The smell of ozone and wet asphalt in the Low-Town district usually meant one thing: the extraction window was closing, and the Helix Meridian security drones were about to stop being polite. I adjusted the strap of my rig, feeling the familiar, uncomfortable weight of the Black Drive pressed against my ribs. It was supposed to be a standard data-recovery job. It was supposed to be easy money. Instead, it was currently the only thing keeping me awake at night.

Tomo’s voice crackled through the comms, distorted by the static interference rising from the sector’s derelict power grid. "Kai, you’re drifting. If you don’t hit the extraction point in the next ninety seconds, you’re going to be a permanent resident of the ruins. And trust me, the rent is terrible."

"I'm moving, Tomo," I muttered, vaulting over a rusted barricade. My boots hit the slick concrete with a jarring thud. "Just checking the integrity of the package."

The Echo in the Data

I hadn’t told Tomo about the drive yet. I hadn't told Lena, the broker who usually knew everything before it even happened. The truth was, I wasn't sure if I could trust my own senses. When I had slotted that drive into my deck back at the safe house, I expected encrypted blueprints or maybe a ledger of Helix Meridian’s dirty laundry. What I found was a video file. A high-definition, timestamped recording of myself.

In the video, I was moving through the very same facility I had just raided. My movements were precise, professional—almost cold. I didn't remember being there. I didn't remember the mission. But there I was, on screen, executing a clean breach of a secure vault, humming a tune I’d never heard before. The kicker? The timestamp on the file was from three days ago, a period of time I remembered spending in a haze of cheap coffee and bad sleep in my apartment.

Was it a deepfake? A glitch in my own memory? Or was someone playing a game with my identity in the streets of Port Aster?

A Rival’s Shadow

I rounded a corner, my hand instinctively dropping to the grip of my sidearm. A silhouette stood under a flickering streetlamp—Rhea Knox. She was leaning against a stack of shipping crates, cleaning a suppressor with the practiced nonchalance of someone who didn't fear the clock.

"You’re late, Kai," she said, not looking up. "Marshal Dren’s patrol units are sweeping the northern perimeter. You’re making a lot of noise for someone carrying something so valuable."

I froze. "I don't know what you're talking about, Rhea."

She finally looked at me, her eyes tracking the slight bulge under my jacket. "Don't play the amateur. Helix is looking for that drive. If they find it on you, they won't just take it—they’ll scrub you from the grid entirely. You think you’re a runner, but you’re just a ghost waiting to be exorcised."

The Cost of Curiosity

I didn't stick around to hear her advice. I broke into a sprint, my lungs burning as I pushed toward the extraction zone. The sound of heavy mechanical treads echoed in the distance—Helix Meridian’s heavy interceptors were closing in. I could hear the high-pitched whine of their targeting sensors searching the alleyways.

I reached the extraction pad just as the transport ship’s engines began to roar, kicking up a blinding cloud of dust and grit. I scrambled up the ramp, collapsing onto the metal deck as the ship lurched into the air. Safe. For now.

Back in the relative quiet of the cabin, I pulled the Black Drive out again. My fingers trembled slightly. If I wasn't the one who performed that mission, then who was? And if someone could make me forget, what else were they capable of erasing?

I looked at the screen of my deck, the playback of the video file looping in the shadows. I watched my own face on the screen, a stranger wearing my skin, doing things I didn't understand. In Port Aster, information is the only currency that matters, but I was starting to realize that the most dangerous thing you can own is the truth about yourself.

The question wasn't how I was going to sell the drive. The question was, when I finally find out what happened, will there be enough of me left to care?