The holographic light from the data-node painted Felix Hayes’s face in shades of sterile blue and white. The image was flawless, a perfect reconstruction of a man who seemed to have been built from the same cold logic as the machine that projected him. Kaelen stood in the greasy booth, the smell of ozone and old sweat a stark contrast to the clinical perfection of the man on the screen. The choice hung in the air between them, heavy and suffocating. Frame an innocent woman, or be erased.
Kaelen’s gaze dropped to his own hands. One rested on the table, fingers tracing the hairline fracture that ran across the seal of his old TAC data-slate. The crack was a map of his own ruin. It was the price he had paid for trusting a human source, for letting a single piece of bad data corrupt a perfect system. The result had been a man turned to dust. Now, the system was ordering him to become the bad data. To be the lie. The irony was a cold, sharp thing in his gut.
He forced his eyes back to the hologram. He replayed Felix’s words, stripping them of their flat tone and analyzing the strategic calculus beneath. The Aevum Seers were expanding their influence. The Cog-Mind Conclave was circling his home, the Veridia District, offering treaties of “stability” that were nothing more than predatory loans. This wasn’t just a frame job. It was a move on a chessboard so large he couldn’t see the edges. The Temporal Audit Commission wasn’t a neutral referee; it was a player, using him to weaken one faction for the benefit of the other.
— A frame job is a messy variable, — Kaelen heard himself say, his voice a low rasp. It was a pathetic attempt at resistance, a final twitch of the man he used to be. — The blowback could be unpredictable.
Felix’s expression did not change. Not a single pixel wavered.
— The variable is you, Rook. Your disgrace provides perfect cover. The blowback is a calculated and acceptable risk. Your compliance is the only metric that matters now. Do you understand the parameters?
Kaelen understood. He was a tool, chosen because he was already broken. A clean instrument would leave marks, but a shattered one could be discarded after the job was done, the blame for the mess landing on its existing fractures. His past failure wasn’t a stain on his record; it was his single greatest qualification for this mission.
He thought of the red digits of his own T-Minus, a clock counting down to his own state-sanctioned death. He thought of the weaver, of the fine grey powder settling on a pristine white floor. He weighed the two images in his mind. His own erasure, or the damnation of becoming the very thing he hated.
There was no choice. There was only the illusion of one. Survival was a brutal instinct, and it had no room for morality. He had to live. The price was his own identity, a cost he would pay in installments for the next twenty-five years.
— I’m in.
The words were quiet, but they landed in the silent booth with the finality of a closing vault. He had sealed the bargain. He had chosen to be a monster to keep his own heart beating.
The holographic screen before him blinked once. A single, mechanical acknowledgment. The contract was now active. There was no turning back.
— Your credentials and a focusing tool are being dispatched to your location, — Felix stated, his voice the same unwavering monotone. He was already moving on to the next procedural step. — The credentials will identify you as an intuitive adept from the outer territories, seeking refuge and employment. The focusing tool will assist in maintaining your cover.
A fraud’s toolkit. Kaelen’s stomach tightened. He was being handed the costume and the props for the worst role of his life.
— Do not fail, — Felix said. It wasn’t a threat. It was a simple reminder of the equation’s outcome. Failure equaled zero.
The communication link terminated. The hologram of Felix Hayes dissolved, collapsing back into a single line of white light that then vanished, plunging the booth back into its native gloom. Kaelen was alone, the silence broken only by the faint hum of the data-node’s cooling fan. He was left with his decision, a sour taste in his mouth like spoiled milk.
He had just sold his soul, and the system hadn’t even had the courtesy to haggle.
Less than a minute later, he heard it. A low, insect-like hum from the alley outside, growing steadily closer. He remained perfectly still. The sound stopped directly outside the booth’s grimy window. A small, articulated arm, no thicker than his thumb, extended from an unseen drone and tapped twice on the glass. It was the most delicate sound he had heard all night.
He slid out of the booth and pushed open the cafe’s rusted side door. A dispatch drone, a matte-black machine the size of his torso, hovered silently in the narrow alley. A compartment in its belly opened, and a small, sealed case dropped into his waiting hand. The case was cold to the touch, its surface a smooth, non-reflective metal. A stasis case, designed to protect sensitive materials.
He looked inside. There were two items. The first was a thin, flexible chit containing his new identity, the data woven into its very fibers. The second was a piece of polished black stone, perfectly smooth and cool. The obsidian charm. The focusing tool. He picked it up. It felt heavy in his palm, a solid piece of nothing, a tool for a lie he hadn’t yet learned to tell.
The drone’s compartment closed. Its humming changed pitch slightly, and it ascended vertically, disappearing above the rooftops without a trace.
The lingering hum of the drone faded into the night’s quiet. The cold of the stasis case in his hand was a solid, undeniable fact.
