Rain hammered the alley like a constant drumbeat, washing Neonspire's glow into streaks of blurred color.
Aya sprinted through the slick streets, pulling Riku behind her until the red lights of Oracle's drones finally disappeared into the storm.
Her heart was still thundering from the Core—its black cylinder, the whispering figure, the pulsing static that felt like it had crawled into her veins.
They ducked beneath a collapsed canopy where broken holo-ads flickered and died in endless loops.
Aya pressed her back against the cold wall and listened.
Only the hiss of rain and the distant buzz of power lines remained.
Riku bent over, catching his breath. His soaked hair clung to his face, and neon water dripped from his jacket onto the cracked pavement.
"They'll seal every tunnel now," he said between breaths. "Oracle won't let us near the Core again."
Aya kept her voice low, scanning the alley for movement.
"That thing we met… was it really the Whisperer?"
Riku hesitated, eyes darting like he was replaying the encounter in his head.
"I don't know. Maybe it's not a person at all. Maybe it's the grid itself. Whatever it was, Oracle hated that meeting."
Aya's fingers brushed the grip of her pistol. The image of the hooded figure burned in her mind—its voice like layered static, its words cutting through the air: Oracle sees all, but Oracle does not remember.
If that was true, then everything she'd trusted in her work as a detective meant nothing.
---
A Place to Breathe
They left the alley and moved deeper into the undercity, past rusted stairways and broken sky-rail supports.
Finally Riku led her into an abandoned service station, a skeleton of cracked tiles and dead vending bots.
A half-lit sign still clung to the wall: REFUEL – RELAX – RECHARGE.
The irony wasn't lost on her.
The air inside smelled of damp concrete and old electricity. Water dripped steadily from a busted pipe, each drop echoing like a slow metronome.
Aya swept the room with her scanner. No surveillance drones. For now.
Riku sat on a fallen beam and unzipped his jacket with shaking hands.
"We can't stay long," he said. "But I needed to check this."
From an inner pocket he pulled a small black capsule, no larger than a cigarette case. Faint blue light leaked from a thin crack along its side.
Aya's eyes narrowed. "What is that?"
Riku opened the capsule and revealed a thin crystal chip. The shard pulsed faintly, as if a heartbeat lived inside it.
"I grabbed it from the Core while you were watching the figure," he said, almost sheepish. "Didn't think I'd actually get it."
"You stole something from Oracle's most restricted zone?" Aya's voice sharpened.
"If they catch us with that, we won't get a trial—we'll just disappear."
"They already know," Riku said simply. "If Oracle wanted to catch us, we'd be dead. The fact we're breathing means this chip matters more than we do."
Aya hated that he might be right.
---
The Countdown
Before she could argue, her wrist-link buzzed violently.
A single line of text burned across the dark screen, stark white against black:
> FIVE HOURS UNTIL SILENCE.
Aya's stomach tightened. "What does that mean?"
Riku tapped the shard against her wrist-link. The same message repeated, this time with a faint string of shifting coordinates beneath it.
"It's a warning," he said, voice low. "Something happens when the clock hits zero."
Aya scanned the coordinates. They pointed to an unmarked zone far below the city's registered maps.
"Oracle territory?"
"Deeper," Riku said. "Old grid. Pre-Oracle infrastructure. Places that don't officially exist."
A slow dread settled over Aya. "If Oracle isn't stopping it…"
"…then Oracle might be the one starting it," Riku finished.
---
A New Face
A soft splash echoed from outside.
Aya drew her pistol and signaled Riku to stay quiet.
A shadow slipped through the broken doorway—a woman in a patched mechanic's coat, a hood pulled low against the rain.
A dim blue tattoo glowed faintly across her temple, pulsing in rhythm with the shard in Riku's hand.
"Easy," the woman said, raising empty palms. "If I meant harm, you'd already be tagged."
Aya kept her weapon steady. "Name."
"Kael," she replied. Her voice carried a metallic edge, like a radio just slightly off frequency. "I keep what's left of the old network alive."
Aya's eyes narrowed. "How did you find us?"
Kael tilted her head toward the pulsing shard.
"When forgotten servers scream across dead lines, I hear it. Right now the whole Deep Grid is screaming."
"Deep Grid?" Aya asked.
"The city under the city," Kael explained. "Buried power lines, hidden servers, memories Oracle erased.
Those coordinates on your wrist—they lead there."
Riku's eyes widened. "That's where the Whisperer wants us."
Kael stepped closer, lowering her voice. "If Oracle reaches the Deep Grid first, every lost memory will be wiped forever. No history, no proof—just perfect silence."
Aya felt a chill crawl along her spine.
"Why help us?"
Kael gave a thin smile. "Because I remember what silence cost the first time."