The tunnels smell of metal and forgotten water.
Pipes run like ribs along the ceiling. Some drip. Some hum. The air is cold enough to bite through my coat. Down here the Patch is weaker. The walls do not try to heal themselves. Rust stays rust. Shadows stay shadows.
My implant flickers but does not chime. No gentle voice. No scrolling agenda. Just a faint buzz in the back of my skull, like an insect trapped behind glass.
I walk.
The tunnel stretches ahead in a curve that feels endless. My boots scrape grit across the floor. The sound echoes. It comes back to me slower than it should, as if the space is bending the noise.
A soft light glows ahead. I pause. It flickers, then steadies. Not the pale blue of city maintenance. Warmer. A candle glow where no candle should be.
I move closer, each step careful.
The tunnel opens into a chamber where old machines sleep. Control panels from a time before the Patch. Screens cracked but unlit. A map of the city burned into a rusted wall. In the center sits a man with a small lantern.
He is older than most I see above. His beard is gray. His eyes are clear. He wears a patched coat that looks like it once belonged to a soldier.
He does not startle when I enter. He looks at me like he was waiting.
"You missed your patch," he says.
My throat tightens. "Who are you?"
He smiles faintly. "Someone who stopped singing the hymn a long time ago."
I glance around. "This place…"
"Leftover skeleton. The Patch cannot reach everywhere. It tries, but the roots of the old city are deep." He gestures at the map. "Here you can still hear your own thoughts if you are quiet."
I step closer. "How did you survive without it?"
"I didn't." His smile fades. "Parts of me are gone. Names. Faces. My wife's voice. But enough remains to fight."
I hesitate. "Fight what?"
He lifts a small device from his lap. It looks like an old radio. Static hisses from its speaker. "This. The noise behind the noise. You hear it too, don't you?"
I nod slowly.
He sets the device down. "Then you are already on the edge. Missing a patch weakens their hold, but it also makes the static louder. If you let it, it will pull you under. You will forget who you are before they erase you."
I take a step back. "Why tell me this?"
His eyes narrow. "Because you still have her."
"What?"
"A name. A face. Someone the Patch cannot scrub clean."
I feel her name burn against my tongue. Lena.
He sees it in my eyes. "Hold onto her. She is your anchor. Without an anchor, the static eats you alive."
The radio hisses louder. Words almost form inside it. Fragments of a voice.
"…remember…"
The man tilts his head, listening. "She's reaching for you already."
I move closer to the radio. "Can I talk back?"
"Not yet. You are still patched too deeply."
I glance at my implant. "How do I get it out?"
"You don't. Not all at once. But there is a shard buried beneath the Citadel. A piece of the original program. If you reach it, you can break your link. You can remember fully. And maybe she can too."
"Shard?"
He nods. "A fragment. Like a splinter under skin. The system calls it Continuum Core. We call it the Root. It is why the world forgets."
Static creeps across my vision. The lantern flickers. The radio spits a high tone.
The man's face blurs. He leans forward fast and grips my arm. His fingers are strong. "They found you. You need to leave."
"How..."
"They can track a missed patch. The drones will be here soon. Go deeper. Follow the red pipe until you reach the stairs. Do not stop. Do not look back."
The static howls. A drone's siren echoes faintly from above, distant but moving closer.
He shoves the radio into my hands. "Take it. When it hisses her voice, listen. It will guide you."
"What about you?"
He smiles again, faint but fierce. "I'll hold them off. I've been waiting for a reason to stop hiding."
Before I can argue, the drone siren swells. He pushes me toward the tunnel.
"Go," he says. "Remember her."
I run.
The red pipe runs along the ceiling like a vein. I follow it through bends and drops. My breath fogs the air. The radio hisses against my chest, clipped to my coat. The voice inside it stutters but grows clearer.
"Niko…"
I stumble but keep moving.
"Niko… down… left…"
A fork appears. One path dark. One lined with faint green emergency lights.
"Left," the voice whispers.
I obey.
The tunnel narrows until I have to crouch. Water drips from above. A gust of cold air hits my face. Stairs descend into deeper dark.
The radio hisses once more.
"Don't… forget…"
I clutch it. "I won't," I whisper.
Above, faint echoes of drones. Below, silence.
I take the first step down.