There were places in Astraeus that didn't exist.
Not on any government map. Not in any Bureau walkthrough. Not in the polite, polished database of city sectors and authorized paths. But Vale knew them. He knew every dented vent, every sunless corner, every alley that coughed instead of whispered.
He knew them like instinct. Like scars.
And he was in one now—tight corridor, busted floor tiles, walls damp from something best not investigated. The kind of place the "perfect city" paved over, then pretended not to smell.
He slid behind a stack of rusted crates, breath shallow. A patrol drone buzzed overhead, pausing just long enough to make his neck prickle.
"Come on, come on..." he muttered under his breath. "Keep it moving, toaster."
The drone passed.
He let the air out of his lungs one inch at a time.
The concrete beneath him had the Bureau's insignia stamped into it—faded white lines in a spoked-wheel pattern, like the city's seal of godhood. He stepped over it without thinking. Not around it. Not across it.
Over it.
Every time. Always.
He didn't know when that started. Didn't know why it mattered. But stepping on it felt like swallowing glass.
Memory?
Nope. Not digging in that sandbox today.
He pressed on, weaving through the lower maze of Astraeus like a rat who'd memorized the bad routes. Up top, everything was programmed—light cycles, temperature shifts, the polite smell of lemon-sanitized air.
Down here, it was mold and rust and wires that sparked when you got too close.
He preferred it.
At least when something shocked you, it made sense.
He turned left, then right, skipping over a collapsed stairwell and ducking beneath a collapsed panel. His jacket snagged on something sharp, but he didn't stop. Didn't curse. Didn't even flinch. His brain was already six turns ahead.
Instinct didn't ask questions.
Which is exactly why it was so damn annoying that he couldn't stop thinking about the thing in his pocket.
He hadn't even meant to steal it.
Well—he hadn't planned to steal it. He just... saw it. Glowing faintly beneath a pile of rusted shell casings and cracked terminals. Pulled it out. Pocketed it. Like it was meant for him. Like it had been waiting.
And now it hummed.
Not loud. Not always. Just... when things got close. When enforcers passed by. When something wrong was nearby.
He pressed a hand over it now, thumb brushing the smooth metal casing.
Still warm.
Still pulsing.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "I know. Danger. Thanks for the heads-up, ghost rock."
A siren echoed three blocks down—flat and mechanical, nothing urgent. Routine sweep. But he didn't like the timing. Didn't like the way the air felt.
He picked up the pace.
His boots slapped against tile, skipping the loose ones, the cracked ones, the ones with Bureau prints on them. He didn't need to look down. His feet remembered.
This city had muscle memory.
So did he.
He didn't hear them first.
He felt them.
A shift in the air. The way sound changed when someone walked too carefully. The kind of silence that meant you weren't alone—but weren't supposed to notice.
Vale spun down a side corridor and bolted for the nearest door, praying to whatever version of himself had good karma left. It opened with a hiss—not locked, not sealed, just... old. Government maintenance tunnel, maybe. Or a supply closet that hadn't been inventoried since reset one.
He slipped inside.
Held the door with one hand.
Pressed his back to the wall.
Breathed through his nose.
Then—footsteps. Heavy. Rhythmic. Too in-sync to be citizens.
Enforcers.
He could picture them without looking: matching boots, matching guns, matching don't-think-too-hard stares. Probably sweeping for anomalies or dissenter traces. Definitely not hoping to find a half-feral weirdo in a stolen coat with a piece of illegal tech humming like a guilt-ridden heart monitor.
Vale closed his fingers around the object in his pocket.
It pulsed once.
Not loud.
But he felt it. In the tips of his teeth.
His heartbeat wasn't fast—not yet—but his brain was throwing up every exit route it knew.
Vent above. Ladder shaft left. Door behind him? Not secure.
Shit.
They stopped outside the door.
Right outside.
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He could hear them talking—low, filtered through their voice masks.
"Reading something?"
"Residual heat signature. Could be old."
A pause.
"I hate these lower runs. Everything's dirty."
"Everything's real," the second voice said.
Vale blinked. That was... weird.
The voice had edge. Not the usual numb-cog attitude. More like—
Like he'd heard it before.
No. No, no time for that. No time for memory games. He pressed harder against the wall, like it might open up and swallow him.
The tech in his hand buzzed again—sharper this time. Like it agreed with the threat level.
He rubbed his thumb over the runes.
They glowed faintly. Not just light—movement. Shifting patterns beneath the surface. Like circuits that didn't want to be read.
The door creaked—just slightly.
Vale didn't move.
One of the enforcers muttered something, and then—mercifully—they moved on. Boots fading into distance. Not a sprint. A retreat.
He waited.
Counted.
Ten seconds. Then fifteen. Then thirty. Just to be sure.
When he finally stepped out, he exhaled in one long, jagged breath that turned into a laugh halfway through.
"That's gonna shave five years off my lifespan," he muttered, brushing dust off his sleeves. "Not that I had five years worth living for anyway, but still—rude."
He took two steps, then paused.
Looked at the glowing object in his hand.
Held it up to eye level.
"Okay," he said. "You're officially on my 'do not eat, may be haunted' list."
It didn't respond.
Probably for the best.
He walked for a few blocks, taking turns that felt right, not because he mapped them—he never mapped anything—but because his gut had a better track record than most people's spreadsheets. The adrenaline hadn't worn off. Not fully. It just... changed shape. Curled behind his ribs and whispered stupid ideas.
Like following the blinking service light he spotted half-buried behind a row of abandoned crates.
Or investigating the faint vibration in the wall, like something big was humming behind it.
Or noticing a door that wasn't supposed to be open.
It was tucked away—low-tech frame, cracked seal, red Bureau glyph fading across the panel. Official. Forgotten. Half-shadowed by disuse and disinterest. The kind of thing no one up top would ever walk past without reporting.
But down here? It was just background noise.
Vale slowed.
Something in his chest tugged. Not physically. Not even emotionally. Just... directional. Like a compass that only worked when he stopped trying to use it.
The tech piece in his pocket buzzed once.
Not loud. Not a warning.
Almost like a suggestion.
"Alright, fine," he muttered. "I'll bite."
He looked around—no footsteps, no patrols. The street was empty, save for the flicker of a broken ad panel looping a six-year-old energy drink slogan.
He reached for the door which wasn't locked.
That was Vale's defense and he was sticking to it.
It looked like it should've been locked but when he leaned on it just slightly, it gave with a soft groan and swung open.
He hesitated only long enough to think: bad decision.
Then he stepped inside.
The air was colder in here. Not naturally. System-regulated. Efficient. The kind of cold that came from climate control and not a single window in sight. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, humming just off-pitch like they were trying to whisper something sinister.
Storage facility. Government-class, judging by the labels. Nothing flashy—just long rows of cabinets. Locked drawers. Unfriendly silence.
He closed the door behind him.
"Just passing through," he muttered, like the room cared.
The space felt... off. Like it had been used recently, but not by anyone official. Footsteps scuffed faintly across the polished floor. One cabinet was slightly ajar. He moved toward it, all instincts screaming that curiosity was about to get violent.
Each drawer had a classification code. Most were long—strings of letters and numbers Vale didn't care about. But one—halfway down the third row—stopped him cold.
R-57-RET-FAIL
He stared at it.
Then blinked.
"Why do I know you," he whispered.
No answer, obviously.
The drawer was locked. Magnetically sealed. No external access point. Definitely not open-with-a-paperclip type tech.
Still, he pressed his palm against it, just to see if the universe was in a generous mood.
The lock beeped in protest and flashed a small red warning:
LEVEL 5 AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED
UNAUTHORIZED QUERY LOGGED
Vale stepped back so fast he nearly tripped over his own boots.
"Well that's not ideal," he said, eyes already scanning for exits.
Something in the walls shifted.
Not sound. Not air pressure. Awareness.
The drawer pulsed once—faint glow beneath the surface—and then dimmed.
He reached for his pocket out of habit, clutching the stolen tech fragment.
It was warm again.
Buzzing, like it recognized something.
Which was deeply unhelpful and extremely creepy.
Then the alarm tripped.
No sound. Not at first.
Just a quiet stutter in the lights. A shift in pressure. That feeling when a room turns against you.
Then came the alert—shrill and sharp, echoing through the walls like a threat made flesh.
"Ah, shit."
Vale didn't wait for a second verse.
He bolted.
He didn't look back.
Didn't need to.
He could still feel the alert sirens pulsing in his spine, even as the facility faded behind him and the metal corridor gave way to cracked stone and half-lit maintenance tunnels. His boots echoed too loudly. His coat kept catching on rusted bolts.
He should've taken a left. Or a right. Or not stolen a possibly haunted object from a dead terminal cluster three days ago. Hindsight was a judgmental bitch.
He skidded into a side alley and flattened against the wall, breath ragged now—not from running, but from whatever the hell that room had been. It hadn't just been storage. It felt like... memory.
Like walking into someone else's past.
And then he saw her.
She was just standing there. Like she'd been waiting. Or like she'd gotten lost and decided to look like she belonged. Thin cloak, frayed at the edges. Dust streaked along her sleeves. Eyes that didn't match the rest of her.
Too sharp.
Too... knowing.
He froze.
Not because she looked dangerous.
Because she didn't.
She stepped forward and grabbed his wrist.
Not hard. Not rough. But like she knew him.
"It's you," she said. Her voice was low and cracked, like it hadn't been used in days. "I never thought you'd find your way back."
Vale blinked.
Then again.
"I—what?" he said, brilliantly.
She didn't answer. Just slipped something into his palm.
A key. Small. Rusted. Ice cold.
Before he could stop her—before he could even process her—she turned and vanished back down the corridor, cloak flicking out of sight like a disappearing thought.
He stood there, arm still extended, hand curled around the key.
The tech fragment in his pocket pulsed once. Hard.
"...the hell just happened?" he muttered.
The air didn't answer.
He stared down at the key in his hand. It was plain. Old. No markings.
But it felt heavy.
Not in weight.
In recognition.
Like holding a name he should've remembered.
Like déjà vu that reached too deep.
He didn't go home.
Didn't even pretend to.
Instead, he climbed. Up two busted scaffolds, across a maintenance ladder someone had zip-tied into place with old fiber cable, and out onto a half-collapsed rooftop that probably wasn't up to code even before the last structural audit reset.
But the view was decent.
From here, Astraeus stretched like a machine pretending to be a miracle. Tower lights blinked in rhythmic patterns. Traffic streams flowed in threads of silver. Surveillance drones zipped overhead, pretending not to notice anything unaligned.
It was too perfect.
Like someone had painted the city, not built it.
Vale dropped into a crouch near the ledge, elbows resting on his knees, fingers toying with the key the scavenger woman had handed him.
He'd looked at it a dozen times already. Still didn't mean anything.
No markings. No ID tag. Just cold metal and a weird shape that didn't fit any lock he'd seen in years. It wasn't even practical. It looked like the kind of thing someone would carry for meaning, not use.
Which, of course, made it worse.
Because it felt familiar.
Not familiar like I've seen this before.
Familiar like this used to matter.
Which was ridiculous. Right?
"I've officially lost it," he muttered to the skyline. "First the glowing rock, now cryptic key-lady with sad eyes and prophetic energy. All I need now is a riddle and a glowing sword."
He let his head fall back against a vent.
The metal rang dull behind his skull.
The city blinked back at him. Silent. Whole. Watching.
He hated it when it felt like that.
Like the walls were too close. Like the buildings were leaning in, listening for something he hadn't said yet.
Or had said before.
Maybe he was just paranoid.
Or maybe, for the first time, he was actually seeing clearly.
The key turned in his fingers. One slow rotation. Click, click, click against the metal.
It felt like a key.
But also like a name. Or a place. Or a promise.
"I don't know what you open," he whispered.
But a part of him—small, quiet, buried so deep he barely noticed it—added:
Not yet.
