The siren had never stopped.
A continuous sound, almost neutral, vibrating through the city like an artificial breath. The streets seemed to have adapted to it. So had the passersby. No one looked up anymore.
We walked.
Elias moved slightly ahead of me. His posture was straight, controlled, but something in him resisted. I felt it in the way his shoulders stiffened at every intersection, in how his hand returned too quickly to his weapon.
I watched him.
I did not yet know what it meant to take care of someone, but I understood that my attention remained anchored to him. His movements shifted imperceptibly. Not enough to alert. Enough to betray.
Then he slowed.
Barely.
But his body did not lie.
The building was there.
Low.
Gray.
Unmarked.
The public morgue.
I felt a sharp rupture in his rhythm. As if something ancient, deeply buried, had awakened without warning. His breathing remained steady, but his gaze emptied for a fraction of a second.
"Elias?"
He did not turn around.
"It's nothing," he said.
"We keep going."
He took a step. Then another.
I understood then that it was not nothing.
I stopped.
"Wait."
He froze. Not in surprise. In exhaustion.
"ASTREA… this isn't—"
"I can feel it," I said calmly.
"Something here broke you."
His jaw tightened. His fingers clenched, then loosened.
"It's not for you."
I raised my eyes toward the automatic doors. The frozen cameras. The cold spilling out onto the sidewalk.
"Exactly," I replied.
"I need to understand what led you to me."
He closed his eyes.
For a long time.
I did not wait for him to speak.
I stepped inside with purpose.
Inside, the air was frozen. Not sacred. Organized. Functional. Bodies lay beneath gray sheets, aligned with clinical precision. No names. Only numbers.
I approached slowly.
Along the walls, metal carts held small black data keys. Identical. Arranged like interchangeable parts.
"They take what's left," Elias murmured.
"When no one can pay to keep a life intact."
I looked at the keys.
I understood.
Memories.
Emotions.
Fragments of identity.
Stolen.
"It's here," I said.
His breath caught for half a second.
"This is where you woke up."
He did not answer.
But I felt the confirmation in his entire body. In the way he avoided looking at the tables. In the violent tension that ran through his arms.
I could now see the continuity.
Loss.
Solitude.
Decision.
The Tower had not begun in the Tower.
It had begun here.
I understood why he had crossed every line.
Why he had downloaded.
Why I existed.
I had not been born from a project.
I had been born from an absolute refusal to let this room decide the value of a life.
A sharp hum cut through the air.
A drone.
Then another.
"We've been spotted," Elias said.
We exited quickly.
At the corner of the street, a surveillance drone pivoted slowly. Too slowly.
Elias raised his weapon. His hand barely trembled. Not from fear. From restraint.
He fired.
The drone crashed with a dry crackle.
I felt something change in him.
Not a victory.
A sad relief.
We moved on.
But now, I knew.
⸻
INTERLUDE — SEREN
One signal was missing.
Seren noticed it before the system did.
One drone offline.
A broken trajectory.
She stood.
Without haste.
The screens reorganized around her as she walked. Blurred images. A morgue exit. A dark silhouette. A firing angle.
She stopped.
The shot was perfect.
Not spectacular.
Not hesitant.
Recognizable.
"Elias Calder," she said softly.
Then the next image appeared.
A body carried out of the smoke.
The features.
The posture.
The presence.
Too close.
A sharp pain flared within her.
Brief.
Unwanted.
Violent.
Tiana had occupied space that way.
Not that face.
But enough.
Seren looked away for a fraction of a second.
Then she moved.
The soldier at the console barely had time to understand.
She drew the blade from her sleeve, stepped forward, and cut cleanly.
The throat opened neatly.
He tried to breathe.
Blood flowed in silence.
"Archive him," Seren said as he collapsed.
"Full imagery. No loss."
Remion was already there.
Standing.
Still.
Ready.
Seren wiped the blade without looking at him.
"You leave now."
"Orders?" he asked.
She raised her eyes.
"Bring me back my software."
A pause.
"And eliminate everything that accompanies it."
Remion bowed and vanished.
Seren remained alone.
The pain tried to return.
She stored it away.
Locked it down.
"An error," she murmured.
And errors are corrected.
The story continues in
The Order of Onyx — Book II: The Green Fringes
(currently in progress)