Chapter 10 · The Platform That Isn’t There

The maintenance door slammed shut behind them, and the countdown started again.

Nine red numbers flashed across the tunnel wall.

9.

Nora’s fingers locked around Seren’s wrist. Her grip was cold and hard enough to hurt.

“Don’t let me die again,” Nora said.

Seren looked at her. “You’re not dead.”

“My chip says I am.”

A second number appeared beneath the first.

8.

Ian stumbled against the tunnel rail. His coat was dark with blood, and one hand pressed against the wound under his ribs. The emotional box inside him had started humming again. Seren could hear it through the metal casing strapped to his chest.

“Move,” he said.

“That’s your big plan?” Seren snapped. “Move?”

“Usually works better than standing near the thing counting down.”

A white beam cut through the tunnel behind them.

Then another.

Memory police.

Their helmets had no eyes. Just smooth black glass, each visor showing a different face from the city’s public archive. Mayor Halden. A dead child. Seren herself, smiling in a recording she didn’t remember making.

“Seren Vale,” one of them called. The voice came through the walls, clean and flat. “Drop the weapon. Release the compromised civilian. Submit to memory inspection.”