In the old control room, Layla stood with her hand clamped onto the edge of the table. There was something almost whimsical about the table. It felt powerful and calming like some weighed reality anchor. The quiet but ominous whirring of the decrepit machinery in the room was muted to the point of sounding ethereal; giving off empty buzz like a defeated mechanism pretending to itself that it had not stopped working ages ago.
"Your father's death site," She could hear in her mind that phrase over and over again as if someone where shouting the words in extreme torture.
Something behind Serena's eyes shifted, almost as if she felt the remains of frozen pain. "It's not like that," Serena stated in a near accusatory manner which caused Layla to observe her in turn.
"To this day I don't know what he died of," Layla spoke as her eyes lost focus. "When I was told, I recall being so detached almost numb, It's strange now that I think about it. Gas leak was the word they used for the collapsing of the lab. Explosion. And my mother—" She let out a frustrated groan. "Every part of me wants to say, I never saw the body. I saw nothing. Closed casket then my mother inaudibly saying, "It's better this way.""
Serena didn't move an inch. It wasn't like she was trying in any way. She was waiting, perhaps, or observing for the right impact.
"You were never supposed to see it," she said at last. "Your father arranged more than one murder on that day."
"What are you saying?"
"Focus. He knew Kamal would come for the project. The prototype. You. And so, he erased everything—himself included. But not before putting the analog key's location in the one place Kamal would never think to look. Under the embedding."
Layla let out a shaky breath.
"In me."
"Right."
The silence resumed. Not the cozy silence that evokes a sense of peace. Rather, it was heavy—difficult to breathe in.
Layla was the first to move; pacing back and forth, her fingers tangled in her curls, her frantic gaze was fastened to the walls, as though trying to escape her racing mind. "So you're telling me that the failsafe linked to whatever he constructed—this so-called 'failsafe'—is trapped inside my memory. But how can I relive something that I can't even trust? I don't know what's real and what's not. What if I trigger something that I shouldn't?"
"Exactly why we're not planning on doing this unsupervised," Serena replied.
"Then what? Who are we putting our faith into?" Layla snapped. "There is no one left. RAVEN is gone. The archives are nothing but ash. The network is completely silent. We are in a place where we are flying with broken wings!"
Serena clenched her jaw, but spoke softer, "There is someone. A man called Aurel. He used to be your father's neural architect. He aids in constructing the memory partitions. He is the only one who can assist you maneuvering through the maze in your head."
"Where is he?"
Serena paused before responding, "Exiled. Voluntarily. Somewhere past the flooded districts. He is averse to visitors."
Layla let out a sharp exhale and held her lip until the taste of iron filled her mouth, "Of course he is."
The there was a flicker of lights.
Once.
Then again.
Then a final time that was accompanied by Layla reaching for her pistol, but Serena was already moving.
The tremoring of the ground began; imperceptibly faint, yet enough at the same time.
"They are tracking the USB," Serena replied. "Every time your fragment of a memory is triggered, there is a signal trace emitted. Kamal's surveillance is omnipresent."
Now pulling the USB from her pocket, Layla remarked how the metal felt cold and almost pulsating.
"Then we act," was all she said. "Now."
Already mapping out escape routes, Serena nodded.
Layla gave one last glance towards the dying control room's screens. Along with it, so many broken names, dead wires, lost connections. It looked like her memories. All those burned bridges, gaping holes, sealed doors.
"Hold on," she spoke abruptly. "My father… would speak with me in patterns. With colors and numbers. Riddles. I thought it was just his way of being strange. What if they were keys? What if they were triggers?"
"You're remembering already" said Serena, eyebrow raised.
"Not sure if it's remembering or imagining," she went on. "But I'll take what I can get."
As they walked on the scratched steel pathways with weak amber emergency lights coloring the scenery, Layla felt her ankle - which was scarred beneath the hem of her boot. A memory ignited, though it was too reluctant to blossom.
The warmth and pain were punctuated by a man's voice saying, "Always forward. Never backward."
Softly, she whispered, "I think I'm ready."
But she knew the way wasn't ready for her.
The man who built her mind, along with the things buried inside it, waited for her.
It is for her to find out, but far beyond RAVEN's ruins, past the blacked out districts, and further into the surreal poisoned riverside where
reality no longer obeyed its own rules - he awaited.
[To be continued...]