The Mnemonic Exchange

9:14 AM | Cross Apartment, Alphabet City

The smell of burning sage couldn't mask the chemical stench clinging to my clothes. I stared at the wall-sized flowchart I'd painted during three sleepless nights - a spiraling diagram connecting Argent's longevity app downloads with the city's recent spike in dementia cases. Red yarn crisscrossed photos of subway graffiti that matched the vault symbols.

My hands shook as I prepared the morning's first transmutation.

"Baseline memory assay," I muttered, activating the modified Fitbit tracking my hippocampal degradation. The crucible flared cobalt - today's alchemical allowance calibrated to 0.8% memory loss. Enough for basic recon work if I skipped breakfast.

The cockroach carcass between soldering irons began its metamorphosis. "Third Transmutation Verse: Flesh to filament, chitin to..." My throat seized. The Cantonese lullaby Mom used to sing evaporated mid-syllable.

Warning: Episodic Memory Erosion at 12.3% blinked the Fitbit.

The insect's antennae hardened into fiber-optic cables. Good enough. I slipped the cyborg roach into a Mentos tube just as June's hospice app notification lit up my phone: Platelet count critical - transfusion advised.

Her latest test results scrolled across my cracked bathroom mirror. I traced the abnormal metallic compounds in her blood - identical to the East River's alchemical runoff. The mirror's silver backing bubbled under my fingertip, forming Elder Futhark runes I hadn't consciously written.

10:03 AM | Memory Black Market, Chinatown Underground

The tea shop's AI waitress scanned my retinas. "Recognized: Customer #A31X9. Today's special: 2010s nostalgia packets with authentic ads trauma."

I dodged VR hawkers peddling counterfeit childhoods as I approached the backroom's iron door. Old Wu's new security system glowed - a live squid trapped in electrolytic fluid, its ink forming ever-shifting alchemical equations.

"Cross." The smuggler-chemist didn't look up from his soldering gun. "Come to pawn more brain matter?"

I slammed Argent's vault schematics on his workbench. "I need a Mnemonic Locker."

His soldering paused. "You know what happens when you bottleneck memories? They crystallize. Become... abrasive."

"June's running out of operable veins." I activated the roach drone. Its fiber-optic eyes projected the vault's security feed. "Argent's keeping soul extraction data here. I need twenty minutes of uninterrupted access."

Wu studied the footage. "That's a Tier-5 cognitive load. Even with a Locker, you'd lose..."

"Core identity memories. I know."

He lit a cigarette rolled with pages from DSM-V. "Fine. But payment's upfront this time." The squid tank bubbled ominously. "Your mother's voice."

The air left my lungs. "That's not..."

"Your last intact maternal memory. We both know you can't afford tomorrow's rate."

The Fitbit flashed amber. June's face appeared on my phone's lockscreen - her smile from before the poisoning. I nodded.

Wu's needle pierced my temporal vein.

11:47 AM | Argent Tower Data Vault

The memory locker hummed against my skull like a dying refrigerator. I'd forgotten how to tie shoes halfway through the ventilation ducts, but the stolen elevator codes still worked.

Access Tier: Omega Clearance announced the vault's biometric scan.

The chamber took shape - a circular crypt with server racks arranged like Stonehenge monoliths. Liquid nitrogen snaked through glass floor channels, keeping something massive and pulsing in suspension beneath our feet.

"Initiate data harvest," I whispered. The roach drone extruded its proboscis into a USB-C alkahest port.

Files flooded my neural feed:

Project Thanatos: Soul-Binding Yield per MegacityTransmutation Tax Revenue Streams (Q2 2024)Cognitive Repossession Procedures for Defaulters

Then the memory locker glitched.

Mom's voice surfaced unbidden - "Adrian, eat your bao before..." - before dissolving into static. The vault warped. Server racks became ribcages. My reflection in the nitrogen channels showed a stranger with Voss' smile.

Critical Overload: Memory Containment at 89%

The drone squealed. Onscreen, June's medical chart mutated into a soul extraction flowchart. Numbers clicked into horrifying alignment.

11:51 AM | Argent Tower Data Vault (Cont'd)

The neural feed flickered with June's childhood laughter - our last Coney Island trip before the poisoning. I bit through my tongue, using the pain to anchor reality. Copper blood dripped onto the glass floor, etching temporary stabilization runes.

"Abort sequence!" I commanded the drone, but the alkahest connection had mutated. The pulsing mass beneath the floor surged upward - a gargantuan homunculus fetus wired to Wall Street trading terminals, its umbilical cord pumping transmuted human memories as liquid assets.

Memory Criticality Alert: Maternal Vocal Pattern Degradation 97%

Voss' sneer materialized in the nitrogen mist. "Cross. Still playing vigilante with your kindergarten alchemy?" The Argent CEO's hologram stepped through a server rack, his tailored suit shimmering with embedded philosopher's stones. "Your sister's blood makes exquisite catalyst fuel."

I lunged with a glyph-carved USB drive, only to freeze mid-strike. The memory locker's fail-safe activated - Wu's squid security system ink flooded my visual cortex.

SYSTEM OVERRIDE: Emergency Mnemonic Purge Initiated

The vault dissolved into a memory collage: Mom's funeral orchids wilting into June's IV tubes... subway graffiti runes rearranging into dialysis machine blueprints... Argent's stock price graphs superimposed over the East River pollution maps.

12:02 PM | Rooftop Extraction

I awoke to the taste of battery acid and burnt hair. The drone's carcass smoldered in my fist, clutching a single data shard glowing with stolen secrets. Blood from my nostrils spelled out an involuntary warning in Younger Futhark: Þaz Willi Þurisaz - Beware the Soul-Eater.

Wu's voice crackled through my molar implant: "Package delivered. Your mother's voice file... it corrupted during transfer. My condolences."

On the streets below, Argent security drones swarmed like mechanical piranhas. I stumbled toward the rooftop edge, my stolen memories of elevator codes already fracturing. The wind carried echoes of June's last coherent words before the coma: "Addie, the patterns in my dreams... they're beautiful and hungry."

Memory Ledger Update:

Lost: Mother's laughter timbre (-8%)Gained: Homunculus Threshold Coordinates (+1)Corrupted: June's 16th Birthday Memory (-3% integrity)

As I plunged toward the dumpster-filled alley, the data shard fused with my palm. Its revelation burned brighter than the fall: June's blood-borne alchemy marks weren't poison residue. They were invitation sigils.

The Fitbit's final alert blinked as concrete rushed upward:

New Transmutation Pathway Unlocked: Mnemonic Combustion Protocol

(Sacrifice 40% identity memory for 90-second chronomantic boost)