Ghosts in the Machine

The air in Sector 7-D tasted like rust and forgotten screams.

Kael's corrupted hand brushed against the lab's cracked wall, leaving a smudge of black venom that sizzled faintly. The remnants of the Inquisition's Chrysalis Protocol surrounded them—shattered glass tanks, frayed neural harnesses, and rows of empty cots bolted to the floor. Mira's shard-eye cast a cold green glow over a terminal crusted with dried blood.

"This place is a tomb," she murmured, her voice clinical, but her fingers trembled as she pried open the terminal's access panel. "A catalog of failures."

Ryn lingered near the doorway, tossing a crystalized shard between his fingers like a coin. "Failures? Nah. Call it what it is—a daycare for the Inquisition's worst ideas." His smirk returned, sharp and effortless. "Bet they gave the kids badges for exploding the fastest."

Gutter growled low in her throat, her crystalline fur bristling. She pawed at a dark stain on the floor—a child's handprint, preserved in flaking brown.

The hologram flickered to life without warning.

A girl, no older than ten, materialized in the center of the room. Her image was static-riddled and translucent, dressed in a threadbare med-gown. She stared blankly ahead, repeating the same phrase in a loop: "Please. I want to go home."

Mira froze. "A residual imprint… From the Protocol."

"She's not real," Ryn said, too quickly. But Kael noticed the way his jaw tightened, the flicker of recognition in his eyes.

The hologram shuddered, dissolving and reforming. Now the girl was strapped to a cot, thrashing as black veins spidered across her skin. "It hurts—make it stop!"

Gutter snarled, lunging forward, but her jaws passed harmlessly through the light.

"They bonded her to a Shard," Mira whispered. "Too young. Her body rejected it."

The hologram shifted again. The girl lay still, her eyes hollow, as a geode of jagged Oblivion crystal erupted from her chest. The image froze, then reset.

"Please. I want to go home."

Ryn's crystalized shard clattered to the floor. "We're leaving."

"Wait." Kael stepped closer, his corruption pulsing in time with the hologram's flickers. "You recognize her."

"No."

"Liar."

Ryn's fist connected with the wall, the impact echoing through the dead lab. "Her name was Liss. Lived two containers down from Cabbot's pit. The Inquisition took her during a 'sanitation sweep.'" His laugh was brittle but edged with his usual bravado. "Guess they sanitized her real good. Gold star for efficiency, right?"

Mira's shard-eye whirred as she scanned the room. "The hologram's tied to a power source. A Progenitor core."

"Then we blow it and go," Kael said.

"No." Mira pointed to a sealed vault door at the lab's rear. "That core is a data trove. If the Inquisition grafted Shards into children, they would've recorded the results. We need it."

"We need to survive," Ryn snapped, though his gaze flicked to Kael, waiting.

Gutter barked, her claws scraping the floor as she backed toward the exit. The walls trembled.

The Progenitor emerged in a storm of shattered concrete and writhing Oblivion filaments. It was a grotesque mockery of the girl—Liss's face stretched taut over a bulbous, pulsating geode, her limbs elongated into bone-bladed appendages. The hologram's voice now issued from its maw, warped and layered: "MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP."

"Distract it!" Kael's venom lashed out, dissolving a slashing blade-limb.

Ryn grabbed a broken shock baton from the debris. Scavenger's Echo flared, and the baton crackled to life. He lunged, jamming it into the Progenitor's geode. "Hey, Liss! Remember me? I still owe you that candy bar!"

The creature recoiled, shrieking. For a heartbeat, its features softened—a flicker of the scared girl beneath the rot. Then it backhanded Ryn into a wall.

Mira darted toward the vault, syringe in hand. "I need direct access to the core!"

"You're welcome," Ryn coughed, scrambling up as a blade-limb speared the spot he'd fallen. He shot Kael a grin, blood trickling from his temple. "You gonna stare all day, Rot? Lend a hand before I start charging admission!"

Kael's corruption had reached his shoulder, black veins clawing toward his throat. He channeled the pain into a whip of acid, severing one of the Progenitor's legs. "Mira—now!"

She plunged the syringe into the geode. The Progenitor spasmed, Liss's face surfacing fully for a single, agonized moment. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Then the core detonated.

The lab fell silent, dust settling over the remains. In the center of the ruin lay an Epiphany—a shard of crystalline memory, glowing faintly.

Mira reached for it.

Ryn's hand closed around her wrist. "Don't."

"This could tell us how to stop the Inquisition," she said coldly.

"Or it could fry your brain. That's what Epiphanies do, right?" Ryn's tone was light, but his grip didn't waver. He glanced at Kael, a silent question.

Kael knelt, the shard's surface reflecting his corrupted face. "She's in there. Liss."

Gutter whined, nosing the shard. It pulsed, and for a heartbeat, Kael saw it—a memory not of pain, but of Liss and Ryn sharing stolen fruit in the Dregs, laughing.

Ryn turned away, but not before Kael caught the crack in his armor. "Dead's dead. Leave it."

Mira's shard-eye glinted. "Sentiment won't save us."

"Neither will playing Inquisition Jr.," Ryn shot back, though his smirk softened the jab. He scooped up the Epiphany and tossed it to Kael. "You're the walking tragedy. You decide."

Kael pocketed the shard. "We keep it. For now."

Ryn shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "Your funeral. But if it starts singing show tunes, I'm dumping it in the nearest acid pit."

As they retreated, Ryn fell into step beside Kael, nodding at the Epiphany. "You sure about that thing?"

"No," Kael admitted.

Ryn barked a laugh. "Finally, an honest answer." He flicked a piece of rubble off Gutter's head. "Don't give me that look, Scrap-Queen. I'm still the pretty one here."

Mira lingered behind, her gaze fixed on the shard in Kael's pocket.

Ryn leaned closer to Kael, dropping his voice. "Watch her. She's got that look—like Cabbot eyeing a fresh mark."

Kael raised a brow. "Since when do you care?"

"Since now. Don't let it go to your head, Rot."

That night, as Mira pored over scans of the Epiphany, Ryn sat cross-legged by the refinery's makeshift fire pit, sharpening a scavenged knife. Gutter sprawled beside him, her head on his knee.

Kael tossed him a protein bar. "You okay?"

"Peachy." Ryn tore the wrapper with his teeth. "Just adding 'ghost wrangler' to my resume." He paused, then nodded at Kael's corrupted arm. "You?"

"Same as ever."

Ryn snorted. "Yeah. We're a real pair." He tossed Gutter a scrap of synth-meat. "Ain't that right, Scrap-Queen?"

Gutter thumped her tail, and Ryn's grin returned—brash, unbroken, alive