The rain in Mnemos didn't wash the city clean; it just made the grime slicker.
Lyric Veyne huddled beneath the rusted overhang of a ventilation shaft, knees pulled tight to their chest. The air smelled of wet ash and ozone. In the distance, the neon glow of the upper city stained the low clouds a bruised purple, but down here in the industrial sector, the only light came from flickering sodium lamps that buzzed like dying insects.
Lyric's hand trembled as it pulled the polaroid from the inner pocket of the canvas coat.
It was the only thing the masked figure had left behind.
The image was grainy, a relic of a time before holographic captures. It showed Lyric—younger, maybe by a year or two—standing on a rooftop. Lyric was smiling. It was a genuine smile, the kind that reached the eyes, crinkling the corners.
But Lyric wasn't looking at the camera. They were looking at the person beside them.
Or rather, the void beside them.
Where a person should have been, the photo was burned. A jagged, white chemical scar tore through the emulsion, erasing the silhouette completely.
"The first thing you erased," the masked figure had said.
Lyric stared at the white scar, willing a spark of recognition to jump the gap. Who were you?
A friend? A sibling? A lover?
Lyric closed their eyes, searching the library of their mind. But the shelves were empty. There was no ghost of a feeling, no phantom limb syndrome of the heart. Just a cold, clinical silence.
If Lyric had erased this person, then Lyric had forgotten them, too. That was the rule. That was the curse. To remove a pain from the world was to remove the memory of why it hurt in the first place.
A sharp cramp in Lyric's stomach broke the trance. Hunger. It was a physical, gnawing ache that grounded them in the present.
"Right," Lyric rasped, voice rough from the damp air. "Starving. Freezing. Hunted."
They tucked the photo back into the pocket, keeping it close to the strange silver pendant. The pendant felt heavy, a solid anchor against the floating sensation of amnesia.
Lyric stood up. The boots they wore were sturdy but scuffed, slipping slightly on the oily cobblestones. They needed food. And in Mnemos, if you didn't have memories to sell, you had to scavenge.
Lyric moved deeper into the industrial district, following the flow of runoff water. The architecture here was skeletal—massive ribs of iron jutting out of brickwork, pipes hissing steam that smelled of sulfur.
Eventually, the silence gave way to a low, chaotic thrum.
The Slag Market.
It was a shantytown built into the hollowed-out carcass of a massive, pre-war factory. Tents made of refractive tarp were strung up between hydraulic presses. Barrels burned with green chemical fires.
Lyric pulled the collar of the coat up, hiding their face. The crowd here was different from the polished, memory-drunk elites of the upper city. These people looked jagged.
A woman with wires trailing from her scalp sat on a crate, rocking back and forth. "Blue sky," she muttered. "I just need five minutes of blue sky. Who's holding? Who's holding?"
A vendor was selling grilled skewers of meat that looked suspiciously like rat. Lyric's mouth watered, but they had no credits. No 'Mnems'.
"Fresh guilt!" a hawker shouted, waving a glowing red vial. "Harvested this morning! committed a crime? Need to feel bad about it to pass a psych eval? heavy guilt, going cheap!"
Lyric kept walking, eyes darting. The rule was simple: Don't touch anyone.
"Yo! Canvas!"
The voice was sharp, cutting through the noise.
Lyric froze, then turned slowly.
Sitting on top of a pile of decommissioned server racks was a teenager. He couldn't have been older than sixteen, wearing a vest covered in circuit boards and goggles pushed up into a mop of greasy hair. He was chewing on a plastic stick.
"Talking to me?" Lyric asked.
"You see anyone else wearing real organic canvas in this dump?" The kid slid down the rack, landing with a splash in a puddle. He moved with a jittery, nervous energy. "That's a nice coat. Pre-Synthesis. antique. Worth a few solid hours of 'First Love' or maybe a week of 'Summer Vacation'."
"It's not for sale," Lyric said, stepping back.
The kid tilted his head, eyes narrowing. "You ain't from around here. You walk quiet. And you got no Aura."
Lyric tensed. "What do you mean, no Aura?"
"You're dim, boss," the kid said, tapping his own temple. "Everyone leaks a little memory. It's the static. You? You're like a black hole. You a Hollow?"
"I don't know what that is," Lyric admitted.
The kid spat out the plastic stick. "Dangerous, is what it is. Guild Enforcers sweep the Slags for Hollows. They say people without memories are unpredictable. Liability to the economy." He stepped closer, eyeing Lyric's pockets. "Name's Rook. I deal in hard goods. You look like you need a meal ticket."
Lyric hesitated. This kid, Rook, was observant. Dangerous. but Lyric was desperate.
"I need information," Lyric said. "And food."
Rook grinned, revealing a chipped tooth. "Food I got. Info costs extra. Come on. Don't let the patrols see you standing there looking like a glitches NPC."
Rook led Lyric through a maze of hanging tarps to a secluded alcove behind a generator. He produced a nutrient bar wrapped in foil and tossed it.
Lyric caught it—carefully, ensuring their fingers didn't brush Rook's hand—and tore it open. It tasted like sawdust and sweetener, but it was the best thing Lyric had ever eaten.
"So," Rook said, leaning against the humming generator. "You wake up in a gutter? Amnesia scrub? Debt wipe?"
"Something like that," Lyric mumbled, swallowing. "I woke up in an alley. I don't remember anything before today."
"Classic," Rook said. "Usually means you pissed off a Memory Broker. They took your history as payment."
"I have this," Lyric said. They hesitated, then pulled out the silver pendant. They didn't show the photo—that felt too personal, too volatile.
Rook leaned in, squinting. He reached out to touch it.
"Don't!" Lyric snapped, jerking the pendant back.
Rook flinched. "Whoa. Touchy. What, is it cursed?"
"I… I don't know," Lyric lied. "I just don't like people touching my things."
Rook shrugged. "Suit yourself. But silver like that? That's 'Old World'. Before the extraction tech. That thing doesn't hold memories, does it? It resists them."
Lyric looked at the tarnished metal. It resists. That explained why it hadn't disappeared when Lyric held it.
"Listen," Rook whispered, his tone shifting. "If you're a Hollow with Old World tech, you need to get underground. The Guilds—"
A siren wailed.
It wasn't the distant police siren of the upper city. This was a low, mechanical bass note that vibrated in the teeth. The noise cut through the chatter of the market instantly. Silence fell over the Slags like a heavy blanket.
Rook's face went pale. "Scrubber Drone."
"What?"
"Hide," Rook hissed. "Now."
He grabbed a tarp and threw it over a stack of crates, gesturing for Lyric to dive behind it. Lyric scrambled into the dark gap, heart hammering. Rook squeezed in beside them.
"Stay quiet," Rook breathed. "If they scan you and find a blank spot, they incinerate first and autopsy later."
Through the mesh of the crates, Lyric watched the market square.
A drone descended from the gloom. It was massive, shaped like a floating coffin, suspended by whirring turbines. A searchlight swept over the tents. The beam was a harsh, invasive violet.
It hovered over the kebab vendor. The light turned red.
"Violation detected," the drone's voice boomed—a recorded, pleasant female voice that made the threat worse. "Unlicensed memory trade detected. Contraband Grade C."
A beam of light shot out, hitting the vendor's cart. There was no explosion. The cart simply… unraveled. The wood, the meat, the metal—it turned into gray dust and blew away.
"Entropy beam," Rook whispered, trembling. "Accelerates decay. Nasty way to go."
The drone rotated. The violet eye swept across the crowd. It moved toward their hiding spot.
"It's tracking the static," Rook whispered. "It's looking for illegal trades."
Lyric felt a cold sweat on their neck. I don't have static. I have nothing.
The light hit the crates.
It paused.
The drone drifted lower. The turbine wash blew dust into Lyric's eyes.
"Anomaly," the drone chirped. "Zero-point memory reading detected. Possible system error. Initiating tactile scan."
A mechanical arm unfolded from the drone's underbelly. It ended in a grasping claw, glowing with heat. It reached for the crates. It was going to tear their cover apart.
Rook was frozen with fear.
Lyric looked at the claw. Then at Rook. Then at their own hands.
If I do nothing, it kills us.
If I touch it…
Lyric took a breath. The claw ripped the tarp away. The violet light blinded them.
"Target acquired," the drone said.
Lyric didn't wait. They lunged forward, not away from the machine, but at it.
"Don't!" Rook screamed.
Lyric's right hand slammed onto the cold, sleek metal of the drone's chassis.
Erasure.
It wasn't like the rat. The rat had been small, a tiny flickering candle of existence. The drone was a complex web of matter, code, and purpose.
Lyric felt a massive, rushing drain—like a dam breaking inside their chest. The sensation of taking flooded their arm.
The drone didn't explode. It didn't fall.
It just ceased.
One millisecond, there was a heavy, whirring death machine pressing down on them.
The next, Lyric was falling forward, hand passing through empty air, landing hard on the muddy ground.
Silence.
The wind howled through the gap where the drone had been. The violet light was gone. The noise was gone.
Lyric lay in the mud, gasping, staring at the empty space above.
I erased it.
But then, the backlash hit.
Lyric blinked. The mud was cold. Why were they on the ground?
Lyric pushed up, looking around frantically. "Where…?"
Rook was staring at Lyric, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. He looked terrified.
"Where did it go?" Rook whispered.
"Where did what go?" Lyric asked, wiping mud from their cheek. "Why are we hiding?"
Rook scrambled backward, kicking his heels against the dirt until he hit the generator. "The drone! The Scrubber! You just… you touched it and it was gone!"
Lyric frowned. "Drone?"
Lyric searched their mind. They remembered the siren. They remembered hiding behind the crates. They remembered the fear.
But they couldn't remember a drone. They couldn't picture it. They couldn't remember the sound of its voice or the color of its light.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Lyric said. The headache was back, pounding behind the eyes—the hollow space growing larger.
"You deleted it," Rook breathed, his voice trembling. "You didn't just break it. You made it so it never was."
Rook looked at the space where the machine had been, then back at Lyric. The fear in the kid's eyes was shifting into something else. Awe. Calculation.
"You're not a Hollow," Rook said softly. "You're a Void."
Lyric looked at their hand. It was clean. No oil, no scratches. As if the machine had never touched them.
"I need to leave," Lyric said, standing up on shaky legs. "If people saw…"
"Saw what?" Rook said, a hysterical laugh bubbling up. "Nobody saw anything, man! That's the point! If you erased it, their brains are trying to fill in the gap right now. Look!"
Lyric looked at the market.
The people who had been cowering were standing up, looking confused. They were rubbing their heads, looking at the sky, then shrugging and going back to their business. They remembered being scared, but they couldn't remember why, so they dismissed it.
"They forgot," Lyric whispered.
"This is big," Rook muttered, scrambling up. "This is… listen, Veyne. You can't just walk around. If the Guilds realize a Scrubber went offline and nobody remembers it? They'll send a hunter. A real one."
"I need a place to sleep," Lyric said, the exhaustion suddenly overwhelming. Using the power on something that size had drained them.
"I got a spot," Rook said. "Underground. Shielded. But you gotta promise me something."
"What?"
Rook pointed a grimy finger at Lyric's hand. "You keep those hands in your pockets. You don't touch me. You don't touch my stuff. You don't touch anything unless I say so. Deal?"
Lyric nodded. "Deal."
Rook's "spot" was a maintenance hatch leading into the sub-sewers, converted into a small bunker. It was filled with junk—broken clocks, stacks of old books, piles of gears.
Lyric sat on a mattress made of foam packing peanuts. The air here was stale but warm.
"Rest," Rook said, busying himself with a radio scanner in the corner. "I gotta listen to the chatter. See if anyone noticed the… the event."
Lyric leaned back against the concrete wall. They pulled the coat tight.
The pocket felt lighter.
Lyric froze. They reached into the inner pocket.
The pendant was there. Cold and reassuring.
But the photo.
Lyric's fingers scrabbled in the fabric. Empty.
"Rook," Lyric said, panic rising. "Did I drop something? A picture?"
Rook looked back. "Didn't see nothing. You fell in the mud, though. Might be out there."
"I have to go back," Lyric said, trying to stand.
"You can't!" Rook snapped. "Patrols are swarming that sector now. You go back, you die."
Lyric sank back down, defeated.
The photo was gone. The only link to the past. The only clue to the silhouette Lyric had erased.
Wait.
Lyric closed their eyes. They tried to summon the image of the photo. The white scar. The smile.
It was blurry. Fading.
Without the physical object to anchor the memory, the details were already slipping away. Lyric could remember having a photo, but could they remember the face of the person next to the scar? No. That was already gone.
But what about the smile?
Lyric concentrated. Hold on to it.
"Rook," Lyric said softly. "Who runs the memory trade? The people who erase debts?"
"The Guild of Silents," Rook said, tuning a dial. "Why?"
"Because," Lyric said, staring at the ceiling. "I think I was one of them."
Rook stopped turning the dial. The static on the radio hissed, sounding like heavy rain.
"If you were a Silent," Rook said slowly, "then you're not being hunted because you're a glitch, Veyne."
Rook turned to look at Lyric, his face grim in the low light.
"You're being hunted because you're a traitor."