Chapter 2: The Scent of Panic
The taste of metallic ozone had intensified to a corrosive, physical sensation, filling Riel's mouth like undiluted acid. It was the sickening aftermath of the shattered vial, the chemical residue of pure, raw joy—Elara's laugh—consumed by the cold, indifferent engine of tyranny. Kyra, the Siphon, stood motionless, a predator in midnight blue, her Collector Net pulsing faster now, a wide, hungry aperture designed to vacuum the highly volatile grief Riel was actively radiating. Riel felt a distinct, painful tugging sensation deep behind his eyes, a neural ache that signaled his own precious, volatile memories were being stretched thin, prepared for extraction and analysis by the Rank A hunter.
"The Senate is always grateful for fresh, unedited trauma, Riel," Kyra stated, her voice devoid of human emotion, a mere function of bureaucratic efficiency. "I suggest you cease radiating; your grief only makes the absorption process more efficient. It is a wasteful output of emotional energy." She didn't need to shout; the unnatural silence she had imposed across the corridor carried her every word, every chilling inflection, perfectly. Riel was paralyzed not by fear of death, but by the immediate, overwhelming trauma of fresh, catastrophic loss. He saw his ultimate failure—the moment he betrayed Elara—replaying in his mind with terrifying, nauseating clarity, a toxic Fragment he would never be able to fully erase, now amplified by the sheer proximity of the Collector Net.
Kyra gave a barely perceptible nod, and the Collector Net tightened, contracting inward like a closing fist. A low, rhythmic thrumming began to radiate from the device. It wasn't a visible attack, but a complex, sonic drone designed to disorient and violently disrupt the mental resonance of any nearby Remembrancer. Riel squeezed his eyes shut, hands flying to his temples as the noise drilled past his eardrums, vibrating directly against his The Scar. The rhythm was erratic, calculated to shatter concentration and prevent any clean Echo Recall. His current Rank D: Whisperer power was entirely inadequate against this level of sophisticated mental warfare. He had barely enough energy left for one more basic Echo Recall, which would only provide a meager two-second delay before the inevitable absorption.
I have to get out of range, Riel thought, his mental state bordering on incoherent panic. Running outside is pointless. She's Rank A. She anticipates linear movement. I need an unseen path, and for that, I need more power than I have.
He knew he had to attempt the Fatal Recall—the forced, desperate, and potentially mind-shattering ascension in Rank. The immediate price would be catastrophic, but the alternative was becoming a silent, mindless data point for the Senate, his grief neatly packaged for Senator Arkham's analysis.
Riel dropped abruptly to his knees, ignoring the searing pain in his muscles from his previous awkward lunge. His mind became a laser, focusing past the paralyzing drone, past the immediate fear of the net, directly onto the source of his current misery: Kyra's recent presence. He knew the Siphon had left behind powerful, high-energy trace Fragment Memories of her own—arrogant confidence, momentary tactical decisions, the cold, calculating thrill of the chase. These were dense, dangerous fragments.
I need volume. I need enough raw data to violently force the core expansion.
Riel reached out with his mind, performing a devastating, intentional violation of his own The Scar. He didn't gently pull the memory; he ripped a massive volume of ambient fragments left by Kyra and the surrounding scene, forcing them violently into his brain's core resonance field. He simultaneously pulled the fragmented memory of a high-speed fall from a nearby air conditioning unit and the precise, logistical memory of an elite security guard's patrol path through the Plateaus ventilation shafts.
Riel's Fatal Recall & Memori Overload: The mental impact was instantaneous and overwhelming. This was not a controlled Echo Recall; this was a Memori Overload, a catastrophic neurological event. Riel screamed, a raw, jagged sound instantly devoured by the Siphon's net. Blood instantly trickled from his nose, his eyes, and the edges of his The Scar. His body convulsed violently, his hands clutching uselessly at the grimy floor. The warring Fragment Memories fought each other within his consciousness: the cold, linear logic of the Siphon battling the sheer, blinding panic of the traffic accident victim and the dizzying freefall.
Worse, the high energy volume re-triggered the trauma of his past with extreme force. He wasn't just reliving Kyra's aggression; he was reliving his most profound sin. He saw Elara's eyes, wide with betrayal as he had yielded to his own cowardice and fear, allowing her memory to be shattered. The familiar wave of self-loathing was so intense it threatened to extinguish his consciousness entirely. I am the killer, his mind shrieked in a silent, deafening echo. I am the enemy. I destroyed her. He felt the edge of pure madness—the absolute risk that the Overload would shatter his Rank D consciousness and leave him a vacant vessel, an easier, cheaper target for Kyra's Collector Net. He had to stabilize, or he would die here, overwhelmed by foreign grief and his own ancient guilt.
The cost, Riel. The ultimate price must be paid.
The realization was a sudden, cold knife thrust into the heart of the chaos. To survive the Overload and stabilize at the next Rank, he needed to create space in his consciousness. He had to fulfill the Syarat Kualitatif—the philosophical price of power. He had to sacrifice a Memori Inti of Rank D, a memory that still provided comfort, but was fundamentally irrelevant to his current need for survival and infiltration.
He reached for the memory that still provided him with the most insidious, debilitating form of peace: The memory of his mother's soft lullaby. It was the last, faint echo of unconditional peace he possessed, a fragile relic from the forgotten Age of Raw Emotions. This memory was the source of his brief, debilitating moments of weakness and longing.
It doesn't help me run. It doesn't teach me to hide. It is useless sentimentality.
With a shuddering, gargantuan effort that felt like tearing out his own neural core, Riel focused his remaining will on the lullaby. He didn't just forget it; he pushed the memory out of his mind, actively casting the comforting rhythm into the ambient chaos, surrendering that final thread of peace forever. The loss was profound, a permanent void where warmth once resided.
The sacrifice was immediate and stabilizing. The searing, explosive pain of the Overload instantly subsided, replaced by an unnerving, cold, calculating clarity. The chaos in his mind settled into a rigid, structured volume of pure data. The overwhelming panic was contained. Kyra, observing Riel's convulsions, titled her head slightly, registering the immense energy spike and the subsequent, unnatural, instantaneous calm. Fatal Recall confirmed, she mentally noted. The target has achieved Rank C. Data integrity must be verified.
Riel pushed himself up slowly, his movements now precise and frighteningly economical. The trembling, weak Rank D: Whisperer was gone, replaced by the calculating, colder Rank C: Sleuth. He was faster, far more stable, and his Echo Recall capacity had increased to approximately one minute of sustained use. More importantly, his The Ghost Class had suddenly matured.
With the maturity of his The Ghost Class came the activation of his first Skill Unik: Residual Scent.
Riel ignored Kyra's cautious approach and focused intensely on the metallic, polluted air. He didn't use his eyes; he used his The Scar, utilizing the highly sensitive data processing capacity of his new Rank. He reached out and experienced a profound metaphysical shift. The stale air of the corridor didn't just smell like ozone and chemicals anymore. He 'smelled' the residual psychic signature of every strong emotion, every action that had recently passed through.
He 'smelled' the stale fear of the vendor, Lyra. He 'smelled' the faint, lingering arrogance of Kyra's recent passage—a signature of confidence that was almost a physical residue. And most crucially, he 'smelled' the concentrated trail of trauma fragments Kyra had deposited as she walked, a meticulous data trail designed to be too complex for a Rank D Whisperer to analyze.
Riel saw the 'scent'—a shimmering, faint heat map layered over the floor and walls. It showed him not just where Kyra stood, but where she had walked moments before, the exact placement of her feet, and where her patrol paths intersected with the hidden maintenance access points of the Plateaus. He could see the faint psychic echo of the construction workers who had installed the ventilation systems fifty years prior. The main ventilation hub was used to approach. That's my only way out now.
Kyra took two steps forward, the net ready to absorb the stable, newly formed energy of the Rank C Remembrancer. "Running will be more complex now, Riel. You are worth far more intact."
"I don't run outside," Riel rasped, the stolen memory of the maintenance technician's path now guiding his muscles with chilling confidence.
He lunged not toward the open market, but directly down—kicking a heavily rusted grate that covered a large, dark service tunnel leading beneath the corridor. The grating flew aside with a sharp, metallic clang. The movement was clean, professional, and executed with Rank C-level expertise and speed.
Kyra reacted immediately, focusing the Collector Net down the exposed opening. But Riel was already gone. He didn't jump; he dove into the suffocating, greasy darkness, utilizing the expert memory of the technician to navigate the tight, sickeningly angled metal shaft instantly. He was now running beneath the system, the perfect Ghost. He heard the powerful, hungry hum of the Collector Net as it tried to siphon the air below, but the thick, metallic walls of the service tunnel partially dampened the effect, scrambling its focus.
He was momentarily safe, his survival purchased at the price of his last memory of pure, unconditional comfort.
Riel didn't stop running until the hum of the Collector Net was a distant, frustrated whine, replaced only by the mechanical drone of the Plateaus' drainage systems. He pulled himself out of the vent shaft several blocks away, emerging into a narrow, filthy utility corridor filled with discarded memory-processing equipment. He wiped the dried blood from his nose and glanced back at his path.
His breathing was harsh, but steady and controlled. He was stronger, but profoundly colder. The warmth of his mother's lullaby was truly gone, a deliberate void he had created himself. He was now just a collection of efficient skills and consuming grief.
As Riel leaned against the cold metal, regaining his composure, he heard a final, low-frequency transmission crackling from the discarded console of a surveillance drone Kyra had left behind. Kyra's voice was detached, reporting a successful operation, despite the target's escape.
"Target has achieved uncontrolled Rank C. Pure Grief fragment secured and tagged. Sending full diagnostic to Archive Command. Recommend passive tracking only."
Then, a new voice—smooth, resonant, and chillingly intellectual—cut through the static, dominating the frequency. The voice of Senator Arkham.
"Understood, Siphon Kyra. Let him run. We have his core data now, and the trauma of his escalation is precisely what we needed. Riel is not an anomaly to be terminated, Kyra. He is a self-optimizing system. He is The Perfect Siphon Target. Let him exhaust his newfound power on peripheral threats. We will collect him when his guilt becomes too heavy to carry."
The transmission cut out. Riel stood in the dark, his new Residual Scent Rank C skill now registering the overwhelming, residual arrogance and philosophical conviction of Arkham's communication. They didn't just want him dead; they wanted him to become a better source of grief. His fight had just turned ideological, and his upgrade was a planned variable.
Riel was now fully aware of the Mastermind orchestrating his destruction.
Chapter 3: The Archivist's Bait
(ugh... i accidentally put chapter 3 in here. i forgot to sort my notepad)
The utility corridor Riel found himself in smelled not just of metallic ozone and the lingering scent of Siphon activity, but of mildew, stagnant water, ancient, uncleaned industrial grime, and the sharp, coppery tang of leaked coolant—a dark, honest change from the enforced, sterile silence of the upper Plateaus. He leaned heavily against a cold-fusion relay box, the chill of the metal doing little to combat the deeper, colder emptiness where his mother's lullaby used to reside. The deliberate void was terrifyingly effective; his mind was a razor, capable of instant, cold calculation, devoid of any sentimental distraction, but his spirit was stretched thin, brittle, functional only through necessity and the sheer, exhausting force of his will. He was now Rank C: Sleuth, a significant, violently forced jump in power, yet the achievement felt less like a victory and more like a cruel, self-inflicted amputation. He was stronger, faster, and more perceptive, but profoundly, irrevocably less human.
The phantom residue of Senator Arkham's voice—smooth, condescending, and profoundly arrogant—still clung to the air near the discarded drone, an invisible layer of psychic pollution that only his upgraded The Scar could register with agonizing clarity. "The Perfect Siphon Target." The designation was a surgical strike of psychological warfare, designed to frame Riel's desperate struggle not as an act of courageous defiance, but as a fully anticipated, easily quantified variable in Arkham's vast, cold, mathematical design. Arkham hadn't feared his escape; he had counted on it, calculating that the intense trauma and desperate Fatal Recall would yield exceptionally high-quality, stabilized Grief Fragments for the Senate's coffers. The message was clear: Your freedom is a temporary dataset. Riel knew then that simply surviving was a futile effort; he needed to understand the entire, terrifying logic of the game, to break the very code of the Archivist who saw him as nothing more than valuable, consumable data ripe for harvesting.
His new Skill Unik, Residual Scent, was a humming, overwhelming, almost painful presence beneath his temple, an entirely new dimension of perception that drowned out the world's simple visual and auditory inputs. He tested it cautiously, slowly opening his awareness to the corridor's true nature. The corridor wasn't just metal, grime, and pipes; it was a screaming history of forgotten energy and emotional runoff from decades of controlled existence. He could literally 'smell' the faint, panicked relief of a maintenance worker who had almost dropped a heavy tool weeks ago; the residual, deep-seated resentment of a Watcher who despised his routine patrol route; the pungent, chemical scent of synthetic lubricant; and the faint, overly sweet smell of a nutrient bar consumed hours prior. It was a torrential, cacophonous rush of trivial data, overwhelming and bordering on debilitating, but Riel's Sleuth mind began, agonizingly, to find patterns. Within that torrent lay the sharp, focused, distinct trail of the Siphon.
He tracked back meticulously, using the Residual Scent to follow the faint, precise, and highly arrogant geometric trail of the abandoned Siphon drone. He found it wedged behind a stack of damaged memory processors, the faint smell of residual combat protocols still clinging to the metal. The casing was cracked, a small hairline fracture near the power core, but the internal logic board was intact. He knelt, his new Sleuth precision guiding his fingers with almost unnatural speed. He needed the drone's entire log data. He quickly performed a demanding Rank C Echo Recall, pulling the precise memory of the drone's standard maintenance protocol, its encrypted field logs, and the deeply nested decryption key used by Rank A field agents.
Riel's Recall Detail & Analysis (Deep Dive): The memory of an encrypted file transfer protocol, a rapid-fire sequence of binary codes, instantly overlaid with the cold, precise calculation of required data extraction time and the potential security risk of leaving the drone behind. The file structure was overly complex, a symptom of Kyra's confidence. He wasn't just reading the file; for the duration of the recall, he was the drone's high-speed processing unit, capable of running multiple simulations at once, analyzing the efficiency of Kyra's actions. He found the crucial record: the full diagnostic report Kyra sent moments after his escape. The report confirmed that the Fragment Memory of Elara's laugh was successfully tagged, categorized as Rank S Emotional Asset – Volatile, Source: Riel, and immediately routed to The Central Archive, designated officially as Project Chimera-7. Crucially, the report also contained a highly restricted schematic of The Spire's outermost security perimeter, a careless, momentary detail Kyra had left on the drone's temporary cache during the high-stress moment of his unexpected escape. Riel performed a deep-scan analysis on the schematics, memorizing every sensor placement, every blind spot, and the precise moment of Watcher rotation, knowing this data was perishable and would be updated soon. The sheer depth of the information required his Scar to thrum dangerously, but his new Rank C stability held the data in perfect, cold stasis.
The Central Archive was situated in the deepest, most protected sector of The Spire, Arkham's personal domain—an impossible fortress for a mere Rank C Sleuth. Riel knew the schematics alone were useless without a fundamental shift in perception—a way to bypass the human element—the psychological profiling and security screening that would instantly flag a known Remembrancer like him as a source of Chaos. He needed two critical assets: a secure entry method that involved social engineering on a Rank B scale, and a Memory Fragment of incredible disguise or infiltration expertise. This meant only one necessary and extremely dangerous destination: the heart of the underground information network, the illegal Remembrancer Exchange.
He followed a thick Residual Scent trail—the sharp, metallic signature of illegal, untaxed currency, the lingering scent of controlled, transactional aggression, and the deep, rich smell of imported nutrient paste—leading him out of the utility maze and into a dense, heavily policed district of the Plateaus. This area was deceptively quiet, the populace exhibiting the highest degree of Measured Peace—a telltale sign that the presence of Memori Lord informants (The Watchers) was intensely high and subtly pervasive. Riel needed a Fixer who dealt specifically in Rank A and S knowledge fragments, someone utterly reliable and entirely untrustworthy.
He was looking for a contact known only by his codename, "The Cartographer." The Cartographer didn't sell raw combat memories; he sold knowledge—fragments detailing secure routes, social codes, diplomatic expertise, corporate secrets, and the exact weaknesses of the Senate's protocols. Riel found him operating out of a small, dimly lit, nondescript noodle stall near a major transport hub, the only stall in the area without blinding synthetic lighting. The Fixer was a frail-looking man named Pev, his eyes constantly moving, registering every subtle shift in the passing crowd, his hands never quite steady. Pev didn't possess The Scar, but he possessed the highly valued, rare ability to stabilize and store high-rank fragments without degradation—a dangerous talent that made him invaluable to both criminals and, almost certainly, the Senate itself.
"You smell new, Ghost," Pev said immediately, not looking up from his bowl of steaming, pungent nutrient paste. His voice was flat, efficient, cutting through the background noise. "And you smell violently expensive. The aroma of freshly harvested Pure Grief follows you, Riel, intensely mingled with the acrid, metallic scent of a Rank D Echo Recall overdose. You survived a Siphon, and you took a piece of her data. Commendable, if utterly reckless." Pev's directness was jarring, his immediate, accurate assessment unnerving. He was speaking in a transactional code that implied deep knowledge of Riel's recent trauma.
Riel maintained his distance, his newly enforced Sleuth control preventing any visible or palpable emotional response. "I require infiltration expertise, Pev. I need coordinates, a clear path, and a Level A Fragment for deep infiltration. Something that bypasses retinal scans, thermal sensors, and the Senate's psychological profiling at The Spire's inner gates—not just a physical bypass, but a mental one."
Pev set down his utensils with a deliberate, slow clatter, finally meeting Riel's eye with a tired, sharp gaze. "You're asking for a memory that exists only in The Spire's executive core. That's not infiltration, Riel; that's a suicide attempt disguised as a rescue mission. Especially since a Rank A Siphon just spent substantial Senate time trying to harvest your brain and failed. The Senate expects you to run. They do not expect you to climb." He took a slow, deliberate sip of his nutrient paste, holding the eye contact. "The price for such a fragment is commensurate with the risk."
"The Siphon collected something else," Riel replied, his voice a low, steady rumble, tapping the side of his head firmly. "My reason for breathing. The fragment is tagged Chimera-7. I need it back, and that means walking through Arkham's front door, blending into the very air he breathes. Price is not an object. Efficacy is."
Pev sighed, rubbing his forehead with a thin, tired finger. "Very well. Dangerous, but clear motivation. I have something that might get you past the first perimeter without triggering immediate Watcher response. It's a fragment of The Diplomat's Memory." Pev reached beneath his counter, retrieving a small, tightly sealed glass cube, glowing faintly with a subdued, bureaucratic blue light. "This is a fragment of the former Ambassador Kael, a highly trusted Senate official until his quiet, convenient execution for 'data tampering.' It contains the Memory of Perfect Posture, Unquestionable Authority, Complete Vocal Command, and the Innate Certainty of Social Privilege. If you successfully recall it, you won't look like a Remembrancer or a common criminal. You will project the necessary aura of a Rank B executive—someone whose presence is not only expected but absolutely necessary for the functioning of the Senate's logistics."
"What's the price, Pev? Be precise," Riel demanded, ignoring the sheer value of the item.
Pev's smile returned, thin and unnerving. "The price is simple, Riel, and non-monetary. I need you to destroy a specific, obsolete piece of hardware once you're inside the secondary perimeter of The Spire. A small logic module near the main air filtration hub, specifically the Sieve Regulator 47. It's functionally irrelevant to the Senate's grand design, but its continued existence is detrimental to my... business—and the freedom of a few thousand souls on the lower Plateaus who use its vulnerability for illicit memory transfer."
Riel immediately activated his Residual Scent, focusing his Sleuth precision on the glass cube. He 'smelled' the memory: high authority, undeniable presence, and beneath that professional façade, a faint, deep-seated disgust for the Senate's core philosophy. But he also smelled something else—a profound, recent, crippling fear and paralysis attached to the glass cube itself. The residual energy of the fear was sharp, like a sliver of ice, overwhelming the authority.
"The memory is tainted, Pev," Riel challenged, his voice flat, the Sleuth data processing the conflicting scents and the historical data he recalled from the Siphon drone. "Kael's memory contains an infection. What did the Senate do to him before they executed him? You are selling me a memory with a kill-switch."
Pev leaned back further, defeat showing clearly in his eyes. "You are sharper than any Rank C should be, Ghost. The memory is powerful, yes. But Kael committed suicide immediately after the fragment was taken—not from pain, but from philosophical collapse. The Senate spent weeks flooding his mind with the ultimate paradox: That order requires the death of truth. The memory contains Kael's final, fatal doubt about the Senate's legitimacy. If you recall it too long—if you let that doubt integrate fully—you will absorb his paralysis, and you will hesitate—paralyzing yourself with philosophical indecision—at the worst possible moment of the infiltration. It's a deadly, internal fail-safe engineered by Arkham himself."
Riel felt a wave of chilling understanding. This was the Archivist's signature move. Arkham used tainted memories as bait, letting them circulate through the underground to weed out the weak and prove his thesis. Pev wasn't just asking him to destroy a module; Pev was asking Riel to willingly inject a crippling self-destruct sequence into his own mind. It is the Archivist's bait, Riel thought, the realization cold and absolute. A perfect Rank B infiltration memory, deliberately tainted with a paralysis trigger. Arkham wants me to self-sabotage, proving his cynical philosophy that all Remembrancers are fundamentally unstable and doomed by their own emotions.
"I'll take the risk," Riel stated, the words sounding hollow but final. He reached into his satchel. "The price is accepted. But I don't trade in credits, Pev. You need something raw. I need to know the risks involved in acquiring this Pure Rage."
Pev quickly pushed the cube toward Riel. "I trust your word, Ghost. Now, pay me in something I can use. I need a Fragment of Pure Rage—something raw and uncontaminated from The Gloom, not that synthetic fear from up here. Something with lethal, honest momentum that I can use to stabilize my supply. The Gloom is where the Senate dumped its worst trauma; you'll be fighting raw, residual emotion. You need to focus the rage—don't let it consume you, or you'll be lost to the lowest form of chaos."
Riel took the cube, the cold glass a harsh counterpoint to the growing coldness in his heart. He needed to find what Pev demanded—a dark, forgotten, dangerous corner of The Plateaus bordering on The Gloom, where residual memories of ancient, bloody gang fights were heavily concentrated. He was trading his personal safety for lethal social expertise, his morality for a chance at Elara's memory, and his sanity for a chance at infiltration. He turned, his gait already slightly straighter, the inherent, cold authority of the Sleuth beginning to manifest. The scent of ozone was still in the air, but Riel's own scent—the scent of calculated risk and cold, singular purpose—was growing stronger, overshadowing all else. He walked away from Pev and towards the deepest shadows, where the city's true chaos lay.