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The woman on the screen had Seren’s face.
Same scar under the left eyebrow. Same split in the lower lip. Same tired eyes that never quite matched in a mirror.
The recording version of her stood beneath the civic dome with a pistol in one hand and the blood-marked detonator in the other.
She looked straight into the camera.
“If you’re seeing this, don’t let Ian Mercer live past midnight.”
The screen went black.
Nobody moved.
The old market’s dead lights buzzed overhead. Somewhere behind the stacked crates, a pipe coughed and spat brown water onto the concrete.
Seren kept the mayor’s silver access card pressed between two fingers. Her other hand held the pistol she’d taken from Nora’s drawer.
She pointed it at the screen anyway.
“Play it again.”
Nora didn’t touch the controls. “You saw it.”
“I said play it again.”
“Seren—”
“Again.”
Nora’s mouth tightened. She reached for the black memory unit.
Ian caught her wrist.
“Don’t,” he said.
His voice had gone thin. Not weak. Scared.
That got Seren’s attention faster than the recording had.
She looked at him. Blood had dried beneath his nose and along the rim of one ear. His shirt was torn at the shoulder. He kept one hand against the wall like the market floor might drop out from under him.
“You’ve seen it before,” Seren said.
Ian didn’t answer.
The detonator in her palm gave a sharp electronic chirp.
3:41.
The red numbers crawled down.
Nora pulled her wrist free. “We don’t have time for your trust issues.”
“Funny,” Seren said. “You sold me a memory that says I’m a murderer.”
“I sold you a memory that says you’re going to murder him.”
“Big difference?”
“For my business, yes.”
Ian pushed away from the wall. His knees almost buckled. Seren caught his elbow before he hit the counter.
He flinched at her touch.
That hurt more than it should have.
“You think I did it,” she said.
“I think the recording is real.”
The words landed hard. No softening. No careful lie.
Seren let go of him.
“Real doesn’t mean true.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound like you know.”
“I watched you kill me.”
The market went quiet in a way dead places never did. Even the dripping pipe seemed to pause.
Nora stared at him. “You said she killed you in the ninth loop. You didn’t say you watched it.”
“I didn’t think that detail would make her trust me more.”
Seren’s fingers closed around the detonator.
“Tell me exactly what you saw.”
Ian looked at the black screen. His reflection stared back at him, pale and broken.
“You were in the control room under the dome. The city system had locked every exit. I was on my knees.”
“Why?”
“Because you shot me first.”
Her stomach turned.
“Where?”
“Here.” He touched the right side of his chest. “The bullet missed my heart. You were angry about that.”
Nora swore under her breath.
Ian kept going. “You said I had one chance to tell you where your mother was. I told you. You didn’t believe me.”
Seren’s pulse kicked against her throat.
“My mother is dead.”
“That’s what they wanted you to remember.”
“Don’t.”
“You asked.”
“I asked what you saw. Not for another speech.”
“You held the detonator against my neck,” Ian said. “You told me the city would forget me before my body hit the floor. Then you pressed the trigger.”
Seren looked down at the device.
The red numbers changed.
3:08.
The casing was sticky under her thumb. Blood had dried in the grooves. Her blood, probably. Or someone else’s. She couldn’t remember picking it up. She couldn’t remember the first time she’d seen it.
That was the problem with the missing minutes. They left holes just big enough for anything to fit inside.
A hard metallic clack came from the far end of the market.
Nora spun toward the entrance.
Three figures stepped through the hanging plastic strips.
They wore gray civic jackets, no insignia, no faces on the ID plates. Thin bands of blue light ran along their collars and wrists.
Memory guards.
The first one raised a compact rifle.
“By order of the Civic Memory System,” he called, “Ian Mercer is to be placed under protective seizure.”
Ian’s hand found Seren’s sleeve.
“Run.”
The rifle fired.
The round punched through the metal counter where his head had been a second earlier. Seren dragged him down and kicked the counter’s support leg. The whole slab tipped forward, dumping old glass jars across the floor.
The guards advanced over the crash.
Nora grabbed a knife from beneath her coat and threw it. It buried itself in the first guard’s wrist.
He looked at the blade.
Then he pulled it free.
No blood came out.
“Great,” Nora muttered. “They’re printed.”
The guard swung his rifle toward her.
Seren fired twice.
The first shot hit his shoulder. The second took his knee apart. He dropped, but his hand still clawed for the trigger.
Ian stepped in front of Seren.
“Move!” she shouted.
“I’m trying.”
The second guard slammed into him.
Ian hit the floor hard enough to lose his breath. The guard grabbed his collar and hauled him backward. Blue light flashed across Ian’s face.
His pupils went wide.
“Stop!” Seren fired again.
The bullet struck the guard’s temple. His head snapped sideways, but he didn’t release Ian.
Nora came in from behind and drove the knife into the base of his neck. This time, black fluid sprayed over the concrete.
The guard let go.
Ian rolled away, coughing.
The third guard didn’t shoot.
He stood near the market entrance with one hand lifted, fingers spread.
A pale grid appeared in the air.
Seren felt it touch the back of her skull.
Her vision split.
The market became three markets. Nora stood in three places. Ian had three faces, all looking at her with different expressions.
The guard’s voice came from everywhere.
“Identity conflict detected. Memory signature unstable.”
Seren shoved both palms against her temples.
“Get out of my head.”
“Ian,” Nora said. “Get her moving.”
Ian grabbed Seren around the waist.
She almost shot him.
Then she saw the blood beneath his nose and remembered the way he had caught Nora’s wrist. Not to stop the recording. To stop her from seeing it again.
He was afraid of the video.
That didn’t make him innocent.
It made him afraid.
Sometimes that was more useful.
She slammed her elbow into the guard’s ribs. The grid flickered. Ian shoved a crate into the guard’s legs, and the man stumbled into a rusted display rack.
Nora kicked open a service door behind the counter.
“Down there!”
“Where does it go?” Seren asked.
“Somewhere the guards hate.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
They ran.
The service tunnel smelled like wet concrete, old oil, and the sharp copper stink of blood. Seren stayed behind Ian, firing over her shoulder as the guards recovered.
One shot.
Two.
The third clicked empty.
She tossed the pistol aside.
Behind them, the guard shouted, “The tidal metro will seal in two minutes!”
Nora didn’t slow down.
“Why are they taking him?” Seren asked.
“Because the system says he’s dangerous.”
“What did he do?”
“Ask him.”
“I am asking him.”
Ian stumbled. Seren caught him by the back of his shirt and shoved him forward.
“Keep your feet.”
“I’m doing my best.”
“You have a terrible best.”
“I’ve been shot twice tonight.”
“So have I.”
“Three times, actually.”
She glanced at him. “You count them?”
“I remember all of them.”
There it was again.
That impossible claim.
Nine loops. Nine deaths. Every reset burned something out of her. Ian said he remembered all of it.
Maybe that was why he looked at her like she was a stranger wearing a familiar face.
Maybe he was the only one who knew what she’d done.
A siren started above them.
The tunnel lights snapped from yellow to red.
A steel shutter began dropping at the far end.
Nora swore. “Faster.”
They reached the shutter with less than a meter of clearance. Nora slid under first. Ian followed, but his shoulder caught the bottom edge.
Seren grabbed him and pulled.
The steel door slammed down behind them.
Something hit the other side a second later.
Then another impact.
The guards had reached the tunnel.
Nora leaned against the wall, breathing through her teeth. “Metro platform is two levels down.”
Seren looked at the detonator.
1:26.
“Can we get out of the lock zone?”
“If the trains are still running.”
“And if they aren’t?”
“Then we die here.”
Ian wiped blood from his mouth. “The trains are running.”
Nora stared at him. “How do you know?”
“I watched them stop in the ninth loop.”
“Of course you did.”
They found the stairs and went down fast. Seren’s injured leg burned with every step. Her memory pulsed behind her eyes, throwing up scraps that didn’t belong together.
A woman laughing in a kitchen.
A silver card on a dead man’s tongue.
Ian kneeling beneath the dome.
Her own hand tightening around a pistol.
She missed a step.
Ian caught her.
For half a second, his arm locked around her waist. His breath brushed her ear.
“Don’t look at the flashes,” he said.
“What?”
“They’re bait.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I made some of them.”
Seren stopped on the stairs.
Nora turned below them. “Not now.”
“No,” Seren said. “Now.”
The detonator chirped.
0:58.
Ian looked at Seren. There was no room left for that gentle, careful expression he liked to wear. Fear showed through every crack.
“I altered the city’s memory filters,” he said. “I helped build the system that keeps rewriting what people remember.”
Seren’s hand went to his throat.
He didn’t fight her.
“You built this?”
“Not all of it.”
“You helped.”
“Yes.”
“Did you erase my mother?”
His jaw tightened.
“Did you erase her?”
“I tried to stop them.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Ian,” Nora snapped. “The train.”
Seren shoved him against the stairwell wall.
“Answer me.”
He stared at her, breathing hard.
“Yes,” he said. “I signed the order.”
The words didn’t sound real.
Seren’s grip loosened.
Ian caught her hand before it fell away.
“But I didn’t know they were going to delete her,” he said. “I thought they were hiding her. I thought I could bring her back.”
“You thought.”
“I was wrong.”
A deep vibration rolled through the stairs.
The tidal metro was moving below them.
Nora grabbed Seren’s shoulder and pulled her down the last few steps. “Save the family drama for after we don’t explode.”
They burst onto the platform.
The train doors were already closing.
Nora threw herself through first. Ian followed, barely catching the edge with his fingers.
Seren reached for him.
The detonator lit up.
Not red this time.
White.
Every display on the platform went dark.
The train froze with its doors half shut.
A new line of text appeared across the detonator’s tiny screen.
HIDDEN COMMAND ACCEPTED.
Seren’s breath stopped.
The next line typed itself, one letter at a time.
KILL NORA FIRST.
Nora saw it over her shoulder.
Her face changed.
Ian looked from the screen to Nora.
Then the train doors opened again.
And somewhere inside the black tunnel, a woman with Seren’s voice whispered, “You’re late.”