#The One Who Answered
#018
The echo of sirens still rang in Juno's ears, even deep inside the tunnels.
They'd stopped running hours ago. Now they walked in silence, each step haunted by what they had done.
The data burst had gone out. Every resistance node within twenty kilometers had received a copy of Calder's decrypted file—images, voices, trade records, the origin story of Bliss and the truth behind the Collectors. It was more than just evidence. It was memory restored.
And Bliss would never forgive them.
Eden led the way through the dim underground. Her flashlight beam trembled slightly, not from fear but from adrenaline. She hadn't rested since the relay.
"Don't fall behind," she called, voice low but firm.
Juno didn't realize he'd been dragging his feet.
Asher touched his arm. "You alright?"
He nodded. "I just keep thinking… what if no one believed it?"
"They will," he said. "The truth is heavier than fear. Once it lands, it sinks."
Eden slowed at a fork in the tunnel. She crouched and traced a faint chalk mark on the wall—two intersecting arrows. Calder's symbol. He had always left messages like breadcrumbs. Signs for those who remembered how to read them.
"This way."
They turned left.
The air changed. Slightly cooler, faintly humming with underground powerlines. The tension in Eden's shoulders loosened just a bit. That meant they were close to the old node.
The tunnel opened into a hidden chamber.
Asher froze the moment he stepped inside.
Someone was already there.
A single figure stood at the far end, backlit by an old generator screen. Cloaked in ash-grey fabric, hood drawn low. They didn't move, didn't speak.
Eden's hand went to her weapon.
"Who are you?" she called out.
The figure raised one gloved hand slowly and dropped a sealed memory shard to the ground. It clinked against the concrete, then rolled to a stop at Eden's feet.
Juno stared at it, pulse racing.
Eden didn't move.
The figure finally spoke, their voice distorted by a voice-mask.
"You sent it."
The words weren't a question.
Juno found his voice. "You… got the transmission?"
The figure nodded.
"I decoded it. All of it."
They pulled back their hood.
It wasn't a stranger.
It was a boy. No older than Asher. Maybe younger. Pale, with fire-burnt skin down one cheek and eyes that looked far older than they should have. His left hand was prosthetic—old tech, scavenged from pre-Bliss war salvage.
"My name is Marrow," he said. "I was a Recorder. Before they wiped the tower."
Eden tensed. "You worked for Bliss?"
"I remembered too much," he said simply. "So they tried to erase me. I survived."
He pointed to the shard on the ground.
"That's proof I've been collecting fragments for years. Stolen trades. Broken bonds. Names they forgot to bury."
Juno stepped forward carefully and picked up the shard.
"What do you want?"
Marrow looked at him.
"To help."
Asher crossed his arms. "Just like that?"
"You lit the match," Marrow said. "Now you need someone who knows where the oil is."
Eden glanced at Asher. She didn't like it. Neither did he. But they couldn't ignore what the boy had.
"Why should we trust you?"
Marrow's voice didn't change. "Because if you don't, you'll die in two days. Bliss has already isolated the transmission point. They've activated Protocol Thirteen."
Asher's stomach dropped.
Protocol Thirteen.
The systematic purging of all memory-bearing anomalies in a district—traders, hosts, shadow-points, data ghosts. Everything connected to fragmented thought.
Everything they were.
"How do you know that?" Eden asked quietly.
"Because I still have access to the lower tower systems," Marrow said. "I piggybacked the signal you sent and traced the countermeasures. I also redirected a secondary burst—across the Divide."
Juno blinked. "Wait. The Divide? You mean—?"
"The memory wall," he confirmed. "The one Bliss built to keep the Core minds from talking to each other. I broke a line in it. Someone else knows now."
"Who?" Asher asked.
Marrow smiled faintly.
"You'll meet them soon."
He turned and began to walk toward a sealed tunnel behind the generator.
"Come with me. There's more you need to see."
Eden hesitated only a moment before following.
The tunnel led to an abandoned surveillance chamber, long since cut off from the city grid. Screens flickered with static, but one showed a map of the city overlayed with glowing red lines. Memory hotspots. Trade zones. Pulse interference.
Juno stared at it, wide-eyed. "This… is incredible."
Marrow turned to Asher.
"The file you sent—it contained a name. Do you know whose it was?"
Asher frowned. "I thought it was Calder's."
"No," Marrow said. "That was a cover signature."
He pressed a button, and the screen zoomed in on one section of the map. A sealed district on the edge of Bliss jurisdiction.
A single blinking light pulsed there.
"It belonged to the last Soul Auctioneer before the war."
The air grew heavy.
Eden stepped forward. "I thought they all vanished."
Marrow nodded. "They did. Except one. He went into hiding after the uprising failed. They called him Thorn."
Juno whispered, "He's alive?"
"If you want to destroy Bliss," Marrow said, "you'll need to find him."
A long silence followed.
Then Asher said, "Then we need to move. Tonight."
Eden nodded. "We rest for two hours. Then we move."
Marrow picked up the shard from Juno's hands and connected it to the interface.
"I'll guide you. But you need to understand something."
They all turned to him.
"This isn't just a war about memory," he said softly. "It's about belief. Bliss survives because people choose to forget. If we want to win, we have to remind them what they lost—and why it mattered."
For the first time, no one had anything to say.
The room fell into stillness again. But this time, it wasn't fear.
It was the weight of something far greater.
Not just resistance.
Purpose.