Navy's lab was an anomaly within an anomaly—a cube of black steel floating in the void between dimensions, held aloft by pulsing amber energy beams that throbbed like veins. Shaw watched through the reinforced window as Navy adjusted the controls of a portal twin to the one he had destroyed weeks earlier.
"We need better bait than Kael," she said, her fingers dancing over tactical holograms. "The Collectors might suspect he's marked."
'They probably already knew he was marked the moment they captured him, yet they still went through with this charade. I just have to be cautious about what they're really planning,' Shaw thought.
Rose materialized beside a central database, her spectral fingers sifting through records of extinct worlds.
"They collect memories too, don't they?" She smiled, pulling a data strip that smelled of burnt flesh. "So let's give them one they can't digest."
Shaw studied the Mnemosyne Market schematic projected in the air—a web of escape routes and blind spots. "What's the plan?"
Navy spun a screen toward him. The video showed Kael chained in a crystal cell, his chest split open to reveal the pulsating beacon.
"The crystal isn't just a tracker. It's a cognitive parasite." She zoomed in until black filaments could be seen spreading through Kael's veins. "It's rewriting his memories to make him... compliant."
Shaw touched the image, feeling the echo of energy even through the screen. "What if we inject a corrupted memory into him? Something the Collectors won't be able to resist collecting?"
Navy froze. "You're talking about a cognitive death memory. That's forbidden even by our standards."
Rose laughed, the sound echoing off the metal walls. "That's exactly why it'll work."
…
On the Battlefield—The Fringes of the Market
Kael woke with the taste of metal and static on his tongue. The chains binding him were made of solidified shadow, cold as the void. He tried to scream, but his voice had been stolen—another gift from the crystal in his chest.
"Don't resist."
Shaw's voice echoed inside his skull, clear as if he were standing beside him.
"They need to believe you're just bait. Let the memory do the work."
Kael felt something moving in his mind—a cold, calculating presence settling in like a virus. The false memory.
Outside his prison, shapes began to gather. Collectors, dozens of them, drawn to the beacon like vultures. The white-haired woman led them, her black eyes wide with anticipation.
"He's ready," she whispered, raising a needle made of bone. "Let's extract what Anomaly-317 planted in him."
'So the anomaly has finally made a move,' she thought.
The moment the needle pierced Kael's skull, the entire market trembled.
…
In Navy's Lab
Shaw watched through the mental link Rose had established. The instant the Collectors touched the false memory, he saw:
—A laboratory buried under dimensional ruins, where Watchers dumped stolen artifacts, dimensional laws, and other things into a bottomless pit.
—An agreement written on human skin: the Collectors could enter the 'Tree' and keep some spoils, as long as they handed over any "anomalies" to the Watchers.
—And then, the final blow—the exact coordinates of the Mnemosyne Archive, the central repository where the Collectors kept their most prized memories.
Rose severed the connection abruptly, her face pale. "They know it was a trap."
Shaw didn't waste time. "Navy, activate the portal now."
The portal roared open, revealing not the market but an endless corridor of shelves made of twisted bone. The Archive.
"You're insane," Navy breathed, but her fingers were already typing extraction coordinates. "We have fifteen minutes before the—"
Shaw was already moving. "I need less."
In the Mnemosyne Archive
The air smelled of funeral homes and ancient libraries. Shaw walked between the shelves, his hands hovering over jars containing entire cities in dream, extinct kingdoms, even memories of dead gods.
Rose materialized beside an especially large jar, its contents glowing with their own light. "Here. The Primordial Index—the mental map of every world the Collectors have ever looted."
Shaw reached out, but a sound made him freeze.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
Transparent masks emerged from the shadows. Collectors, at least twenty, each carrying a different weapon—some technological, others mystical, all lethal.
"Anomaly-317." The leader's voice was metallic. "You've broken laws you don't even understand."
Shaw smiled. Then, with a gesture, he activated the memory he'd planted in Kael.
The Collectors screamed in unison as the cognitive virus spread through their masks, corrupting their vision systems with images of the Archive itself being destroyed.
"It's not real," the leader snarled, tearing off his mask. "Kill him!"
But Shaw was already running, the Primordial Index clutched to his chest. Behind him, Rose opened random portals that swallowed unprepared Collectors, sending them to random dimensions.
"We got what we needed!" she shouted, pulling Shaw into a portal Navy barely held open as her device overheated.
The last thing Shaw saw before the portal closed was the white-haired woman arriving too late, her face twisted in impotent fury—and after Shaw's departure, an imperceptible smile flickered across her lips.
…
Back in the Lab
Navy dumped the contents of the Primordial Index into her databases. The map that formed in the air made even Rose step back.
"It's bigger than we thought," Navy whispered. Hundreds of thousands of worlds glimmered like stars, connected by lines of plunder and destruction. "They're not just pruning anomalies... they're cultivating dimensions like crops."
Shaw studied one specific point—a cluster of worlds marked with the symbol of a winged serpent. "And now we know where their core is."
Rose touched the symbol, making it spin. "What do we do with this?"
Shaw closed his fist, crushing the projection.
"What we always do. Steal, learn... and prepare the counterattack."
Somewhere in the depths of dimensional space, the core that powered the protection of the 'Tree's' entrance and exit cracked.