VANE
The alley reeked of stale oil and desperation. We landed hard, the impact jarring my teeth. My leg screamed in protest, but the pain wasn't just physical. It was laced with a strange, metallic tang.
The taste of cheap adrenaline.
I looked at Vora. She landed like a cat, her silver coat barely ruffled. "You could have warned me about the jump," I gasped, trying to catch my breath. The golden vine on my chest pulsed, mimicking my frantic heartbeat.
"No time," she said, already moving. "Miller will have the Syndicate's Hounds on us in minutes. They can smell suppressed data from a mile away."
"The Hounds?"
"Genetically engineered Smellers. Faster, stronger, and no ethics. Think of them as the blunt instrument of the Morality Police."
We ran. We twisted through a maze of narrow alleyways, past overflowing trash compactors and dark windows. Every shadow felt like a waiting trap. Every distant siren felt like it was calling for me.
The city was a blur of gray buildings and flickering neon. Limania never truly sleeps. It just recharges its numbness.
As we ran, the tattoos on my chest began to itch. Not just the purple hands, but the new golden key. It felt like tiny, invisible needles pricking my skin. And with the itch came the whispers.
The key... it unlocks... the vault...
"What did that mean?" I mumbled, stumbling over a loose grate.
"What are you talking about?" Vora asked, glancing back at me.
"The key," I explained, struggling to keep up. "The tattoo. It's whispering."
Vora stopped dead. She grabbed my arm, her grip surprisingly strong. Her amber eyes were wide, not with fear, but with a strange, avid hunger. "It's speaking to you? What is it saying?"
"Something about a vault... and unlocking it," I said, trying to pull away. The whispers were getting louder now, a frantic chorus in my head.
The vault... the truth... the pain...
"The Vault of Whispers," Vora breathed, almost to herself. "They're real."
"What's real?"
"The rumors," she said, her voice barely audible. "The old stories the Smellers used to tell each other around the fire, before the Syndicate made us forget. They say the Sculptors didn't just 'redistribute' our senses. They stored them. All of them. In a central location. An Archive. A vault."
"Why?"
"To keep us numb," she said, her eyes burning into mine. "To keep us pliant. If people could feel their own joy, their own anger, their own grief... they would tear this city apart. They would demand their memories back."
"And the key?" I asked, pointing to my chest. The golden key tattoo was now glowing bright enough to be seen through my shirt.
Vora's gaze dropped to my chest, and a shiver ran through her. "That's what I came for, Vane. I knew you would be different. I knew you would be the one. The Kents… they were just the trigger."
"The Kents? What do they have to do with this?"
"They were the first to use a 'Special Conduit' for their sessions," Vora explained. "A new, experimental Proxy from the Syndicate. Not me. Not you. Someone else. Someone who was supposed to be perfectly empty. The Syndicate was testing a new way to 'drain' sensations, to make sure nothing was ever left behind. But they didn't count on you."
"Me? What did I do?"
"You cleaned up their mess, didn't you?" Vora's eyes narrowed. "That night you picked up a puddle on 4th Street... the one with the gold ring. You absorbed a residual charge from that conduit. A spark. You connected with a ghost. And that ghost woke you up."
My mind flashed back to the previous night, to the cold, gold ring in the puddle, to the man in the mirror suit. He had said, You just need to look closer.
"He wasn't a ghost," I whispered. "He was real. He told me to look in the mirror."
"He was the first failed experiment," Vora said, her voice hard. "The very first 'Special Conduit.' He started storing the data. He became the first human Archive. They tried to 'recalibrate' him, but he escaped. They melted him. Or so they thought. But his 'ghost'—his residual sensory data—lingered. It entered the ring. And then, it entered you."
"So the ring... it's a piece of him?"
"More than that. It's a piece of the Vault. A living key. You just swallowed it, Vane."
My stomach clenched. The golden key on my chest pulsed faster, and a new wave of voices surged into my head. It wasn't just the Kents now. It was a cacophony of thousands.
The taste of fresh rain.The warmth of a child's hand.The sharp sting of betrayal.
I fell to my knees, clutching my head. The alley spun. It was too much. Too many emotions. Too many lives.
"Stop it!" I screamed. "Make it stop!"
Vora knelt beside me. She didn't look scared. She looked... hungry. "You have to control it, Vane. If you don't, it will consume you. It will make you melt."
"How?"
"You have to choose," she said, her voice surprisingly gentle. "You have to choose which memory to keep. Which emotion to hold onto. You have to learn to be a filter, not just a sponge."
Suddenly, the ground vibrated. A low, guttural growl echoed through the alley.
"The Hounds," Vora said, pulling me to my feet. "They're here."
Two massive, hulking figures emerged from the shadows at the end of the alley. They weren't quite human. Their skin was covered in a network of glowing blue veins, and their eyes pulsed with an unnerving, animalistic light. Their sense of smell was legendary.
"They found your scent," Vora said. "The stored emotions. They're attracted to raw data like sharks to blood."
"What do we do?" I whispered, my voice trembling. My legs felt like jelly. Not melting jelly, but fear-jelly.
Vora grinned. It wasn't a kind smile. It was the smile of a predator. "We fight. And then, we unlock the Vault."
She pulled a small, silver device from her coat. It wasn't a gun. It looked like a tuning fork. She aimed it at the approaching Hounds and activated it.
A high-pitched, piercing whine filled the air. It wasn't a sound I could hear with my ears. It was a sound I felt in my bones.
The Hounds stopped. They whimpered. Their glowing blue veins flickered erratically.
"What did you do?" I asked, covering my ears.
"The Hounds are trained to amplify emotions," Vora explained. "I just amplified their own fear. They can't handle pure, unadulterated terror. It melts their minds."
The Hounds turned on each other, snarling and clawing, their bodies convulsing. It was a terrifying, grotesque sight.
"Come on," Vora said, pulling me away from the chaos. "We have to go deeper underground. To the Undercity. That's where the oldest rumors are. And the oldest secrets."
We descended into a dark, grimy stairwell. The air immediately grew colder, heavier, smelling of damp earth and forgotten things.
"Vora," I said, my voice barely audible in the darkness. "Why are you helping me? Why are you risking your life for a Proxy?"
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, her back to me. Her silver coat seemed to absorb the last vestiges of light.
"Because," she said, her voice hushed, "I want to feel it too. I want to feel what you're feeling. The pure, unadulterated joy. The raw, unfiltered pain. The love that the Sculptors stole. I want it all, Vane. And you're the only one who can give it to me."
She turned around, and her eyes were not just hungry. They were desperate.
"You're not just a key, Vane. You're a bomb. And I want to be there when you explode."
And for the first time, I wasn't just afraid for myself. I was afraid of her.