The Lies of Moonlight Sonata

The ruins of the Grand Harmonia Opera House breathed through its bullet-riddled lungs. Moonlight streamed through the skeletal dome, illuminating dust motes that swirled like phantom ballerinas above the cracked stage. Ayla's boots crunched over shattered chandelier crystal as she approached the derelict Steinway, its ivory keys yellowed like old fangs. Lucas stood bathed in the blue glow of his own open chest panel, bioluminescent gears pulsing to the rhythm of distant artillery fire.

"Swear it properly this time," she said, tossing a moth-eaten libretto of La Traviata at his feet. Pages fanned open to Selena's debutante portrait—smug smile preserved under decades of grime. "None of your father's scripted oaths."

Lucas' mechanical heart clicked through calibration cycles. "By the Codex of Neuman Precision, I hereby—"

"Bullshit." Ayla slammed the piano lid. A discordant B-flat shook bats from the rafters. "Swear on what's left of you. The part that still sweats. That still… bleeds."

His ocular implant flickered—crosshairs locking onto her carotid artery. Three years ago, those same crosshairs had traced the neckline of her violet gown at the Winter Gala. Twelve minutes ago, they'd guided a sniper round through a rebel's skull.

(Infrared sensors pinged—seven heat signatures converging through the orchestra tunnels. Selena's kill squad. Eight minutes)

"You want authenticity?" Lucas' voice modulator crackled with static. He tore open his collar, exposing the jagged scar where flesh met titanium clavicle. "This is what remains. A symphony of scar tissue and soldered lies."

Ayla's cherry blossom necklace glinted as she swept hair from her eyes. "Then let's compose a new movement." She pressed the pendant against his chestplate. Gears whined in protest. "Engrave the truth here. Let your precious machinery choke on it."

The laser stylus emerged from his pinky finger with a sickening snick. As he carved coordinates into the pendant's underside, coolant fluid dripped onto middle C—the droplet etching a wolf's silhouette into the ivory.

"Transport routes," he said, voice stripped of modulation. Raw. Cracked. "Safehouse frequencies. Everything you'll need to—"

Ayla hurled the necklace against a marble column. Gold links scattered like shrapnel, the broken chain lashing Lucas' neck. Blood bloomed beneath his collar in the exact shape of the Neuman family crest.

(Her thumbnail found the pendant's hidden seam. Lila's infant portrait smiled up from a compartment sized for cyanide capsules)

"Did you cradle her like this too?" Ayla ground glass underheel, the crunch syncopated with rotor blades. "Whispering sweet nothings while wiring her crib with explosives?"

Lucas seized her wrist. His palm sensor flared crimson—DNA match confirmed through mingled blood. Shattered necklace components vibrated, aligning into a pulsing hybrid sigil that illuminated decades of graffiti:

FREEDOM IS A BROKEN METRONOME THEY TUNE OUR HEARTSTRINGS TO THEIR LIES

(Drones descended through the dome, needle-tipped limbs primed with neural scrubbers)

Ayla stomped the sigil's center. Trapdoors groaned open, swallowing three drones into the orchestra pit. She leapt after them, landing knee-deep in sewage that reeked of blood and burnt wiring. Lucas' reflection wavered in the murk—half man, half machine, wholly damned.

"Clever girl," he muttered, wiping neck blood onto his diagnostics tablet. The smear resolved into infrared schematics of Lila's medbay three blocks east. Ventilation shafts mapped like prison bars.

(His mechanical heart stalled mid-beat—glitching on the memory of welding that necklace clasp: Ayla at sixteen, laughing through tears as he fastened the chain. "It's a cage!" she'd said. "A pretty, gilded cage.")

Black water swirled around Ayla's thighs as she unfolded the pendant's documents. Lila's birth certificate glowed under bioluminescent fungus—father column blank, mother's seal hybridizing wolf claws with Neuman gears. A rat skittered past, its tail sparking against exposed conduits.

The flare illuminated graffiti on the tunnel wall—stick figures of a family with Selena's face scribbled over the mother. Beneath it, fresh bloodstains formed musical notation.

"Wait." Lucas' voice echoed raw through the tunnels. "The necklace… when did you know?"

Ayla traced her collar scars—mirroring the chain's imprint on his neck. "Since you gave it to me with hands that still trembled."

Somewhere above, Selena's stilettos crushed piano keys into a discordant waltz. "Find them!" Her scream harmonized with breaking glass. "I want her vocal cords preserved in formaldehyde!"

Water rippled. The first explosion rocked the tunnels.