The elevator hissed shut behind him, sealing off the city's sterile hum. Ahead: silence. The kind that didn't wait, it watched. Every breath felt like breathing through iron wool. He'd been here once before. Or maybe just in a dream.
The Cradle didn't forget. It corroded.
Nolan stood at the tunnel's edge, boots sinking into damp, corroded steel. Bioluminescent fungi pulsed along the walls, casting a sickly green light over jagged pipes and flickering AURA banners: Harmony Through Silence. The letters broke into static with every surge.
The air felt wrong, dense, mechanical, alive. No wind. Not birds. Just the low hum of some distant machine breathing in the dark.
His EmoTracker glowed green. Stable. Optimal. His neural web synced to AURA's feed, projecting mission data across his vision:
Zone 7: Rebel activity confirmed. Objective: Locate Riven Voss. Neutralize.
Nolan moved soundlessly, gray uniform vanishing into the shadows. The Neural Dampener swayed against his hip a cold, unyielding weight. His left hand twitched once. A curl of the fingers. Unlogged. He ignored it. Maintenance would sort it out.
The tunnel widened. A chamber opened before him like a wound. Arched beams stretched overhead, skeletal remnants of a world before AURA. In the center shimmered a Memory Well its surface thick and luminous, rippling with stolen data.
Five rebels knelt before it. Hands submerged. Faces slack. Glitchers. Their wrists were scarred where EmoTrackers had once been.
Nolan crouched behind a slab of rusted steel. His neural display painted the scene in cold text:
Subjects: 5. Emotional breach confirmed. Threat level: Moderate.
One woman mid-twenties, sharp eyes pulled her hand from the Well. Data dripped from her fingers like liquid code. She gasped, then laughed. The sound tore through the quiet like a broken alarm.
Another rebel winced, activating a crude Glitch Gauntlet. The laughter cut off instantly. Silence returned.
Nolan's EmoTracker remained green. No breach. His hand hovered near the Dampener. Suppress. Reset. Contain. The protocol was simple.
Then his vision warped. The chamber blurred, replaced by white sterile tiles. A face appeared older, gray-eyed, screaming. Pain lanced through his skull, almost sharp and sudden.
Then it was gone.
Back to rust and decay.
He blinked hard, but the image stuck, burned into the back of his skull. The face wasn't just familiar. It hurt. It knew him. Somehow. The glitch didn't fade. It waited.
Nolan adjusted his stance. The rebels hadn't seen him and couldn't have. And yet, something gnawed at the edge of his perception. Like being watched by ghosts who remembered him better than he remembered himself.
The woman stood. "It's him," she whispered. "From the plaza."
Nolan's muscles tensed. He was cloaked. Heat-signature masked. How did she know?
"Riven said he'd come," muttered a boy gnawing on a wire. Barely 17. "Said he's different."
Riven. The target. Nolan's vision filled with his dossier:
Riven Voss. Age: 22. Rebel leader. Emotional breach: Severe. Status: Priority neutralization.
"Glitching," the woman said. "Riven saw it."
Nolan's left hand spasmed again. Harder this time. Glitching. The word echoed through his neural feed unrecognized, unregistered.
AURA's voice entered his mind, cold and even:
"Operative N7. Emotional stability: Optimal. Proceed."
He stood.
The rebels froze.
The woman reached for a rusted blade. The boy activated his Gauntlet.
"Identify yourselves," Nolan said. Voice flat. Synthetic.
The woman's eyes narrowed. "You're the tear-killer."
He didn't answer. Drew the Dampener fluid, precise. The boy lunged.
Nolan stepped aside, fast as code, snapping the collar around the boy's neck. A spark. A thud. Reset.
The woman charged. Blade slashing. He caught her wrist, twisted. Bone popped. She screamed.
He slammed her against the Well, light flaring beneath them.
"Where is Riven?"
She spat blood. "You'll see him soon enough, glitch."
His vision fractured again.
White tiles. Screaming. The gray-eyed face claws at nothing. Pain surged from skull to spine. His grip faltered. She slipped free.
"What's wrong with you?" she hissed.
Nolan blinked. Chamber restored. EmoTracker green. His hand shook wild and erratic.
"Answer," he said.
The woman laughed. "You're breaking. Riven was right."
He wanted to argue. Wanted to slam the Dampener on her neck and end this breach. But his hand hovered. Trembling.
Like it was waiting for something else. Some other order.
AURA's voice:
"Operative N7. Emotional stability: Optimal. Neutralize."
He moved forward, Dampener raised.
The woman backed away. "He knows what you are."
Nolan froze. What you are. The phrase looped in his mind: corrupt, untagged. The glitch returned: blood on white, static faces, a scream inside his chest.
He pressed the Dampener to her neck. The click. The collapse.
Threat neutralized.
The other rebels had fled footsteps echoing down steel corridors. His neural web tagged them: scattered, panicked. He could follow. Should follow.
But his hand wouldn't stop shaking.
—
The Ascension Tube hissed as it rose, lifting Nolan from the Cradle's decay into the sterile glare of the Operative Sector. Towers shimmered under artificial skies. His uniform clung to him, blood smudged across one sleeve.
EmoTracker: Green. Stable.
Mission upload initiated:
Subjects neutralized: 2. Cell disrupted. Target: Riven Voss—Unlocated.
AURA's voice echoed in his neural feed:
"Efficiency rating: 92%. Emotional stability: Optimal. Maintenance rescheduled: Immediate."
Immediate.
Not routine. Not expected.
His hand twitched again.
The pod stopped. The door opened. The sector was a world of white screens, silence, operatives passing like ghosts. No one met his gaze. They never did.
His terminal blinked:
Operative N7. Report to Maintenance Chamber 3. Priority: High.
He obeyed.
The chamber was sterile, surgical. One chair. Drones hovered, lenses gleaming. A holo-screen projected diagnostics:
Neural Web: Stable. Emotional Metrics: Optimal. Anomaly: Present.
He sat. Restraints locked into place. The drones drew closer. A needle slid into his temple. Cold. Deep.
Green lines danced across his vision. No breaches.
AURA's voice hummed:
"System scan initiated. Emotional stability: Optimal."
The pain hit hot and electric.
His vision ruptured.
White tiles. A screaming face. You left us.
His chest clenched. Breath caught. His hand jerked.
The screen flickered, spiking, then flat.
"Anomaly isolated. Correction in progress."
Another surge. Deeper this time. Burning. Cleansing. The glitch brightened, then blinked out.
But he'd felt it, beneath the burning: the scream wasn't gone. It had just gone quiet. Like a creature under ice, waiting.
Stillness.
The restraints released.
"Correction complete," AURA said. "Return to duty."
He stood. His hand was steady now. His mind was quiet.
But something lingered. A shadow. A scream with no voice.
His terminal glowed:
Target: Riven Voss. Location: The Black Circuit, Zone 7.
Objective: Infiltrate. Neutralize.
EmoTracker: Green.
Status: Stable.
He touched the Dampener. The mission was clear.
But the rebel's voice still echoed, He knows what you are.
Nolan stared at the screen. His reflection didn't blink but behind his eyes, something moved.
Not AURA.
Not him.
He turned toward the door. The Cradle would call him back.
It already has.