By the second week, Sykaion stopped counting the stories.
They came in like weather—some dry and dull, others shattering like hail. The shop no longer felt like a place of business. It felt like a clinic for souls who'd been shredded, rebranded, and indexed out of their own worth.
The bell above the door had broken days ago. Now, the clients simply entered. The brass feather on the doorframe darkened, not from corrosion, but from sheer touch. Everyone brushed it before walking in, even if they didn't know why.
Sykaion noticed.
He didn't say anything.
Because he was beginning to feel it, too.
> "You'll burn out," Arlyss muttered from the corner, arms folded, her jacket patched with synth-thread. "You're taking in more than you're giving."
He didn't answer.
Because she was right.
The first client that day was a boy, maybe nine, with ink-stamped wrists. School-loan tags. Default status. His eyes were hollow, but he smiled.
> "They said I'm worth less than a textbook. Can I trade that?"
Sykaion asked, "What do you offer?"
The boy pointed to his throat. "I'll stop talking for a year. That should be worth something."
Sykaion stared. The System flared.
> OFFER: Vow of Silence
Duration: 365 days
Sentience Impact: Moderate
Tradeable Worth: Variable
He didn't process it.
Instead, he reached into the drawer and handed the boy a chipped token.
> "If anyone asks who you are, show them this."
The token had no number.
Only a phrase:
> I Am Not Collateral.
The boy wept.
And Sykaion felt something break in the walls.
The second was a gang lieutenant.
Burn scars. Eye mods. History of organized violence.
> "You got a way to clean a name?"
Sykaion didn't flinch. "Why do you want it clean?"
> "Got a kid. Not mine. But... she thinks I'm better than I am."
Sykaion nodded. "Then offer the lie you're keeping."
The man froze. Then, slowly, he removed a datadrive from his neck.
> "This has the names I've erased. It's proof. All of it."
Sykaion placed the drive in a sealed vault beneath the counter.
> "Done."
No flare. No light.
Just silence.
Later, someone brought in a stolen memory.
It belonged to a dead woman.
> "Her family doesn't know she was ever kind," the client said. "She was. Once. I saw it."
Sykaion accessed the echo file. Played it. A laugh, short and sharp. A single moment: handing a flower to a child.
He uploaded it to the public square broadcast loop.
No name. No context.
Just kindness.
It went viral.
The System logged it as:
> VIRAL SENTIMENTAL CONTENT
ORIGIN: UNAUTHORIZED ECHO LEDGER
EMOTIONAL TRAFFIC: HIGH
INTERVENTION: SUSPENDED
Zeraphine watched from her hidden vantage in a rusted observatory drone.
Her heart hurt.
She whispered into her traceband, "He's not building an army. He's building... a memory economy."
> "And how long do you think that lasts?" the Concordium handler replied.
> "Long enough to matter," she said.
And then muted her channel.
That night, someone left a note nailed to the shop door.
It read:
> One of your clients used my ledger line. He paid with a truth I wasn't ready to face. I want to report him.
But I can't.
Because I saw her smile when it happened.
Sykaion folded the note.
Placed it in the vault.
And lit a candle.
Not for the boy.
Not for the gang member.
Not even for the dead woman.
But for the people who were beginning to believe that memory could be earned, not just stored.