Aria gasped awake, her neural interface buzzing with phantom data. She was back in her small apartment in Neo-Tokyo, the familiar glow of neon signs filtering through her window. For a moment, she wondered if it had all been a dream—the memory market, the Great Glitch, the ruined future.
But the weight of borrowed memories told her otherwise. She was back, yes, but with knowledge of events yet to unfold.
A quick check of her system clock confirmed it: three days before her fateful meeting with Dr. Venn in the tea house. Three days to prevent the extraction of the Mars Rebellion memory and stop the collapse of reality itself.
Aria moved quickly, gathering her equipment and accessing secure data channels. She needed to find the source of the Mars Rebellion memory before it could be extracted and weaponized.
As she worked, a notification pinged on her neural interface—a message from Zeke:
[Hey partner, got a line on a big score. Mars Rebellion memory. Buyer willing to pay top dollar. You in?]
Aria's blood ran cold. It was happening already. She composed a reply, trying to sound casual:
[Sounds risky. Meet me at the usual place in an hour. We need to talk.]
She hit send and prayed she wasn't too late.
The "usual place" was a hidden bar called The Cortex, tucked away in the shadows of Neo-Tokyo's financial district. As Aria approached, she noticed something off. The streets were too quiet, the shadows too deep.
She activated her enhanced vision, scanning for threats. That's when she saw them—temporal distortions, barely visible ripples in the air. The Echoes were already bleeding through, drawn to this crucial moment in time.
Inside The Cortex, Zeke was waiting at their regular booth, his cybernetic arm tapping an impatient rhythm on the table. As Aria slid into the seat across from him, she noticed a flicker of something in his eyes—recognition? Fear? It was gone in an instant.
"Took you long enough," Zeke said, his tone light but his posture tense. "So, you in on this job or what? Could be our big break."
Aria chose her words carefully. "Zeke, listen to me. We can't go through with this. That memory—it's dangerous. More dangerous than you can imagine."
Zeke leaned back, his expression unreadable. "Funny. That's not what you said when you first told me about it."
A chill ran down Aria's spine. "What are you talking about? I never—"
Her words were cut short as the bar around them suddenly glitched, reality stuttering like a corrupted video file. For a split second, Aria saw another version of herself sitting where she was, engaged in an entirely different conversation with Zeke.
As the world snapped back into focus, Zeke's cybernetic arm transformed, revealing a hidden neural disruptor aimed directly at Aria's head.
"You know," he said, his voice tinged with regret, "for a temporal anomaly, you're not very good at keeping your story straight."