He watched the door for a full minute after they were gone.
Not because he thought they'd come back. Because he wanted to hear if the steps echoed wrong. They didn't. Rezz and the woman were pros, maybe not from the same crew, but they spoke the same language pressure, veiled threat, survival through leverage.
He turned the coin over once in his palm, then slid it into the underside strap of his waistband. He didn't need to see it again.
He walked back to the vent corridor. The girl wasn't there.
That didn't make sense.
She should've still been working on the drive. That processor was half-broken. Not the kind of thing you cracked in twenty minutes. Either she moved fast, or she was never here alone to begin with.
He found her in the backup water line chamber, crouched beside a bulkhead valve, splicing a data tether through a broken diagnostic panel. She looked up before he spoke.
"I thought you didn't like questions," she said.
"How'd you get in?"
Her hands slowed, but didn't stop.
"You mean into the arena?"
He stepped closer.
"They don't authorize anyone. Not fighters, not staff, not guests. Not without badge sig and blood ID. This isn't a charity fight club."
She stood. Not defensive just matching posture. She wasn't small, but he was leaner and tighter across the shoulders. She didn't flinch.
"Money," she said. "Same way the guards buy hyperdarts, same way the medics sell bones out the back. Kajlamas doesn't care who walks in, only who dies."
He watched her face. No tension in the lie.
"You're not just here for your brother."
Silence.
Then, "No. But that's where I started."
"What else?"
"I collect endings. Lost files. Erased things. Things people pay to forget. You weren't on any lists. Not until last month."
He narrowed his eyes.
"They called you CR-05," she said. "I called you Ghost. Before I knew what that meant."
He turned.
She didn't follow.
"But I'm not your enemy," she said. "If I was, I'd already be dead. You'd have smelled it on me."
He paused at the door.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Why now?"
"You're still here."
She smirked, but there was no mock in it. Just weariness.
"Syv."
He nodded once. Just once. Then left.
He walked straight to the dorms. No hesitation now. No pacing the ring's upper vents or watching the fights from above. The air felt different. Too quiet. Even the crowd below had gone back to background noise, dull thumps and reverb screams.
He dropped onto the cot and leaned back against the wall. His ribs complained. That crack was still fresh from the Surgeon's elbow.
He focused on the rhythm of the pain. The way it made his breath short. Not shallow just precise. He liked that. Pain made things clearer.
Somewhere in the back of the dorm, a drunk was screaming at ghosts. The usual. A fighter who'd taken too many headshots or lost too many matches and stayed breathing when he shouldn't have.
He listened for a while, eyes half-closed.
Then he spoke. Quiet. Measured.
"Syv."
Just the name.
He tested how it felt in his mouth. Like rust, or dust, or a story he didn't know yet.
There was movement outside his room.
Footsteps. Light. Controlled.
He was up before the door opened.
Syv stood there.
She had the drive in one hand, a folding tool in the other. No boots. Her eyes were clearer than earlier.
"I decrypted the second file."
He didn't answer.
"It's not just about the CR-tags. The Ertelyom project was more than weaponization. They were studying reactivity to 'unknown atmospheric memory lattices.' That's all the file said."
He stepped aside. Let her in.
She sat, not like a guest like someone who didn't believe in homes.
"What's atmospheric memory?"
He closed the door. Clicked the lock.
"It's a phrase they used for terrain with psychochemical imprinting. Places that remember trauma. Places like CrimsonRay."
She nodded. Absorbed it.
"They think you survived it not because you were stronger," she said. "But because you changed with it."
He sat across from her.
"No," he said. "I was already like this."
She looked at him differently now. Not like an asset. Not even like a mystery. Like a mirror with cracks in the same places.
"I'm staying here," she said.
"For how long?"
"As long as I have to."
"Someone will notice."
"I paid two guards to forget. Gave one of them a codebreaker I built from a scrapped fetal drone. He doesn't even know what it's worth."
Gray leaned back.
"You think you're safe?"
"No," she said. "But I'm close enough to the right monster."
He didn't smile.
But he didn't stop her from staying.
Outside, another fight ended. The roar was smaller this time. Less blood. Less spectacle. The arena was getting bored.
Soon they'd want something bigger.
And when they did, they'd remember the Gray Thing.
He closed his eyes.
The coin in his pocket dug into his hip.
Syv said nothing else.
For a few minutes, they just sat there, quiet.
Two ghosts. Waiting.