Chapter 3: The Ghosts of Yesterday

The cold night air bit at Kael's skin as he and Seraphine slipped into the shadowed streets of The Verge. The neon lights above flashed like the city's lifeblood, but below, in the dim alleyways and forgotten corners, it was easy to vanish if you knew how. And Kael was an expert at disappearing. He had done it once before, after all.

Seraphine followed closely, her hood pulled low, masking her face from the ever-present surveillance drones that hummed overhead. Vexis had eyes everywhere. Kael knew the next steps wouldn't be easy—they needed allies, resources, and above all, a place to start untangling the mess in Seraphine's mind. But he also knew they didn't have time for slow planning. Vexis would be coming.

"How far is it?" Seraphine's voice cut through the silence, her breath clouding in the cold.

"Not far," Kael replied, quickening his pace. He had a destination in mind—an old contact, a hacker named Niko who specialized in navigating the underworld of memory data. If anyone could help them figure out what Vexis had buried in Seraphine's mind, it would be Niko. Kael hadn't seen him in years, but if Niko was still alive, he'd know how to stay off the radar.

They weaved through the narrow backstreets, where the neon glow didn't reach and the air smelled faintly of decay. The Verge had always been a city built on contradictions—opulence towering over poverty, luxury masking desperation. The same streets that housed the city's richest secrets also hid its most dangerous inhabitants.

Kael's thoughts drifted to the memory tech Seraphine had shown him. Vexis's involvement was no surprise, but the complexity of the neural interference troubled him. This wasn't just about erasing someone—they were experimenting with rewriting personalities, reshaping identities. The implications were terrifying, and if they could do that to Seraphine, they could do it to anyone.

A part of him felt a pang of guilt for even being here again, for stepping back into a world he had sworn to leave behind. But he couldn't ignore the pull of this mystery—nor the sense that his own past with Vexis might be tied to whatever Seraphine had uncovered.

They rounded a corner, and Kael stopped in front of a derelict building with broken windows and a faded sign that read "SYNTHspace." The entrance was hidden behind layers of graffiti and old posters, but Kael knew the door wasn't as abandoned as it appeared. Niko had made a career of hiding in plain sight.

Kael knocked three times, a pattern from the old days, and waited. Silence stretched on for several seconds before the door creaked open just a crack. A single eye peered out through the sliver, and then the door swung wide.

"Well, well, well... Look who the streets coughed up," said Niko, grinning beneath his scruffy beard. He was lean, with a mop of dark hair that hadn't seen a comb in days, and his eyes sparkled with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. "Kael Ryder. I thought you were dead."

"I might as well be," Kael said, stepping inside. "We need your help, Niko."

Niko's grin faded as his gaze shifted to Seraphine. "Who's she?"

Seraphine lowered her hood, meeting Niko's gaze. "Seraphine. I'm… someone who's lost her way."

Kael glanced around the cluttered room, where old servers and outdated tech hummed like forgotten relics. Niko had always operated on the fringes, never flashy, but always resourceful.

"She's been wiped," Kael explained. "But not the usual way. They've layered false memories over hers. I think Vexis is behind it. I need you to help me figure out what they've buried inside her."

Niko's brow furrowed, and he crossed his arms, studying Seraphine more closely. "Vexis, huh? You don't mess with them unless you have a death wish. And if they've messed with her head, that's high-level stuff. Are you sure you want to dig into this?"

Kael nodded. "We don't have a choice."

Niko let out a low whistle. "Alright. I'll need some time to crack whatever encryption they've layered over her memories. But if Vexis is involved, we'll have to be careful. They've got surveillance nets everywhere, and I'd rather not have them tracing my every move."

He gestured for Seraphine to sit in a worn chair at the center of the room. Wires and neuro-interface ports dangled from a contraption that looked more like a science experiment gone wrong than anything remotely medical.

Seraphine eyed the chair warily. "How does this work?"

"It's safe," Niko said, his voice casual but firm. "More or less. I'll interface with the memory fragments and run a decryption algorithm through your neural links. If all goes well, we'll pull out some of the buried memories—find out what they're hiding."

Kael shot a glance at Seraphine, silently asking if she was ready for this. She nodded, though her hands were clenched tightly in her lap.

As Niko began hooking her up to the system, Kael's mind churned with questions. What would they find buried in her memories? And why had Vexis gone to such lengths to erase her past? The more he thought about it, the more he realized how much was at stake—not just for Seraphine, but for himself as well.

"Alright," Niko said, tapping a few keys on his outdated console. The monitors flickered to life, displaying a chaotic swirl of data. "This might feel a bit strange, but try to stay relaxed."

Seraphine's breathing quickened as the machine activated. Kael watched the monitors, the data feeding through in bursts. The deeper Niko probed, the more the layers of encryption began to crack. He could see fragments of images—faces, places—flashing across the screen, but they were jumbled, incomplete.

"Found something," Niko muttered, narrowing his eyes. He leaned forward, his fingers flying over the keys. "It's… encrypted differently. Looks like a memory splice. Someone went to great lengths to hide this."

The screen shifted, and suddenly a clear image formed—a man's face, half-obscured in shadow, speaking to Seraphine in what looked like an old warehouse.

"That's him," Seraphine whispered, her eyes widening. "He's the one… who erased me."

Kael's blood ran cold. He recognized the man. Not just from the fragmented memory, but from his own past. It was Vexis's head of experimental tech—Dr. Elias Voss. The man responsible for the very experiment that had ruined Kael's life.

Niko leaned back in his chair, eyes wide with realization. "This goes deep, Kael. If Voss is involved… this isn't just about memories. This is about control."

Seraphine's voice was barely a whisper, her expression a mixture of fear and determination. "We need to stop him."

Kael clenched his fists, the weight of the past crashing over him. He had been running from this for years, but now there was no escape. Voss wasn't just experimenting with memory manipulation—he was perfecting it. And Seraphine was the key to unraveling everything.

Kael took a deep breath, his mind racing. He had no choice now. If they didn't stop Voss, the world as they knew it could be rewritten, one mind at a time.

"We will," Kael said, his voice steady. "But first, we need to know exactly what Voss took from you—and why."

Seraphine met his gaze, determination shining through her fear. "Then let's get my memories back."

As Niko continued his work, Kael felt the weight of the future pressing down on him. The ghosts of yesterday were stirring, and there was no turning back now.