CHAPTER 3: Ghost In The Circuit
1030 Words
The chip in Rhea’s pocket pulsed faintly as she walked back through Sector 9. It was as if it had a heartbeat—one that matched her own. The streets buzzed with the usual noise: rusted hover-bikes screeching over broken roads, vendors shouting coded phrases, drones flickering past. But everything felt distant now.
That man in the BioDome had known her name.
Someone was watching her.
She tightened her grip on her hood and ducked into a narrow alley, her boots splashing in puddles of dirty water. A wall of neon graffiti blinked in the gloom. She stopped, checking behind her—no footsteps. Still, the weight of being hunted clung to her like a second skin.
She needed help.
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The Hacker
There was only one person she could trust now: Jace Talon, a former neural hacker her brother had mentioned once, back when Laziel was still around. Laziel had said, “If anything ever happens to me, and you’re stuck, find Jace. He owes me.”
She didn’t know what Jace looked like—only that he frequented the Undernet Café, a hidden data bar buried behind a ramen shop near the edge of Sector 8.
It took her two hours to get there on foot. She couldn't risk taking transit—biometric scans were everywhere.
Inside the ramen shop, the air smelled of seaweed and old circuits. The cashier didn’t speak, just nodded when Rhea said, “I’m looking for ghost code.”
He slid open a side panel behind the counter, revealing a staircase descending into blue light.
Rhea walked down, each step lit beneath her feet. The walls were lined with data wires and dusty screens. She entered a room filled with silent people wearing visors, plugged into old neural ports. Soft, electric hums filled the air.
And there, in the back, was a figure surrounded by glowing code—his fingers moved like he was conducting an orchestra.
“Jace Talon?” she asked.
He didn’t look up. “Depends who’s asking.”
“I’m Rhea Voss. Laziel’s sister.”
That made him freeze.
After a long pause, he turned. Jace was younger than she expected—maybe nineteen—with a lean frame, messy black hair, and a small silver implant on the side of his head. His eyes scanned her like she was a puzzle he’d been trying to solve.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he said softly. “If Laziel sent you, that means things are worse than I thought.”
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Truth on the Table
Over a flickering lightboard, Rhea explained everything—the memory chip from the auction, the voice saying “it’s in the flower”, the second chip, and the man who found her.
Jace listened without interruption, his fingers tapping an invisible rhythm on the table. When she finished, he leaned back, exhaling deeply.
“Project Mnemosyne,” he muttered.
“You know it?”
“Only the basics,” he said. “It was a black-listed government program. Experimental memory design. The goal was to create synthetic memories and insert them into people—to rewrite who they were.”
“Why?” Rhea whispered.
Jace gave her a hard look. “To control people. Make enemies forget who they are. Erase rebels. Build loyal soldiers from stolen minds.”
Rhea’s stomach twisted.
“But it failed,” Jace went on. “Some of the test subjects... remembered.”
Her heart pounded. “Are you saying I—?”
“I’m saying you might not be who you think you are.”
The room tilted.
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Ghost Code and Hidden Files
Jace plugged the chip into his main console and ran a diagnostic scan. Lines of encrypted code appeared—jagged, broken, but alive. He frowned.
“There’s a buried sequence in here,” he said. “A sub-memory. Hidden under the main file. Someone layered it, deep.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Laziel was hiding something even from you.”
He tapped a few keys. The screen shimmered—and a new memory file blinked into view.
Jace transferred it into a holographic interface, and suddenly, Rhea was staring at a floating image: her brother, looking scared, whispering into a camera.
> “If you found this, Rhea... then I failed. I tried to protect you. I tried to erase what they did to you. But the memories—they’re breaking through. You need to know the truth. Your past... it wasn’t real. You were part of the Mnemosyne program. They built your childhood. Your name. Even your face. But you’re not a weapon. You’re more than that.”
The recording glitched, then Laziel's voice returned, harsher:
> “They’ll try to reboot you. If they succeed, the real you—the true you—will disappear forever.”
The message ended.
Rhea stared at the space where her brother’s image had been. Her hands shook.
All this time… her life had been a lie?
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A Warning Too Late
Before she could speak, Jace’s console lit up red.
“Someone’s traced the chip,” he said.
A blaring alarm rang out across the data bar. The others jolted up in confusion.
“MOVE!” Jace shouted. He grabbed Rhea’s wrist and yanked her down a side hall just as a blast rocked the entrance behind them. Smoke filled the room.
Rhea coughed as they stumbled out into the alley behind the shop. Sirens howled somewhere in the distance.
“They found us,” she gasped.
“They found you,” Jace said grimly. “And now they’ll never stop.”
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The Road Ahead
Later, under the cover of night, they hid in a crumbling rooftop shelter above a junkyard. Rhea couldn’t sleep. She sat staring at her reflection in a piece of shattered glass.
Her face felt foreign now. Every memory she held suddenly suspect.
Was she really Rhea Voss?
Or was she just… something someone made?
And if that was true… who had she been before?
Whatever the answer was, she knew this:
She would not let them take her mind again.
- Writer
