Karn drove deep into the Klong Toei district, a forgotten area where the law faded into the smog. He parked his car in a shadowed alley and climbed the crumbling, damp stairs of a six-story derelict building.
He reached the fourth floor and knocked a coded rhythm on a door—three quick, two slow.
The door opened. Jane, a woman in her mid-thirties with sharp eyes and arms covered in purple tattoos, scrutinized him. She was one of Bangkok's most skilled underground hackers and Karn's only trusted contact.
"Karn? It's two in the morning. What's wrong?" she asked, noticing the bloodstains on his shirt and his trembling hands.
"I need help, Jane. A big problem."
The Analyst
Jane's room was a chaotic hub of flickering computer screens, electronic gear, and tangled wires. She poured him a strong, hot coffee. Karn recounted everything: the mysterious package, the Black Drive, the horrific memory of Rinda's death, his father's manipulation, and the Mnemosyne agents.
Jane's face tightened. "Shit, Karn. This is huge. Dr. Araya? The most powerful man in the industry?"
"I need you to analyze this drive," Karn insisted, handing over the Black Drive. "Is it real, or is it a planted fake?"
Jane examined the drive carefully. "This Gen1 Black Drive is extremely rare. They were recalled and mostly destroyed after five subjects died during testing. It's raw, unfiltered data."
After thirty tense minutes of processing on a secure machine, Jane looked up.
"It's real. No tampering, no filtering. Full-spectrum Raw Data, recorded straight from the brain, maximum intensity."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning the memory is authentic. And more importantly," Jane typed, opening a hidden metadata file. "It was recorded on March 18, 2048, at 11:47 PM—three days after Rinda disappeared."
She pulled up a GPS coordinate.
"Mnemosyne Tower, Basement 5, Special Lab." Karn whispered, a cold wave washing over him. "My father's corporate bunker."
"And one more thing," Jane said, her voice strained. "The drive contains the Recorder ID: USER-001."
"User 001?"
"The very first test subject of Project Genesis," Jane explained, staring straight at Karn. "You were the first subject."
The Promise
Karn slumped to the floor, breathing labored. The reality was undeniable: His father had used him, tortured Rinda to break him, recorded the experience, and then wiped his memory clean, covering it with a fake accident narrative. Someone, somewhere, had kept the true recording and sent it back a decade later.
"Karn, you have to expose this," Jane urged. "Go to the police, the media."
"They won't believe me," Karn countered, rising slowly. "He has the power. He controls the narrative. This one memory isn't enough."
"So, what's your move?"
Karn stood tall, the weariness replaced by a grim determination. "I need more evidence. I need to get into the Mnemosyne system. I need to find out if there are other victims."
"That's suicide. Their security is goddamn military-grade."
"Can you help me?"
Jane was silent for a long moment, then sighed heavily. "Shit. I knew you'd ask that."
"Thank you, Jane."
"Don't thank me yet. If we get caught, we disappear just like Rinda." She returned to her keyboard. "Okay. I'll prep the gear. But remember, this isn't just about the past. If your father is still running Project Genesis, we need to stop him before he makes more victims."
Karn nodded, looking at Rinda's smiling photo on his laptop screen.
"I will find justice for her," he whispered. "No matter the cost."