The bar was a cave carved out of smoke and quiet desperation. It smelled of stale beer, wet wool, and the kind of cheap perfume that promised more than it could deliver. A saxophone wept from a hidden speaker, a sad, lonely sound that fit the mood of the city. I pushed through the door, leaving the rain-slicked Viennese street behind. The chill from the alley job clung to my bones, a deep, internal cold that no coat could touch. I needed whiskey.
I took a booth in the back, where the shadows were thickest. The red neon from the window painted a bloody slash across the table. A television was mounted above the bar, playing a silent film reel of smiling politicians shaking hands. Lies for the masses, flickering in black and white. The bartender, a man with a face like a worn-out roadmap, brought a glass and a bottle without being asked. I poured a heavy measure. The first sip was a familiar fire, a welcome jolt that pushed back against the cold for a moment. The low chatter of the other patrons was a steady, meaningless hum. It was a good place to disappear.
My moment of peace lasted less than a minute. A man slid into my booth, moving with the jerky, panicked energy of a cornered rat. He was KGB, a low-level courier I’d used before, a man named Sasha who usually had the courage of a lion tamer. Tonight, he looked like he’d seen a ghost and tried to outrun it. His face was the color of old parchment, his eyes wide and darting. A tremor of pure terror ran through his hands. He was a man running on the ragged edge of his sanity.
He didn’t speak. He just stared at me, his breath coming in shallow, ragged bursts. His fear was a physical thing in the small space of the booth, a sour, metallic smell that cut through the smoke. He was a walking testament to a world gone wrong, a man whose fear level was so high it was practically a broadcast. He fumbled inside his coat, his hand shaking so badly it took him two tries to pull out a folded piece of paper.
He pushed it across the table. The paper was damp, cold to the touch. I unfolded it. It was a schematic, or a fragment of one. A complex diagram of interlocking spheres and wave emitters, drawn with a precise, technical hand. The notations were in Russian, words I understood but a context that felt alien. It looked less like a weapon and more like a diagram of a nightmare. I looked up from the paper and met the courier’s terrified gaze.
— They made a thing, — he whispered, his voice a dry rasp, barely audible over the sad saxophone. He leaned closer, his eyes fixed on the silent television over the bar. — It doesn't just cut. It replaces.
I kept my face a mask of indifference, but a new kind of cold, one that had nothing to do with my work in the alley, began to creep up my spine. This was new. The war I fought was one of subtraction, of clean cuts and sealed wounds. What he was describing was something else entirely. A violation.
— You don't control echoes, — the courier hissed, his knuckles white where he gripped the edge of the table. — You survive them.
As the word “echoes” left his lips, the television screen across the room flickered. The smiling politicians vanished, replaced by a screen of churning, violent static. It wasn't the gentle snow of a lost signal. This was aggressive, a loud, crackling roar that for a moment drowned out the music in the bar. The air grew tight, charged with an unseen energy. The static was a living thing, a swarm of angry, black-and-white insects.
Then, for a bare couple of seconds, the static cleared. It revealed a single, perfect image. A long, sterile corridor, lit by harsh, shadowless fluorescent lights. The walls were tiled in a pale, antiseptic green. There were no people, no furniture, just the unnerving, geometric perfection of the empty hall. It was a place I had never seen, but it felt horribly familiar, a memory from a life I hadn't lived. A signalbleed trace, a glimpse into the weapon's heart. Then it was gone, swallowed again by the silent, smiling faces of the politicians. The entire event lasted maybe four seconds.
The courier made a choked, strangled sound. He had seen it too. The image on the screen was the source of his terror, the place where his ghost had been born. He stared at the now-normal television, his face a mask of absolute horror. He didn't need to say another word. The abstract warning had just been given a concrete, visual form.
He shoved himself back from the table, his chair scraping loudly on the wooden floor. He gave me one last, wild-eyed look, a look that said I was already a dead man. Then he turned and bolted from the bar, disappearing into the wet, black night. He was a burned asset, a man who knew too much and had finally broken under the strain. The meeting was over.
I was alone again in the booth, the schematic fragment lying on the table next to my half-empty glass. The bar seemed quieter now, the chatter and music failing to fill the void the courier’s terror had left behind. I picked up the schematic, my fingers tracing the impossible geometry of the device. Echoes. A word for ghosts, for superstition. I was a man of physics, of cause and effect.
My mind rejected the courier’s panic. It wasn’t echoes. It was a weapon. A broadcast system, maybe. Something that could project a memory, overwrite a perception. A complex problem, a dangerous one, but a problem with rules. Something that could be understood, dismantled, and broken. My skepticism was a shield, a comfortable weight. To believe in echoes was to believe in a world without rules, and that was a world I refused to live in. This was subjugation on a new scale, but it was still just a machine.
I folded the schematic and slipped it into my coat pocket. The image of the sterile corridor was burned into my mind, a clean, sharp photograph. It was a clue. A destination. I finished my whiskey in one long swallow, the fire doing nothing to warm the new chill that had taken root inside me.
The payphone at the end of the bar began to ring, a shrill, insistent sound that cut through the quiet hum of the room. It rang once. Twice. A pause. Then it rang again. It was a signal. My signal. Misha Orlov, my handler, needed to see me. The timing was too perfect to be a coincidence.
The night was no longer about forgetting. It was about to get much, much colder.
