Finding Kordo off-duty was easy for Ronan. The man followed a predictable, dreary routine: from his shift, to the tavern, to his small, bleak apartment in the lower sectors. They chose to approach him on his walk home, in a narrow, gas-lit alley shrouded in evening fog.
Kordo froze when they stepped out of the shadows. His hand instinctively went to the truncheon at his belt.
"We don't want trouble, Kordo," Ronan said, his voice calm. He held up the marked coin Silas had given him. "We just want to talk about your recent stroke of luck."
The guard's face went pale. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't you?" Liam stepped forward. "We know she was there. A woman with a forgettable face and cold eyes. You saw her. I saw her in the memory of the lock you were guarding."
Kordo began to tremble, his tough exterior crumbling to reveal a scared, weak man. "I… I was told to keep my mouth shut. They said… they said it was a matter of city security. That the old man was just confused."
"Who told you?" Ronan pressed, stepping closer. "Who paid you?"
"I don't know her name!" Kordo stammered, backing against the damp brick wall. "She just… found me. She knew about my debts. She said all I had to do was file the report as it was written and forget I ever saw her." His eyes darted around the alley, terrified. "You don't understand. She's not… normal. The way she looks at you… it's like she's reading a page you've already forgotten."
"Give us a name, Kordo," Liam insisted, his voice low and intense. "A location. Anything."
The guard squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember. "She mentioned… a delivery. To the old printing district. Something about correcting a 'misprint' in the historical ledgers…"
He stopped. His eyes shot open, but they were vacant. A look of profound confusion washed over his face. He clutched his head, groaning.
"Kordo?" Ronan asked, sensing a sudden shift in the currents.
The guard looked at Liam, then at Ronan, with no recognition whatsoever. "Who… who are you?" he murmured, his voice slurring. "What am I doing in this alley?" He looked down at his own hands as if they were foreign objects.
Liam felt it a split second before he understood it. A cold ripple in the fabric of the moment. A dissonant note in the flow of time. It wasn't a loud, explosive power. It was a silent, insidious erasure. Somewhere, nearby, the Redactor was watching. She had heard. And she had simply… edited Kordo's memory of the last five minutes.
Ronan grabbed Liam's arm. "We have to go. Now."
They melted back into the fog, leaving the bewildered guard stumbling in the alley. They hadn't seen their attacker. They hadn't gotten a name. But they had achieved something far more dangerous.
They had poked the hornet's nest. And now, they knew for certain, the hornets were poking back. They were no longer investigators. They were targets.