Fragments Beneath the Glass

Altaran's veins twisted below as I guided the hovercraft through the smog-thick underlayers of the city's forgotten infrastructure. Tower husks loomed overhead—glass skeletons cracked by decades of neglect, bridges collapsed like ribcages between the spires.

The coordinates Ravel burned into my retinal display led us deeper—beneath the canal sectors, beneath the legal grid entirely. Old transit tunnels riddled with graffiti, half-collapsed freight routes, forgotten access points the Consortium no longer patrolled.

Vesper sat beside me, silent, her grey eyes focused and lucid now—though faint tremors ghosted through her limbs as the third shard's resonance settled into alignment.

"You feel it," I said quietly.

"Like pressure under my skin," she answered, voice low, steady. "And weight…" Her gaze slid to me. "You're carrying more than fragments, Ilyas. You're carrying a fracture they couldn't cauterize."

I didn't argue. The hum beneath my ribs—the shards pressed close—reminded me with every breath.

The hovercraft touched down on the outskirts of the Choke—a subterranean hub where forgotten maintenance nodes and bio-waste collectors converged. The old-world tech here sputtered faint with dying energy, glass tubes pulsing dimly like veins drained of color.

We slipped into the underlevels, boots crunching across fractured tiles slick with condensation and chemical runoff. Pipes groaned overhead; distant machinery hissed with decaying life.

"The fourth shard's close," I muttered, scanning the faded glyphs marking the wall—old Solis infrastructure codes, half-scrubbed by time.

Vesper's hand hovered near her embedded shard, the faint glow intensifying as we moved deeper.

We reached a sealed maintenance bulkhead—rust-choked, the access terminal sparking faint protest.

"I've got this," she said, stepping forward.

Her fingers moved across the cracked terminal with precision—despite fragmented memory, the instincts buried beneath still burned bright. Within seconds, the bulkhead hissed open, stale air curling out.

We descended into a cavernous underchamber—the walls lined with dormant memory canisters, neural cores suspended in glass vats, tech decades obsolete.

But in the center… the fourth shard.

Suspended inside a crystalline containment unit, pulsing faint blue—a perfect fragment of stolen history.

"It's untouched," I noted, circling cautiously.

"For now," Vesper warned. "This place… it's been marked. Recently."

A faint hum rippled through the chamber—low at first, then climbing. I spun, scanning the shadows.

Figures emerged—half-cloaked, Consortium insignias half-erased, faces obscured by neural masks. Not official enforcers. Private contractors—Blackwell's clean-up squads.

"Step away," one commanded, voice filtered through a distortion modulator.

I positioned myself between them and Vesper.

"This shard isn't yours," I said evenly.

The squad leader's head tilted. "Neither is your face, Rook. You should've stayed forgotten."

The standoff crackled with tension. I felt the shard's hum intensify—the resonance leaking into the air like static pressure.

"Vesper," I said low, "on my signal—"

But she was already moving. Her embedded shard pulsed, interfacing with the containment unit, fracturing the seals. The fourth shard snapped free, its glow flaring.

"Now!" I shouted.

The contractors opened fire—neural disruptor rounds hissing through the chamber. I tackled Vesper aside, shards pressed tight against my coat as we slid behind a derelict console.

The resonance peaked—the fourth shard syncing fast, stitching new fragments across my neural map. Flashes of memory bled through—fractured images of containment, voices yelling, blood on glass.

"They're trying to rewrite us," Vesper hissed, crouched beside me.

"Let them try," I retorted, shoving her toward an old maintenance hatch. "We're not done yet."

We burst through the hatch as disruptor rounds shredded the console behind us. The contractors gave chase, their footsteps pounding against metal grates.

Twisting through side corridors, the air thickened with decay and recycled heat.

Vesper stumbled briefly, her shard still pulsing raw. I steadied her, grip tight.

"Hold on," I muttered, activating the hovercraft's recall beacon.

It shrieked faint in the distance—the battered transport rising from its hidden berth, slicing toward our location.

We vaulted onto the deck as it careened by, disruptor rounds sparking against the hull.

"We've got the fourth," I confirmed, throttling hard.

The contractors faded behind us, their shouts lost in the roar of failing engines.

Vesper collapsed beside me, her breathing shallow.

"More fragments awake," she whispered, her eyes dark with fledgling clarity.

I felt them too—the weight of four shards shifting inside me, rewriting fractures they'd hoped would never heal.

The hunt wasn't slowing.

It was only beginning.

And Altaran… was bleeding secrets faster than they could bury them.