\u201cYou\u2019re late,\u201d muttered a gruff voice behind her. Kara didn\u2019t flinch. She glanced over her shoulder at the man standing a few paces back. His bulky frame was draped in a crumpled synthetic wool jacket, his half-metal faceplate giving him the look of someone who had gambled too recklessly with neural implants. He was eyeing her wrist cuff, and his fingers twitched nervously.<\/p>\n
\u201cTraffic,\u201d Kara replied flatly. Her tone betrayed no emotion, just the simmering irritation of someone who hated small talk as much as wasted time.<\/p>\n
He motioned toward an alley lit by faint, dying amber streetlights. She followed him without hesitation, her boots clicking softly against the wet pavement. Her fingers brushed the edge of her coat, feeling for the cold, reassuring outline of her concealed taser blade. The man stopped abruptly and gestured toward a recessed doorway guarded by two imposing, cybernetically-enhanced figures. A scanner swept over Kara\u2019s cuff, and with a curt nod, they granted her access.<\/p>\n
The room inside was minimalistic to a fault\u2014bare walls, humming projector cubes, and a single illuminated table at its center. On the table sat a neural dream drive, its smooth casing the color of polished obsidian. The man stood awkwardly to one side as she approached the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it clean?\u201d she asked, not bothering to meet his gaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cClean enough,\u201d he replied. \u201cStandard retrieval files, spliced from the subject\u2019s last unguarded session. Nothing flagged. Nothing traceable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kara exhaled sharply. She hated these kinds of assurances. \u201cLet me see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a slight tremor of his hand, he activated the projection device attached to the drive. A gust of light filled the air, forming the fragmented but unmistakable image of a memory\u2014a woman holding a small child. The scene shifted slightly, the edges glitching from where data had been reconstructed. Kara\u2019s throat tightened, but her face gave nothing away.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know the rules,\u201d the man said, interrupting her thoughts. \u201cOnce it\u2019s yours, it\u2019s severed from the source. No refunds. No complaints.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kara nodded, transferring the credits to his chip without hesitation. The moment the final light blinked green on his wrist band, he jerked his head toward the door. \u201cYou\u2019ve got ten minutes before the autowipes kick in. Get what you need and get out.\u201d<\/p>\n
She pocketed the drive and turned on her heel, moving quickly back to the street. But something made her pulse quicken. She could feel eyes following her\u2014more than one pair, too deliberate to be an accident. The glowing signs of the bazaar felt oppressive now, their shifting hues casting jagged shadows on the pavement. Trying to blend into the crowd, she veered into another alley, flipping open her cuff as she walked. The interface linked almost instantly to the drive.<\/p>\n
The memory projected itself onto a private window in her neural implants. The woman\u2014dark-haired, with delicate features not unlike Kara\u2019s own\u2014was reading something from a battered notebook, her lips moving subvocally. Kara recognized the notebook. It had belonged to her mother, or at least to the woman who called herself Kara\u2019s mother. But the scene shifted abruptly, the reconstructed edges blurring and cracking. Instead of the notebook, there was a face\u2014stern, unfamiliar, male. And then came the words, a gravelly whisper resonating in her ears.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour purchase has been tracked. Give it back, or this will be your last memory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kara\u2019s blood ran cold. Her head snapped up to see a dark figure barring the exit of the alley, his hand twitching toward an injector tucked into his waistband. She didn\u2019t wait for terms. Her hand darted under her coat, drawing the taser blade in a single fluid motion. The moment his foot shifted, she lunged.<\/p>\n
The fight was furious but fleeting. Kara\u2019s years of training gave her the upper hand, and soon the dark figure lay unconscious. But her victory was hollow. The Memory Market wasn\u2019t what it seemed. By extracting this fragment of her past, she had unearthed only more questions. Who had set her up? Why was this memory surveilled? And what had her mother been trying so desperately to protect?<\/p>\n
She glanced down at the drive in her pocket, its smooth surface still warm. As the city buzzed around her, Kara realized she couldn\u2019t stay here any longer. The answers weren\u2019t in New Avalon. They were in the memories she carried and the shadows of the people willing to kill for them.<\/p>\n
Wiping blood from her blade, she vanished into the neon-infused night. Somewhere, there was someone who knew the rest of the story. Kara intended to find them\u2014or die trying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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