do I make myself clear?”

  A stiff nod. “Understood. Sorry, Cierus. I just forgot.”

  “Well,” she murmurs, brushing a hand along her chin like she’s smoothing down stray static. “Consider this your final warning. I understand, however, that it’s been done, and cannot be undone. But don't make me repeat myself again. You know I dislike that greatly.”

  “I understand,” Rhythm of Rhythm says, softer now.

  Cierus turns to me. “Ruelle, I do hope my tone hasn’t turned you from the deal. This is business, after all. And I’m sure you understand—some things must be reinforced when there’s… a lot of money involved, as you say.”

  “I do, completely,” I say, keeping my voice level. “Now, on to business. You have some old, original content for me.”

  “That’s right,” she says. “And you, in turn, have money for me. Even better. Let’s get acquainted. Follow me, and I’ll show you to the vault. I’m sure you don’t want to be here any longer than I want you to be. Things down here are a little…” She doesn’t finish.

  Disturbing? Yes. I get it. I feel it in my teeth.

  “I have no issue,” I reply. “Please, lead on.” I glance back at the others. “You stay here. All of you.”

  They don’t argue. Just nod. Fingers looks tense. Vander’s too quiet. Cormac hasn’t moved. And Dance... that brickie.

  “Very well.” Cierus turns and walks without waiting. “Come, Ruelle. Let’s pluck some memories.”

  And just like that, I follow her into the dark, towards the vault, towards whatever the hell’s been waiting for me since the day my life was wiped clean.