Kai like a shadow with a heartbeat. His rig hummed against his wrist, glitching every few seconds as if the ghost's presence had corrupted more than just the implant he'd pulled it from.
He needed answers. And there was only one person with enough technology that could help decode something like this.
Mira Voss.
The undercity grew darker as he descended the last stairwell into Sector 12. Street vendors hawked modded implants, black-market blessings, and quick-patch nerve boosters. Between flickering holo-signs, graffiti written in binary told him he was getting close. The entrance was hidden where three alleys intersected—a dead vending machine advertising a drink that hadn't existed for ten years.
Kai knocked once. Twice. Then entered the code with muscle memory he wished he didn't still have.
The machine shuddered, coughed clouds of static, and slid sideways.
Warm light hit him immediately—oil lamps mixed with holographic fire, music floating up like incense. The scent was a blend of coolant vapor, sandalwood, and desperation. The Soul Bazaar was alive tonight.
He stepped inside.
The cavern stretched wide, the ceiling low and ribbed with old train tracks, abandoned decades earlier when underground transit was replaced by quantum teleportation hubs. Vendors set up shop in what had once been platforms: tech monks whispering code-prayers over cracked servers, street shamans brewing spectral tonics, data-witches selling hacked memories in crystalline vials.
This wasn't a market—it was a nervous system for everything New Shanghai denied existed.
Kai walked past a stall where a boy no older than twelve sold "curse removal scripts" on USB beads. Another vendor hawked bottled ghostlights, each flickering with some lost soul's faint echo.
And then he saw her.
Mira Voss stood beside a pillar of rusted steel, her scarf glowing with shifting sigils. Her hair—black with silver lines running through it like circuitry—fell over one shoulder. Tattoos along her arms pulsed in alternating frequencies, reacting to unseen signals in the Bazaar.
She didn't look surprised to see him. That annoyed him.
"Kai Onyx." She folded her arms. "Either you're lost, or you're in more trouble than usual."
He snorted. "Do I ever look lost?"
"You look like someone playing it off," she said. "Start talking."
He held up the rosary-rig. "I found something in a man's implant. Something impossible.
She took the device, and the beads lit up as if greeting her. She ran her fingers over the circuits—delicate, precise, reverent.
"Three processors burned out," she observed. "That's new. What'd you yank out of him?"
Kai hesitated. "A ghost."
Mira raised an eyebrow. "Ghosts don't fry hardware."
"This one did. And it talked."
"That's also normal."
"It talked… like me."
Her expression changed. Sharpened.
"Say that again."
"It used my voiceprint. Exactly. And—" He swallowed. "It knew things."
Mira tapped a command into the rig. Holographic data spooled upward, spiraling in a helix of blue light. The Bazaar's background noise faded as she analyzed the spectral pattern.
When she spoke again, her tone was different. Almost afraid.
"This is not your soul signature but this is something different something n"
Kai nodded grimly.
"Perfect match," she continued. " Fully corrupted, a failed Frankenstein experiment"
Kai took a shaky breath. "Can you explain that?"
Mira snapped the hologram away. "Someone copied you, Kai. Copied your consciousness. That's forbidden tech. Dangerous. Illegal even down here."
He felt the ground tilt under him. "I didn't authorize any resurrection protocols. You know I—"
"Kai," she cut in softly, "you can't copy a living mind."
Silence.
The truth brushed cold fingers along his spine.
The ghost's words echoed back:
You died five years ago.
Welcome back.
Mira didn't press, but her eyes said she already knew where his mind was going. "We have to figure out where the fragment came from."
Before he could reply, the lights flickered—holograms stuttering like dying stars.
Vendors froze. Ghostlights dimmed. The temperature dropped so sharply Kai's breath fogged.
A deep, metallic humming vibrated through the Bazaar floor.
Everyone stopped what they were doing.
Because they all recognized that sound.
Kai's rig screamed with warnings.
› INTRUSION DETECTED
› AUTHORITY: ARCHON
› PROTOCOL INITIATED: RAPTURE
Mira cursed under her breath. "Not again. Not tonight."
The humming rose into a chorus of static shrieks as translucent shapes materialized at the far entrance—pixels distorting into screaming faces.
Wipers.
Not just spirits. Not just code.
Erasure made manifest.
Kai grabbed his rosary-rig. "Why is Archon here?"
Mira backed up. "It's not here for the Bazaar."
The wipers rushed forward, glitching through stalls, scattering merchandise and terrified vendors.
Mira's eyes locked on Kai.
"It's here for you."
The first wiper lunged, and Kai swung the rosary-rig in a glowing arc. Light exploded from the beads, shredding the spirit into corrupted static.
Mira grabbed his sleeve. "Move! We need to get you hidden before Archon identifies your full signature!"
"Too late," Kai growled.
His rig flashed red.
› TARGET CONFIRMED: KAI ONYX
› RETURN THE LOST PROCESS
The wipers shrieked.
Mira pulled him deeper into the tunnels.
They ran through flickering light, the Bazaar collapsing behind them.
Kai didn't look back. He couldn't afford to
.