The Fracturing Glyph

3:28 PM | Argent R&D Substation 7, Red Hook

The sewer grate exhaled alchemical smog that reeked of burnt antidepressants. My modified OysterCard vibrated - Wu's hacked transit system had pinpointed Argent's ritual node beneath a Tesla battery recycling plant. June's invitation sigils pulsed through my veins like Morse code.

"Initiate ocular enhancement," I commanded, dripping mercury into both eyes. The world sharpened into a wireframe of occult energy flows. Twelve stories below, Argent employees in hazard suits fed glowing memory cartridges into a pulsating reactor shaped like Mimir's severed head.

Memory Ledger Alert:

Available for Expenditure: 18.4% (Mother's face memory locked at 5% integrity)New Protocol Available: [Mnemonic Combustion]

"Don't even think about burning identity memories," hissed my thrice-stolen police AI through bone-conduction headphones. "That protocol literally melts your-"

I silenced it with a Faraday Cage gesture. The reactor's output matched the sigils in June's blood - this was ground zero of her poisoning. My boot crushed a rat chewing on a half-digested photo of Mom teaching me bao dough shaping. The motion triggered a memory flash - her hands demonstrating pleats - now pixelated beyond recognition.

4:16 PM | Core Breach Sequence

The Tesla plant's security were no ordinary guards. Their hazmat suits contained liquid philosopher's stone circulatory systems - Voss' latest abomination. Bullets ricocheted off my graffiti-reinforced trench coat as I transmuted chain-link fencing into razorwire canaries.

"Fourth Transmutation Verse!" I roared, sacrificing 3% of June's middle school recital memories. The canaries dive-bombed guards with beaks full of Greek fire, their molten droppings singing through Argent's alchemy-enhanced Kevlar.

At the reactor core, the ritual's true horror unfolded. The Mimir-head machine wasn't harvesting memories - it was weaving them into a fractalized corporate entity. Human subjects hung like chrysalises, their skulls connected to Bloomberg terminal avatars screaming stock predictions.

5:03 PM | Cognitive Sabotage Attempt

I jammed the data shard from Chapter 2 into the reactor's ocular nerve. "Decrypt soul-binding algorithm!"

The system fought back with personalized attacks:

Mom's voice synthesized through Voss' vocal cordsJune's hospital monitor flatline tones remixed as EDM dropsMy own childhood fear of elevators weaponized through spatial distortion

Memory Criticality:

Mother's Facial Recognition: 2.1% (Eyes only, no jawline)June's Voice Timbre: Degraded to 74%

The reactor birthed a memory-eater wraith. I activated Mnemonic Combustion.

5:47 PM | Protocol Cost Manifestation

Forty percent of my identity dissolved like sugar in acid:

First kiss replaced with firewall error messagesHigh school graduation cap's tassel became server cablesDad's suicide note handwriting morphed into QR codes

But chronomancy flooded my veins. For ninety seconds, I moved through frozen time - except for the wraith. We dueled across suspended bullets and static guard screams, my USB drive versus its fractal claws.

Critical Failure:

At the eighty-second mark, I glimpsed Mom's face in the reactor's plasma. Or tried to. The memory hole yawned. My strike faltered.

The wraith's claw tore through my left temporal lobe just as time resumed.

6:19 PM | Aftermath Extraction

I awoke to the taste of my own hippocampus matter. The reactor still stood, though bleeding liquid bankruptcy filings. My stolen Argent tablet flashed: [Ritual Completion: 91% - Minor Interruption Detected].

Voss' hologram materialized, holding a snow globe containing Mom's last intact memory. "You just sacrificed her cheek dimples to delay us six hours. How very Greek tragedy of you."

Memory Ledger Collapse:

Mother's Face: 0% (All visual data erased)New Trauma: Wraith's Claw Residual Memory Corruption (+7% hourly decay)Gained: Ritual Node Frequency Signature (Partial)

As Argent drones closed in, my corroding mind grasped one truth - the invitation sigils in June's blood weren't just for Argent. They pulsed in sync with subway graffiti patterns three blocks east.

Chapter 3 End Hook:

My phone auto-dialed Wu with final contingency protocols. His response came spliced with subway busker chants:

"Seek the Ravenous Glyph where neon vomits on steam pipes... follow the third rail's lament..." Static devoured his next words, replaced by a distorted nursery rhyme I hadn't heard since childhood - "Sticks and stones may break your bones, but Argent's lies will crystallize..."

The phone screen fractured into a real-time map of Brooklyn, pulsing with three crimson markers:

Gowanus Canal Pumping Station #5 (glowing with the same Elder Futhark rune as June's corrupted birthday memory)My abandoned childhood apartment (now tagged with Argent's demolition notices and blood-tinted graffiti of Mom's half-erased face)Chinatown's "Dragon's Breath" Arcade (security cam feed showed Wu's squid tank rupturing, inky tentacles spelling "HURRY" in Younger Futhark)

Memory Ledger Update:

New Corruption: Subway Chant Earworm (-1% auditory processing/hour)Gained: Ravenous Glyph Partial Blueprint (4.7% decoded - matches Chapter 5's blood sigil patterns)Critical Alert: Wraith Claw Corruption now metastasizing into memory tumors (detected in hippocampus sector B-12)

As Argent's tracer drones breached the safehouse windows, my corroding mind clung to one phrase from Wu's message - "third rail's lament" - the graffiti artists' code for their underground alchemy forge. June's invitation sigils burned hotter where the wraith's claw had struck. They weren't just calling Argent anymore.