The hum of the Towers was a constant, psychic itch at the edge of Kai’s awareness, a dissonant chord in the city’s newly awakened song. He had become a bridge for the imprisoned, a smuggler of solidarity, but it was a palliative measure. A whisper against a scream. To truly break the Towers, he needed to understand what they were built upon. He needed to find the source of the Purists’ power: the proof that deletion was a lie.
The answer lay in the most forbidden place of all: the Central Genetic Archive. Not the public-facing database, but the sealed sub-levels rumored to hold the “Deletion Vaults.” Where the Purists claimed they had sent unwanted memories to be unmade.
Getting in was a suicide mission. The Archive was the heart of the Purist citadel, guarded by layers of biometric scan
