I answered the investigator's call because the ledger and the pad made the choice for me. Sitting across from him the second time, I felt measured in shallow increments. He smelled of office air and late coffee. He had a tablet and a file. Everything about him suggested appointments and boxes.
"You forwarded the node message," he said. His voice was even. "We received it. Sandbox logged it."
"Yes," I said. I kept my hands visible on the table.
He tapped the tablet. "Ghost nodes exist. Mostly fragment markets and rumor. A verified handshake is rare. You understand risk."
"I do," I said. The words came out flat. Risk does not feed the clinic.
"Why did you forward it?" he asked.
"Because the System told me to," I said. It felt like an answer and not an answer.
He did not look surprised. "You know how this reads in Association logs. Frequent witness patterns plus interaction with unknown node equals potential exploitation. Administrators notice those numbers."
I knew that. Administration noticed everything that showed a pattern. Patterns became investigations. Investigations became flags. Flags became restrictions. Restrictions became fines or worse.
"Do you think the node is bait?" I asked.
He leaned back. "Possibly. It could also be a real node. Nodes sometimes trace old remains of network stacks. Rooms that keep data. They can hold useful logs. They can also hold corrupt infection." He tapped a line on the tablet. "We will sandbox the node. We will run a filtered handshake and see if there is a traceable source. You will not engage directly until we say."
I nodded. The investigator wrote instructions and handed me a small, stamped card. "If they contact you in person—no meetings. If they leave additional messages, forward them. Keep logging."
I left with a card and a nod and the same weight in my chest.
Outside the HQ, the city split the day into transactions. Vendors sold coffee in paper cups. Trams hissed. I kept the pad off my hip so it would not hum. A kid ran past with a bundle of newspapers and kicked a can that sang along the curb. I did not read the papers. I did not want new accounts.
I went back to work. The guild had a side job—repair runs for a warehouse district. Low pay, low risk. The kind of runs that keep roofs over leaky places. We moved with efficient violence. I patched, I pulled, I carried.
At noon a message arrived to my private channel.
_
[SYSTEM: INCOMING MESSAGE. SOURCE: ASSOCIATION SANDBOX. CONTENT: NODE HANDSHAKE COMPLETE. SANDBOX REPORT: PARTIAL DATA STREAM VERIFIED. ACTION: OPEN SANDBOX PORT FOR EXAMINATION. RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT INTERACT DIRECTLY.]
DETAILS: SANDBOX HAS ISOLATED FRAGMENT. SOME ECHO PACKETS VALIDATED. INVESTIGATOR ASSIGNED: KIM H.
——————————
Partial data. Validated fragments. The words on the pad felt like a door that opened a slit.
I reported the message to the investigator and he called me in the evening. He said the sandbox had pulled fragments that matched the courtyard echo and a barge manifest. They found a transport ID string. It was not a system administrator tag. It was older. It matched a chain of small, private storage units on the river docks.
"Do you want to go?" he asked.
"I want to know what it costs," I said.
"You won't be alone. Association will attach observers. Minimal contact. No direct handshake until we clear the channel."
I agreed because knowledge is a cost you can sometimes pay later.
We moved at night. Association vans rolled up in unmarked black. Two observers in plain clothes walked near our party. A tech in a soft jacket carried a case that hummed. The warehouse district smelled like cold metal and river rot. Cranes rested with outlines like sleeping machines.
The storage units were rows of rusted metal boxes. Unit numbers were painted in flaking white. The tech scanned a code and the lock clicked. He worked with slow hands and a light on his face. The Association forced a clean open and the smell came out—old paper and the taste of sealed electronics.
Inside, a wooden crate sat with a stamped number. The tech isolated the crate and ran a field probe. The pad showed a waveform that looked like a quiet storm. The observers stayed with doors angled to the street. The tech put on gloves.
"You are with Kim Dojin?" he asked. He nodded to me. "We will extract traces. Stand back."
I did. My hands flexed like they were reaching for sums. I did not step forward.
The tech opened the crate. Inside lay boxes of corroded drives and a bundle of paper tags. On the top a faded manifest had a stamped transport ID that matched the sandbox trace. The tech fed a drive into a reader. Lines scrolled and then froze. The reader beeped.
"Partial echo found," the tech said. He read from a strip. "Room index entries. Timestamped. Several trauma echoes archived. Some corrupted. One node handshake recorded as active at T minus six months."
My mouth went dry. Six months ago the manifest had moved something: a room log and a handshake. The log lines matched a lullaby fragment the echo had shown me. The courtyard and the barge were connected by paper and rust.
"Any admin tags?" the investigator asked.
"No," the tech said. "Private chain. Likely scavenged data repacked into shadow archives. But there is a path. We can trace lateral links. No direct admin control. Risk: medium. Recommend controlled pull and further sandboxing."
He looked at me. "You saw pieces of this in your trauma echo?"
"Yes," I said. The sentence had no weight. "A lullaby. A kitchen. A transport tag."
The tech typed and then a line blinked. The reader spat out a short string. "There is an access key embedded. Not active in the system, but it can be triggered. Someone packaged these echoes and left a key. The key points to an old storage node on the river. We can retrieve more fragments. You are the only witness who has matched dream data to these records."
I felt the ledger and the needle at the same time. More fragments meant more answers. More fragments meant more Corrupty risk. It meant I could move the clinic from survival to breathing longer. It meant a choice.
The investigator looked at me. "We can proceed with a full pull. Association will authorize a controlled extraction. You will be observed. Any direct engagement with nodes will be done under sandbox. You accept conditions?"
I thought of Lee‑Hae in the clinic chair. I thought of the pad and the payments. I thought of the whispering echoes and the market man with his empty hands.
"Yes," I said. The word came out small.
They scheduled an extraction for two days later. The tech left a department card and a list of precautions. The observers spoke in measured sentences about containment and protocol. I walked home and the city closed like a lid.
At the clinic Lee‑Hae asked if I had eaten. I said yes. She believed me. She trusted me because she had to. I made transfers that night and the pad confirmed payment. The digits blinked down by a margin.
_
[SYSTEM: PERSONAL ACCOUNT BALANCE: 800,000 CREDIT. NEXT PAYMENT DUE: 1 DAY.]
DETAILS: AUTO TRANSFER SUCCESSFUL. NOTE: SHORTFALL REMAINS.
——————————
I slept badly. The echoes crawled under eyelids like lists. They asked for the door. Rooms talk. Find the door.
The next morning the tech sent a short message.
_
[SYSTEM: EXTRACTION SCHEDULED. TEAM: ASSOCIATION FIELD UNIT. TIME: 22:00. LOCATION: RIVER DOCKS — UNIT 17. RESTRICTIONS: NO DIRECT NODE CONTACT. SANDBOX OVERWATCH ACTIVE.]
DETAILS: USER REQUIRED: PRESENCE FOR WITNESS CORRELATION. PERSONAL PROTECTION ADVISED.
——————————
I counted coins. I checked my HP. I checked the Death Inheritance Count on a pad more times than was useful.
Death Inheritance Count.
[2]
Corrupty Meter.
[15]
I kept the numbers in their boxes. I kept my hands where people could see them. I walked to the river that night with people who wore neutral faces and soft jackets. The docks smelled of cold water and old diesel. Unit 17 was the third from the east. The door had been pried open. The Association techs set up a perimeter. Cameras framed faces.
Inside unit 17 the air was dry and sharp. The tech pulled a drive and fed it like a live wound. Lines scrolled and opened. The reader flagged a string and then a second. A log entry popped with a timestamp. The echo packet stitched open with a brittle pop.
The moment the packet opened I heard a sound in my head and it matched the packet. It was a lullaby line cut by a cough. The same kitchen smell pressed into the back of my mouth like a number. I watched the tech's face and he did not react to the sound that hit me.
The packet contained more than the lullaby. It contained a door index and a map fragment. It contained a tag line that read: ROOMS INDEX — NODE 4: RIVER SOUTH. DOOR KEY: 0x4E2B. The reader highlighted the key and then faded.
The tech looked up. "We got the door."
I felt the ledger open and then close. The Association moved slow and precise but the room inside me tightened. They would route the key into sandbox. They would not hand it to me. They would test before release. That is what control looks like.
I left the docks with a card and a file and a feeling like a list that had one more entry.
On the walk back the pad chimed a single string.
_
[SYSTEM: ALERT — PRIVILEGED NODE ACCESS ATTEMPT. ORIGIN: RIVER SOUTH NODE. ACTION: BLOCKED. RECOMMENDATION: INCREASED SURVEILLANCE AROUND USER. FLAG: POTENTIAL MANUAL TRIGGER.]
DETAILS: ACCESS ATTEMPT COINCIDES WITH EXTRACTION WINDOW. INVESTIGATORS ADVISED.
——————————
I stopped. The hair on my neck tightened. Someone tried the door. Someone knew we were there.
I walked faster. The city's light cut into wet stone. I kept the pad in my pocket like a ledger of threats. The echoes whispered and the ledger counted. Rooms talk. Find the door. The line repeated until I could not tell whether I wanted the answer or not.
At home Lee‑Hae slept. I sat at the window and watched the street. My hands folded in silence. The pad sat with the alert glowing.
I tapped the screen once and then again. I logged the alert. I wrote a short line in the trauma log.
Trauma Log: ENTRY 004 — RIVER SOUTH KEY PULLED. SANDBOX PULL CONFIRMED. ACCESS ATTEMPT DETECTED. CORRUPTY +0 (MONITOR).
I closed the pad. I waited.
The System did not sleep. The city did not sleep. I slept badly and woke with a taste of numbers. I had a door to find. I had a sister to feed. I had a list of restrictions and people watching every step.
The ledger counted. The echoes pressed.
I had a choice coming.