The underlayers of Altaran were quieter than they should've been. That silence—the wrong kind, stretched taut—crawled under my skin as the hovercraft slipped along forgotten service tunnels beneath Sector Thirteen.
Subtle bio-luminescence bled across concrete walls, casting fractured shadows that clung like parasites. The fifth shard pulsed soft heat beneath my ribs, syncing steady with the others—the resonance now threaded through every breath, every thought, like old scars reopening.
Vesper sat across from me, her eyes distant, lips pressed thin with suppressed memories clawing their way back. The hovercraft's engine hummed low, but her silence was heavier.
"Talk," I said finally, breaking the tension.
Her gaze snapped back. "We're running out of time."
"For the shards?"
"For you," she corrected. "Five synced already. You think your mind won't fracture deeper before the next ones surface?"
I flexed my hands, feeling the echo of forgotten instincts tightening in my bones. "I'm holding."
"Barely."
The display flickered—a coded ping from Ghost slicing through encrypted channels. A new route. A new lead.
"Chime District's sub-veins," I muttered, studying the coordinates. "No patrols, low interference, high risk. Perfect."
Vesper's frown deepened. "We barely made it out of Sector Seventeen intact. You want to gamble shards six and seven under Blackwell's shadow?"
"I want answers," I shot back. "The more fragments sync, the closer I get to what they buried."
Outside, Altaran's skeletal infrastructure bled past—the decayed remnants of industrial veins curling overhead like fractured ribs. The hovercraft angled down, dipping toward the undercity's heart.
We disembarked at a forgotten transit junction—a skeletal web of rail lines and maglev anchors gutted by age. The air stung sharp with rust and residual biohazard traces.
"Signal Ghost," I ordered, scanning the derelict platforms. "We breach the Chime catacombs, we need eyes on every access point."
Vesper keyed her comms implant. "He's already watching."
The tunnels yawned ahead—corridors of fractured stone and flickering emergency lights, the walls etched with old Solis glyphs now faded to ghosts.
Deeper in, echoes followed—distant, layered—the sound of boots scraping concrete, soft electrical hums riding static.
"Not alone," I muttered, pressing against the wall.
A squad filtered into view—armored, neural masks active, weapons primed. But these weren't Solis. Blackwell contractors again—clean-up units tracking shard resonance like bloodhounds.
Vesper tensed beside me, hand ghosting toward her shard. "They're after number six."
"They're late," I said, pushing forward.
We moved through maintenance shafts, bypassing primary corridors—ghosting toward the catacomb's central artery.
The chamber opened wide—circular, lined with old-world containment tanks cracked with age. And there, embedded in fractured stone—the sixth shard.
A crystalline sliver pulsing softly against decayed circuitry.
"They buried it beneath old transit nodes," Vesper whispered. "Deep enough to forget."
"But not deep enough," I corrected, calibrating my stabilizer.
The Blackwell squad breached seconds later—neural rifles humming.
"Target confirmed," the leader barked.
I moved before they finished—shard resonance flooding my system, combat instincts overriding hesitation.
We clashed—the air burning with disruptor fire, old tiles shattering beneath our feet.
Vesper scrambled to the shard, interfacing with exposed neural pathways. The containment seals fractured, releasing the fragment into her palm.
"Go!" I shouted, covering her.
We retreated through collapsing corridors, Blackwell's fire trailing close.
Outside, the hovercraft engines screamed to life as we vaulted aboard.
"Six secured," Vesper panted, her eyes wild, shard thrumming against her chest.
The resonance within me climbed sharper, fragments stitching tighter.
With every recovered piece… the ghost of my past self clawed closer to the surface.
He wasn't done yet. Not even close.
Altaran's shadows twisted behind us, the hunt far from over.