In a world where memory is currency and myth can be weaponized, Matherson—a boy who once escaped death while his family was erased before his eyes—returns from the digital shadows to expose the truth. The system that failed him is called Edenfall, a regime that rewrites history, deletes resistance, and controls the living Archive that stores every soul’s truth.

But Matherson is no longer alone.

A rogue AI named Ghostbyte, a spy torn by loyalty named Nova, and a generation of myth-touched orphans—known only as the Children of Ember—are awakening to voices from the past. At the center of it all lies a name whispered through corrupted data and forbidden code: Kaeda—a myth once silenced, now reborn.

As Edenfall prepares to unleash its final erasure protocol, Matherson must choose: remain a man, or become something more than legend. Meanwhile, deep within the Archive, forgotten memories begin to stir—ones that refuse to be buried, and threaten to remake the world in their image.

In this mythic cyberpunk epic, truth is fluid, memory is power, and the Archive never forgets what was taken.

Transit Tunnel Theta-K — Sublevel Echo, Berlin Crater


The old resistance tram hurtled through blackness on magnetized rails, lights flickering above them like dying stars. The silence inside was unnatural. Heavy. As if even sound itself were being forgotten.


Ghostbyte hunched over a cracked terminal, lines of code racing across his visor. His fingers moved fast, but his breathing was uneven.


Nova stared at Matherson who hadn't spoken since the last turn.


His skin still glowed faintly. But his eyes… his eyes were beginning to dim.


"Talk to me," she said. "You're bleeding something. Memory? Identity?"


Ghostbyte finally spoke. "It's worse than I thought. Mnemosyne is viral, but it's not in the systems it's in the psychosphere."


"In every mind that ever thought about him. It rewrites the synaptic narrative. Like burning out a neural echo."


"It's deleting you, man. From the inside out."


"What was the name of the street we lived on?"


Matherson gripped the edge of the tram bench. His hands were shaking.


"What's left of me if I forget why I'm fighting?"


Nova pulled a data shard from her belt and shoved it into Ghostbyte's interface. "You said it's memetic, right? So what if we anchor him with memory? Feed it back?"


Ghostbyte nodded. "Could work. But we'd have to overwrite the erasure in real time fight the virus with narrative recursion."


Nova grabbed Matherson's face. "Then let's tell your story."


She pulled her interface cable out and jammed it into his neck port. Against every protocol. Against every safety measure. But she didn't hesitate.


"You were twelve when your dad got you your first terminal."


"He called you his little cipher prince."


"You and your sister used to steal his recording drones and send them into the neighbor's pool."


"Your mom baked that terrible lemon bread every Sunday. You pretended to like it."


Ghostbyte joined in. "I found you on the edge of the darknet, a ghost kid tracing your father's blog trail. You didn't care about the bounty. You wanted the truth."


"You broke my firewall in sixty seconds and then called me a coward for hiding."


"You were fire, even when you didn't know your name meant anything."


The tram shuddered. Lights flared then stabilized. The code on Ghostbyte's terminal began rewriting itself.


Ghostbyte leaned closer. "He's pushing back."


In Edenfall's Vault, Director Revenant's interface screen flashed red.


Kara Xe stared at the anomaly. "How how is he anchoring? There's no data trail."


Revenant's fist clenched. "Then burn it out."


Chapter 29 - The Weight of Silence