Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
The black market sits in Ironspine's guts. Three levels down from the ration square, past the checkpoints where guards don't ask questions if you slide them a protein bar. The air smells like rust and burnt wiring. Someone's cooking synthetic meat on a hot plate, and the smoke makes my eyes water.
I shouldn't be here. No food tag means I'm supposed to report to the military barracks by dawn. Steelhook made that clear. But the name Echo Lorne keeps bouncing around my skull, and I can't stop thinking about what Ashmark said. If anyone knows about memory loss, it's the broker.
The market's packed. People crowd around stalls selling scavenged tech, pre-collapse cigarettes, water filters that probably don't work. I keep my head down and my hands in my pockets. Don't look lost. Don't look new.
"First time?"
I turn. A kid, maybe twelve, grins at me. Gap-toothed. Dirt smeared on his cheek.
"No," I lie.
"Sure." He jerks his chin toward a corner stall, half-hidden behind a stack of crates. "You're looking for Echo. Everyone looks like that when they're looking for Echo."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Twenty grams of sand," the kid says. "I'll take you there."
I stare at him. "What?"
"You're sand-spec, right? I can tell. You got that look. Dry skin. Faraway eyes." He holds out his hand. "Twenty grams. I'm not greedy."
I don't know how to pull sand out of my pocket like currency. I don't even know if that's a real thing. But the kid's already walking, weaving through the crowd, and I follow because I don't have a better option.
We stop at a stall that doesn't look like much. Tarps overhead. A folding table covered in junk—old radios, cracked datapads, a pre-collapse wristwatch with no band. Behind the table sits a woman. Mid-thirties, maybe. Short hair, shaved on one side. She's wearing a leather jacket that's seen better decades, and her eyes are the kind of sharp that makes you check your pockets.
"Echo Lorne?" I ask.
She doesn't look up. "Depends who's asking."
The kid tugs my sleeve. "Twenty grams."
"I don't have sand on me," I mutter.
"Then pay me later." He vanishes into the crowd before I can argue.
Echo finally looks at me. Her gaze sweeps from my face to my hands, lingering on the scars along my knuckles. "You're the shelter kid. The one who caved in half of intake processing."
"I didn't mean to."
"No one ever does." She leans back in her chair, arms crossed. "What do you want?"
I hesitate. The market noise presses in—haggling voices, someone laughing, the hiss of steam from a food cart. I don't know how to ask this without sounding insane.
"I heard you deal in information," I say.
"I deal in a lot of things."
"Memory loss. Do you know anything about it?"
Her expression doesn't change, but something flickers in her eyes. Interest, maybe. Or recognition.
"Sand-spec memory loss," she says. Not a question.
I nod.
"It's not cheap."
"I don't have money."
"Then you don't have information." She starts sorting through the junk on her table, dismissing me.
Panic tightens in my chest. I can't lose this. "I can pay you in sand. Or—or work. Whatever you need. I just need to know what's happening to me."
Echo pauses. Picks up a small rectangular case from under the table, brushes dust off the lid. "How much have you lost?"
"I don't know. My mom's face. Parts of the shelter. I keep using my ability, and things just—disappear."
"And you want them back."
"Yes."
She sets the case on the table between us. Opens it. Inside, nestled in foam padding, is a data chip. Pre-collapse tech. The kind that shouldn't still work.
"This," Echo says, "is a memory index. Pre-collapse medical trial. They were testing ability side effects before everything went to hell. Including memory degradation in sand-manipulators."
My mouth goes dry. "How do you have this?"
"I have a lot of things." She taps the chip. "This one came from Underground Shelter 9. Your shelter."
The noise around us fades. I'm staring at the chip, at the faint scratches on its surface, and my hands are shaking.
"How much?" I ask.
Echo smiles. It's not a kind smile. "Everything you know about the shelter collapse. Names. Dates. What really happened down there."
"I don't remember—"
"You remember enough. And if you don't, you'll find out." She closes the case, but leaves it on the table. "I'm not asking for payment now. I'm asking for a partnership. You want your memories back, I want the truth about Shelter 9. We help each other."
I don't trust her. I don't trust anyone in this city. But she's holding the only lead I've got, and she knows it.
"What's on the chip?" I ask.
"Medical records. Test subjects. Including one Kai Ruin, age seven, initial sand-manipulation manifestation." She taps the case again. "Blood type. Intake date. Your mother's death certificate."
The world tilts.
Mom's death certificate.
I don't remember her dying. I know she's gone—that feeling's carved into my bones—but I don't remember when or how or if I was there. Just the empty space where she used to be.
"Let me see it," I say. My voice sounds far away.
Echo slides the case toward me. "Five minutes. Then you decide."
My hands fumble with the clasp. Inside, the chip glints under the market's dim lights. There's a datestamp etched into the corner: 10 years ago. Right before the collapse.
I pick it up. It's warm. That doesn't make sense, but it is.
"You'll need a reader," Echo says, and produces a battered datapad from under the table. "Go ahead."
I slot the chip in. The screen flickers. Lines of text scroll past—medical jargon, test results, names I don't recognize. Then I see it.
Subject: Kai Ruin Age: 7 Blood Type: O-negative Ability: Sand manipulation (Class-B potential) Maternal Guardian: Lira Ruin Status: Deceased—Day 14, Trial Phase 3
Day 14.
I was seven. She died two weeks into some trial I didn't know existed.
The text blurs. I blink hard, force myself to keep reading.
Cause of death: Systemic failure due to prolonged exposure to experimental suppression field. Subject's ability destabilization resulted in—
The rest is corrupted. Just garbled symbols and half-words.
I look up at Echo. "What trial? What suppression field?"
"That's what we're going to find out." She takes the datapad back, ejects the chip, tucks it into her jacket. "Your mom wasn't the only one. There were dozens of test subjects in Shelter 9. Families. Kids. The military was running experiments before the collapse, trying to control high-level abilities. Sand-manipulation was one of them."
"They killed her," I say. My voice is flat.
"They killed a lot of people. Then the storms hit, and everyone pretended it never happened." Echo leans forward. "But the data's still out there. Buried in Ironspire's lower archives. If you want the full records—if you want to know what they did to you and your mom—that's where we go."
I can't breathe right. The market's too loud, too crowded. I want to rip the table apart, bury Echo in sand, make someone pay for the hole in my head where my mother's face should be.
But I don't.
I just ask, "When?"
Echo grins. "Now we're talking. Tomorrow night. I'll get us access to the archives. You bring your ability and don't ask stupid questions. Deal?"
I should say no. I should walk away, report to Steelhook's barracks, do what I'm told. But the chip is right there in her jacket, and I need it more than I need food or sleep or safety.
"Deal," I say.
Echo pulls out a small device—a locator beacon, dull gray metal—and sets it on the table. "Take this. Tomorrow, 2200 hours, it'll ping coordinates. Follow them. Come alone, or the deal's off."
I pocket the beacon. It's heavier than it looks.
"One more thing," Echo says. "Steelhook's going to come looking for you. Military doesn't let sand-specs run free, especially not ones who can collapse buildings. Watch your back."
"I know."
"No, you don't. But you'll learn."
I turn to leave, shouldering through the crowd. My hand closes around the beacon in my pocket, and I can feel it humming. Not vibration. Something else. A pull, faint but insistent, tugging toward the city's lower levels.
I'm halfway to the market exit when the beacon shrieks.
Not sound. A pulse, hot and electric, that punches through my palm and up my arm. I yank it out. The gray metal is glowing now, and a string of coordinates burns across its surface in red light.
Sub-Level 7. Sector Black. 2200 hours.
But underneath that, another line flickers into view. Just for a second.
Origin Point: Shelter 9 Archive, Code Sandstorm.
Then it's gone.
I stare at the beacon. My heart's hammering. Sub-Level 7 is deep. Deeper than the black market, deeper than the residential rings. That's where Ironspire keeps the things it doesn't want found.
Behind me, Echo's voice cuts through the noise. "Kai."
I turn. She's standing now, one hand resting on the table, the other inside her jacket. Where the chip is.
"You saw the second line," she says.
I don't answer.
"Good. That means it's keyed to you. Your biometrics, your ability signature. That archive isn't just about Shelter 9." She pauses. "It's about the Protocol. The reason the storms started. And you're part of it."
She doesn't explain. Just sits back down, picks up a cracked radio, and starts tinkering like I'm not there anymore.
I leave. The beacon's still warm in my hand, and the coordinates are burned into my brain.
Sub-Level 7. Tomorrow night. Answers, or another hole where my past should be.
I don't know which scares me more.