"Find the signal," Lyric had ordered.
Finch spun around in his chair, his fingers flying across three different keyboards. "Okay, okay. But if we're doing this, we're doing it outside. I'm not letting you turn my server room into a battlefield."
"Outside is fine," Lyric said. "How do we get his attention?"
Finch grabbed a handheld device that looked like a modified Geiger counter with a satellite dish taped to it. He tossed it to Rook.
"The Architect is already scanning for you," Finch said, shoving a laptop into a bag. "But the Underground's interference is muddying the water. We need to clear the noise. We need a ping so loud he can't ignore it."
"A ping?" Rook asked, catching the device. "Like a flare?"
"Like a scream," Finch said. "We go to the Central Boiler. It's the heart of the district. Massive thermal energy. If Lyric erases a primary pressure valve, the sudden drop in entropy will look like a supernova on the Guild's sensors."
Rook looked at Lyric. "He wants you to blow up the heating system."
"Not blow it up," Finch corrected, hustling them out the door. "Delete it. Physics hates a vacuum. The Architect will come to fix the glitch."
The Central Boiler was less of a room and more of a cavern.
It was a massive, open space dominated by a tangled knot of rusted iron pipes, each one thick enough to drive a car through. Steam hissed from joints, creating a thick, humid fog that smelled of sulfur and wet rust. The heat was oppressive.
Workers in heavy protective suits moved along the catwalks, checking gauges.
"Clear them out," Lyric said. "I don't want casualties."
Rook nodded. He climbed up a ladder to a PA system box. He pulled out his laser cutter, sliced the lock, and hotwired the mic.
SCREECH.
"Attention," Rook's voice boomed over the speakers, echoing through the cavern. "This is… uh… health and safety. We have a… Class 5 Steam Leak imminent. Evacuate immediately. This is not a drill. Run for your lives."
The workers didn't ask questions. In the Underground, "leak" meant "boiled alive." They dropped their wrenches and bolted for the exits.
In two minutes, the cavern was empty. Just the hiss of steam and the thrum of the pipes.
"Ideally, we'd have more time," Finch muttered, setting up his laptop behind a thick concrete pillar. "But beggars, choosers, etc. Okay. Rook, point the sniffer at the ceiling. Lyric… pick a pipe. A big one."
Lyric walked to the center of the room. A massive vertical pipe, pulsing with heat, stood like a pillar.
"This one?" Lyric asked.
"That's the main intake," Finch said, typing furiously. "Do it."
Lyric took a breath. The heat was making the sweat stick the canvas coat to their skin.
Here we go.
Lyric placed both hands on the scorching hot metal.
Erase.
The heat vanished instantly under Lyric's palms. The sensation of the void opened up.
A ten-foot section of the massive iron pipe simply blinked out of existence.
For a split second, there was silence.
Then, the laws of physics panicked.
High-pressure steam, suddenly finding no containment, exploded outward into the vacuum where the metal used to be. It wasn't a fire; it was a concussion of white force.
BOOM.
Lyric was thrown backward, sliding across the metal grating of the floor.
"Signal spike!" Finch yelled over the roar of the steam. "It's off the charts! He definitely heard that!"
Rook was holding the sniffer device with both hands as it vibrated. "I'm getting a reading! Incoming signal! It's fast!"
"Get the handshake!" Finch screamed at his laptop. "Lock onto his frequency!"
Lyric scrambled up. The steam was filling the room fast, turning the cavern into a whiteout.
"Is he here?" Lyric shouted.
"Not physically!" Rook yelled. "But the signal is—"
The roar of the steam stopped.
It didn't fade out. It cut.
Lyric froze.
The white cloud of steam that was exploding outward suddenly froze in mid-air. The droplets hung suspended, glistening like diamonds.
Then, the steam began to move backward.
It flowed in reverse, sucking back into the gap in the pipe.
"What is happening?" Rook whispered.
"Revision," Lyric said, muscle memory twitching. "He's hitting 'Undo'."
The gap in the pipe—the section Lyric had erased—flickered. Like a bad video edit, the metal reappeared. The pipe sealed itself. The heat returned. The noise vanished.
The cavern was silent again.
Then, the room shifted.
The catwalk Lyric was standing on groaned. The metal twisted.
"Finch!" Lyric yelled. "Did you get the link?"
"I'm trying!" Finch yelled from behind the pillar. "But the encryption is shifting! It's like typing on a keyboard that keeps changing languages!"
"Keep him busy!" Finch shouted.
The far wall of the cavern—a solid wall of brick and rock—began to fold. It peeled away like wet wallpaper, revealing a space that shouldn't have been there.
A figure stepped through the hole in reality.
He was tall, wearing a pristine white suit that looked glaringly out of place in the grimy Underground. He wore no mask, but his face was… boring. Forgettable. He looked like a middle-aged accountant. He held a small, black notebook in one hand and a fountain pen in the other.
"Messy," the man said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried perfectly, as if he was whispering right in Lyric's ear.
He tapped the pen against the notebook.
"Unit 7," the Architect said. "You are causing significant continuity errors."
"My name is Lyric," Lyric said, stepping forward. "And I'm canceling my subscription."
The Architect sighed. He didn't look angry. He looked disappointed. "You destroyed a Lighthouse. You disrupted the steam grid. You are a chaotic variable."
He wrote something in his notebook.
Scratch. Scratch.
The floor beneath Lyric's feet turned into water.
Lyric fell.
It wasn't an illusion. The metal grating literally liquefied. Lyric plunged into cold, dark water, gasping.
"Veyne!" Rook shouted.
Rook raised his laser cutter and aimed at the Architect.
The Architect didn't even look at Rook. He just made a slashing motion with his pen.
The distance between Rook and the Architect stretched. Suddenly, Rook wasn't twenty feet away; he was a hundred yards away. The hallway elongated, pushing Rook and Finch into the distance.
"Distance modified," the Architect murmured.
Lyric kicked, surfacing from the water. But as Lyric climbed out, the water turned back into solid concrete, trapping Lyric's legs up to the knees.
"You cannot fight the design," the Architect said, walking casually across the air, stepping on invisible stairs. "I define the parameters of this room. I define the gravity. I define you."
Lyric gritted their teeth, straining against the concrete. It was solid rock.
"Finch!" Lyric screamed. "How much longer?"
"I need a direct line!" Finch's voice echoed from far away. "He's shielding his signal! You have to make him use more power! Make him overextend!"
Make him overextend.
Lyric looked at the Architect. He was calm. Arrogant. He thought he was a god writing a story.
Lyric stopped struggling. They looked at the concrete encasing their legs.
He made this concrete. Which means it's matter.
Lyric slammed a hand down onto the trap.
Erase.
The concrete around Lyric's legs vanished.
Lyric pulled their legs free and rolled forward.
The Architect raised an eyebrow. "Deleting the scenery? Crude."
He wrote again. Scratch.
The ceiling pipes twisted, turning into metal snakes. They lashed out, aiming to spear Lyric.
Lyric didn't dodge. Lyric ran at them.
As the first metal snake struck, Lyric slapped it aside.
Erase.
The tip of the pipe vanished.
The second one struck. Lyric ducked and touched the midsection.
Erase.
The pipe snapped in half, the metal gone.
"You write," Lyric panted, sprinting toward the man in the white suit. "I edit."
The Architect frowned. He wrote faster.
The floor tilted forty-five degrees. Gravity shifted sideways.
Lyric slid, boots skidding.
"Rook! The sniffer!" Lyric yelled.
Rook, still miles away in the distorted hallway, understood. He couldn't shoot the Architect, but he could help the signal.
"Finch! I'm boosting the gain!" Rook yelled.
Lyric used the shifted gravity, running up the wall—which was now the floor.
The Architect looked annoyed. "Stop."
He scribbled a circle in the air with his pen.
A wall of glass materialized in front of Lyric.
Lyric didn't stop. They slammed both palms into the invisible barrier.
Erase.
The glass shattered into nothingness before it could even crack. Lyric burst through the empty space, tackling the Architect.
The man in white looked genuinely surprised. He hadn't expected the variable to get close.
They hit the ground (or the wall, gravity was confusing). The notebook skittered away.
"Physical contact," the Architect spat, his calm veneer cracking. "Unsanitary."
He reached for Lyric's face. His hand glowed with a white light—rewrite energy.
If he touches me, he rewrites my brain.
Lyric grabbed the Architect's wrist.
Don't erase him, Lyric told themselves. If I erase him, the signal dies, and we lose the data.
Instead, Lyric just held on. And pulled.
Lyric focused on the energy the Architect was using. The connection to the Guild. The "Wi-Fi" signal of reality.
"Finch! Now!" Lyric screamed.
The Architect's eyes went wide. "What are you doing?"
"I'm being the antenna," Lyric gritted out.
The Architect screamed as Finch's hack hit him. It wasn't physical pain; it was data intrusion. The Architect froze, his body flickering like a hologram losing bandwidth.
"Got him!" Finch yelled from the other end of the cavern. "I'm in! I'm bypassing his firewall! I see the logs! Holy… there's so much data!"
"Find the wipe!" Rook shouted. "Three days ago! Unit 7!"
The Architect thrashed, trying to throw Lyric off. The room spun. Up became down. Snow started falling from the ceiling. The pipes turned into tree roots.
"Get off me!" the Architect roared.
"Not until we have it!" Lyric yelled, holding tight.
"Found it!" Finch screamed. "Sector 4! Unauthorized Void Wipe! Victim identified!"
"Who is it?" Lyric shouted.
"It's a name!" Finch yelled. "Valerius Veyne!"
Lyric froze.
The grip loosened just for a second.
Veyne.
My name is Lyric Veyne.
Valerius Veyne.
"Brother?" Lyric whispered.
The Architect seized the moment. He kicked Lyric in the chest.
The force was like a cannonball. Lyric flew backward, tumbling through the distorted gravity, crashing into a pile of (now wooden) pipes.
The Architect scrambled up, grabbing his notebook. He looked terrified. His suit was torn, his composure gone.
"You… you breached the Archives," the Architect panted. "The Grand Design… you stained it."
He didn't attack. He tapped his pen on the book three times.
Click. Click. Click.
A portal opened behind him—a swirling vortex of white light.
"This sector is compromised," the Architect said. "Purge initiated."
He stepped backward into the portal and vanished.
Instantly, the reality warping snapped back.
The floor became the floor. The wooden pipes turned back to iron. The snow turned back to steam. Gravity slammed back to normal.
Lyric hit the ground hard, gasping for air.
Finch and Rook came running from the pillar—the distance was normal again.
"We got it," Finch said, clutching his laptop like a baby. "We got the packet before he cut the line."
Lyric sat up, clutching their ribs. "Valerius Veyne. He had my name."
Rook knelt down. "Brother? Father?"
"I don't know," Lyric said, wiping blood from their mouth. "But I erased him. I erased my own family."
"Why?" Rook asked softly.
"I don't remember," Lyric said, the misery heavy in their voice. "But Finch has the data. What else did it say?"
Finch opened the laptop, his hands shaking. "It's not just a name, Lyric. It's a location. The log says the 'Primary Mass'—that's the body—wasn't destroyed. It was… displaced."
Lyric stared at him. "Displaced? I thought I erased things from existence."
"Usually, yes," Finch said, adjusting his glasses. "But for a target this big? A human soul? The energy has to go somewhere. The log says the target was displaced to 'The Void-Space'."
"Where is that?"
"It's not a place," Finch said. "It's the space between memories. It's where the Guild keeps the things they can't delete but don't want anyone to find."
Finch turned the screen around. A map was displayed. It showed a location deep, deep below even the Underground.
"He's in the Guild's Black Site," Finch said. "The Vault."
Lyric stood up. The pain in their ribs was sharp, but the direction was clear.
"We're going to the Vault," Lyric said.
"That's impossible," Rook said. "That's the most guarded place on the planet."
"I erased him," Lyric said, looking at their hands. "If he's stuck in some void-hell because of me, I'm going to pull him out. Or I'm going to finish the job properly."