The high-pitched whine of the plasma cutter on the other side of the pressure door was a physical thing, a needle of sound boring into the quiet of the maintenance corridor. Kaelen stood with his back against the cold metal, his breath a ragged cloud in the thin, dusty air. Walter Bell remained perfectly still, a black composite statue whose only sign of life was the steady, unwavering amber glow of his custom optic. The raven Uplift’s head tilted, processing Kaelen’s tactical correction, the shared language of their corporate past a sudden, unwelcome bridge between them.
— Your assessment is… noted, — Walter’s synthesized voice stated after a two-second pause. He turned from the sealed door, his movements economical and silent, and led them deeper into the unlit artery of the station. They moved without a word, the urgency a silent pressure at their backs. The Keeper’s goal was clear: he needed to report, to feed this anomaly into the vast, cold machine of his faction’s bureaucracy.
The comms point was not a room but a niche, a forgotten altar to a dead network carved into the wall of a cavernous conduit hub. A thicket of fiber-optic cables, coated in a fine layer of grey dust, spilled from a junction box. Walter’s thin, multi-jointed hands went to work, his silver-tipped fingers cleaning contacts and rerouting connections with a surgeon’s precision. He was a creature of protocol, and this was the first step. Kaelen watched, his hand resting on the cracked Mnemonic Spool in his pocket, the faint psychic hum of the Ghost-Eater Shunt at his neck a quiet counterpoint to the low thrum of the station’s life support.
Walter established the link. A holographic display shimmered into existence in the cramped space, not of faces, but of three abstract, slowly rotating sigils of pale blue light. The Keeper Synod. Walter’s posture was rigid, his natural raven head held high as he began his report.
— Field report, Archivist Bell, — his voice was flat, stripped of all emotion. — Encounter with unsanctioned ghost data artifact, high energy, confirmed linked to Yama-Mitsui severance event 77B-Ceres. The consciousness is fragmented. Distributed across seven distinct anchors.
He paused, letting the information settle in the sterile, digital space between them and the Ark-Array. Kaelen could feel the weight of the silence.
— The primary fragment identifies the source as Doctor Aris Volkov. The container artifact is in my possession. The human host, Kaelen, is with me. We are under active assault by Yama-Mitsui assets, including an Eraser-class Empath. I request official sanction for field recovery of the remaining six fragments. The data is of critical value.
The central sigil pulsed, and a voice emerged, filtered and disembodied.
— Sanction for field recovery? Archivist, you are reporting an active conflict with a Consensus power. The risk is unacceptable.
Another voice, from the second sigil, chimed in, its tone drier.
— The protocols for engagement with Consensus entities are clear. We observe. We do not intervene. A high-value ghost is a data point, not a justification for systemic destabilization.
Walter stood motionless, his amber optic fixed on the shifting patterns of light. He was a part of this system, a gear in its vast, slow-moving clockwork. He had dedicated his existence to its logic, to the cold, hard truth that balance was more important than any single life, any single truth. But the logic was failing. The drones were real. The plasma cutter had been real. The man beside him, a broken piece of the same machine that was now hunting them, was real.
— The risk of inaction is greater, — Walter stated, his voice unwavering. — Yama-Mitsui is not preserving balance. They are actively suppressing a truth with extreme prejudice. This is not observation. This is a cover-up.
Before the Synod could respond, a fourth sigil bloomed in the holographic display. It was not the pale blue of the Keepers, but a perfect, sterile white circle. The logo of Yama-Mitsui Solutions. A new voice joined the conference, smooth as polished chrome, laced with the effortless authority of absolute power.
— This is Envoy Hasek of Yama-Mitsui Solutions. We have been monitoring this channel. The Keeper Synod is harboring a corporate terrorist and is in possession of a stolen corporate asset.
The Envoy’s voice was a weapon, each word a carefully aimed dart. The Keeper sigils seemed to dim, to shrink before the stark white circle.
— We demand the immediate surrender of the rogue Empath, Kaelen, and the return of our property, — Hasek continued. — Failure to comply will be considered an act of aggression against the Consensus.
The air in the niche grew colder. Kaelen watched the blue sigils flicker, their slow rotation becoming agitated. The voices of the Synod members overlapped, a sudden cascade of bureaucratic panic.
— Envoy, this is a violation of jurisdictional protocols…
— The artifact is ghost data, it falls under our purview…
— We must convene a sub-committee to review the treaty…
They were drowning in their own rules. Walter’s head tilted, the organic, bird-like gesture a stark contrast to the rigid geometry of the display. He saw them not as a council, but as a flock of startled birds, chattering uselessly as a predator entered their midst. They would debate protocol and precedent while Julian Valerius carved a path through the station to finish his work. They would archive the event after the fact, a perfect record of their own failure. The system was a snake eating its own tail.
He thought of the maintenance shaft, of Kaelen’s clipped, instinctual correction: “Negative. Sub-three is a structural kill-zone.” A man running for his life had shown more tactical clarity than the entire ruling body of the Keepers. The protocol was not a shield; it was a cage. It was a form of erasure all its own, burying truth under endless layers of procedure. The price of their inaction was not just time; it was the very truth they claimed to preserve.
— They will debate until the system resets, — Walter said, his synthesized voice so low it was almost a whisper. It was not for the Synod. It was for Kaelen. It was for himself.
He had spent his life in service to a perfect, logical system. Now, he saw the fatal flaw. The system could not account for an enemy that did not play by its rules. It could only react, and by then, it was always too late. His faith in the protocol, a thing as fundamental to his being as his own code, fractured.
With a single, decisive movement, Walter reached out a slender, black finger and severed the connection.
The holographic sigils vanished. The voices of the Synod and the Yama-Mitsui Envoy died, plunging the dusty niche into a profound silence. All that remained was the low hum of the station and the quiet, steady thrum of the Ghost-Eater Shunt on Kaelen’s neck. It was no longer an anomaly to be cataloged. It was a tool. It was the map.
Walter turned to face Kaelen. The amber glow of his optic was steady, its light seeming to burn a little brighter in the sudden dark. He had made a choice. He had cut himself off from his own kind, trading his standing and his sanction for a single, desperate chance at the truth.
— The protocol is flawed, — Walter stated. It was the gravest admission a Keeper could make, a heresy spoken into the quiet dark. — We move on our own.
The hostile alliance was over. This was something else. A partnership. Two broken pieces of two different systems, rogue and unsanctioned, with only a ghost’s scattered memory to guide them.
The silence stretched, thick and heavy. The hunt was no longer just Kaelen’s.
Now they were both ghosts, and they had to find the next fragment before they were erased for good
