#The Price of Memory
#012
The district didn't sleep after the broadcast.
The city twitched.
Streetlights pulsed in sync with hijacked memories, and Bliss towers blared emergency silence protocols, an oxymoron that only made the chaos louder.
Veyr slammed the bunker's door shut. "Two raids already. Both failed. They're getting desperate."
Eden scrolled through the feed. "They're flagging anyone sharing the stream. EtherNet's purging vids faster than we can repost them."
"Doesn't matter," Asher said. "The people saw. Even if they delete the footage, they can't delete the feeling."
Juno sat with his knees drawn to his chest, pupils flickering like damaged circuitry. His voice was barely a whisper. "They're rewriting me."
Asher knelt down. "What do you mean?"
"I feel it," he muttered. "Someone's erasing pieces of the trades from my head. Trying to make me forget again."
Eden paled. "They've weaponized the Bliss link. They're using it to override Recorders."
Veyr cursed. "They're going for a clean wipe. No witnesses, no proof."
"Not if we move him," Asher said. "Deep sector. No signal, no sync."
"There's no time," Eden said. "Once the wipes start, it's like infection. You lose core memories first."
Juno looked up. "I'm losing her."
"Who?"
"Lira's daughter. The laugh. It's going dark."
Silence gripped the room.
And then Eden whispered, "We need a blocker. Manual. Old tech. Something analog."
Veyr lit up. "I know a place."
He pulled a folded schematic from his jacket—something that looked like a blueprint for a mausoleum.
"Deep storage. Old resistance lab from the Riot Days. No sync tech, no wireless anything. Perfect black zone."
Asher stood. "Then we take Juno there."
But as they stepped outside, the city had already changed.
People weren't just angry. They were divided.
Some had taken to smashing Bliss consoles in public squares. Others marched in defense of the "peace" Bliss had bought them. Fires burned. Propaganda drones spun stories of "terrorists broadcasting trauma."
Worse still, new Bliss units appeared—sleeker, faster, equipped with something Asher hadn't seen before.
"Neural stingers," Veyr hissed. "They don't arrest anymore. They cut memories. Live."
Juno clutched his skull. "One's near."
They ran.
Through alleys, through protest lines, through the neon smoke of a city trying to tear out its own history.
They reached the edge of Deep Storage as a new drone dropped from the sky, blades unfolding like an orchid made of knives.
Veyr turned, drawing two short-range pulse cannons. "Go."
Eden and Asher dragged Juno into the dark.
One more scream echoed behind them, then silence.
Asher didn't look back.
Inside the bunker, time felt old. Rusted switches. Manual locks. Paper maps.
Eden powered up a helmet lined with copper shielding. She placed it on Juno's head. "This'll keep them out. But not for long."
Juno slumped forward, breathing ragged.
Asher looked to Eden. "How do we fight something that can delete truth?"
She didn't answer.
Because somewhere, outside the walls of Deep Storage, Bliss had just activated a new protocol.
Wipe not just the memory. Wipe the mind.