POV: Split — Ryuu Takeda / Audrina Cromwell
Location: Sector 27 Lower Pit Zones / Sector 9
Precinct Block Time: 00:41 – 03:10 Local
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"The city doesn't lose people. It files them under warnings the living stop reading."
— Civic Broadcast Override, Unauthorized Relay A/B, Sector 7
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Ryuu — Sector 27, Lower Tram Rails
The underlevel air stank of ozone, leaking coolant, and rust too thick to be accidental. Ryuu Takeda stood beneath the broken ventwork near Pit-Level 3, staring at a tram route no longer used by anything but ghosts and mistakes.
Supervisor Merrow leaned on a cracked junction panel, thumbing through shift logs. The glow of his datapad etched oil lines into his fingers.
"You seen Kael today?" Ryuu asked.
Merrow grunted. "Ishan? Not since yesterday. No logout. No badge swipe. Last ping was near Transit 27C."
"That zone's off-grid."
"Tell that to your friend. He said he was chasing heatline interference. Claimed the diagnostics didn't match the overlay."
Ryuu's jaw tightened. Ishan Kael was meticulous about timing. He didn't disappear—not unless something made him.
Merrow swiped again. "Logs show his ID near Pit-Level 3. Then nothing."
"Wiped?"
"Scrubbed," Merrow said. "Like the system wanted to forget him."
Ryuu turned toward the pit.
The Thermal Recycling Annex.That's what the Federation still called it on the maps.Everyone else knew it as the Bone Market. A blood-ring stitched into old coolant chambers.And under that? Red Null.Where names went to vanish.
The Core beneath his ribs thumped once—pressure, not pain. Like memory waiting to breathe.
Ishan had been here.But he wasn't now.
The last time Ryuu had seen Ishan was just steps from this junction—cracking jokes about rigged node diagnostics and stim-coffee breath.
Now?
Only silence.
He muttered under his breath, voice tight:
"This city doesn't eat the careless. It erases the careful."
Two days earlier, Ishan had stopped him just before shift:
"You ever get Haruki's courier logs to pull?"
He'd been crouched beside a relay node, goggles pushed to his forehead, fingers smeared with rust.
Ishan Kael was always easy to spot — lean, taller than Ryuu by a thumb, always in that oversized Federation hoodie with sleeves too long and a belt full of tools clanking at his waist. His hair was dusty silver, shaved short on one side, and he always smelled like reactor grease and old coffee.
Ryuu had shaken his head. "Still nothing. Three days."
"You sure he didn't just get rerouted off-grid?" Ishan had frowned, flipping a cracked tablet over in his hands.
"Haruki always pings. Even for junk stops." Ryuu answered.
"Then maybe he's not on the grid anymore," Ishan had said. "Federation reroutes low-tier couriers when a path gets scrubbed."
"Without notice?"
"Without mercy."He'd laughed. But it hadn't reached his eyes.
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Audrina — Sector 9 Precinct Block 3
Audrina Cromwell stared across the interrogation table at a boy barely sixteen. His hands trembled. Three fingers splinted. Bruises up his ribs. But it was the mark under his collar that held her gaze: a faint Eclipse symbol, burned not inked.
"He didn't speak for two hours," Officer Vale said behind her. "Until you walked in."
Audrina rolled her locket between gloved fingers. It clicked.
The boy flinched.
"They don't take kids for ransom," he rasped. "They take them to pull the threads."
She leaned in. "Who pulls them?"
He didn't answer. But his eyes flicked to the corner—then back.
"Those with no names left. Only brands."
She glanced at the burn under his collar. The Eclipse emblem.
Her brother's sector.
Dorian's assignment post.
Too many coincidences. Too much silence.
Coincidence was something she'd stopped believing in when she buried her parents' file beneath three layers of civilian lies.
She closed her eyes.
Two years ago, during a precinct deep-clean, she'd overheard Ishan Kael—an off-grid tech consultant—joking over a recursion brand.
"Some wear it like an accident. Others? You can tell the brand knew them before they knew themselves."
She remembered the way he'd said it: half sarcasm, half warning.
She hadn't understood it then. She did now.
Later, in her office, the air was dry—old printer heat and stale tea clinging to the corners.
She opened her analog field log and began to write:
Three disappearances in Sector 9-South.
One flagged courier, minor.
All children branded or tagged with Eclipse insignia.
Gang movement tied to tech fragments.
Locket pulsed near child survivor.
She paused.
Then added:
"They're not missing. They're used."
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Ryuu — Near the Pit Rims
Back beneath the tramline, Ryuu stood at the edge of Red Null's entry — the access corridor beneath the Thermal Annex. Aura signals didn't work here. Nothing did.
Then—he saw it.
Taped to a bent utility pole:
MISSING — Yula, Age 9, Sector 9 South. Last seen near the recycling grid. Contact code unreachable.
The bottom of the poster was torn away.
MIRAGE had already scrubbed the entry.
He stared at it.
Then his comm buzzed.
A secure pulse. Encrypted.
Then, a short audio blip followed by a system ping.
[ISHAN KAEL — DEFERRED MESSAGE RECEIVED | Timestamp: 41:03]
"You were right. Haruki didn't just drop off the grid. Something down here's rerouting pings manually. If I don't log back in—don't follow the flags. Someone's listening."
The recording ended in static.
No further trace. No return signal.
Ryuu stood frozen.
Something shifted in the air, like the world was holding its breath just beneath his feet. His hand closed into a fist.
Something's wrong.
It was instinct.
He opened Haruki's message feed again.
Still no ping.
Still no sign.
He didn't say the name aloud.
Didn't have to.
But his Core stirred.
Not flaring. Not active.
Just… waiting.
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Audrina — Field Case Log Addendum
MIRAGE Internal File Override: [BLOCKED]
Red-tag Case: RE-9-S-CHILDREN-03
Source: SURVIVOR_BRAID // Status: CLOSED BEFORE REPORT ENTRY
Audrina blinked. Her locket flared.
She whispered: "These aren't abductions. They're selections."
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Final Scene — Observed
High above both the pit and precinct, Seren Kairo sat cross-legged against the silent perch of Tower 12's east vent duct.
Her visor blinked once:
[SUBJECT_11: VOW PRESSURE FLUX INCREASING]
[SUBJECT_CROMWELL: SHADOW FORM AHEAD OF TIME — BIND PENDING]
She didn't flinch.
Didn't report.
Just whispered—voice quiet, almost reverent:
"You weren't supposed to wake yet. But the city bled early."
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"The first name the city forgets is the one it fears will come back."
— Fragment 1.2, Hollow Psalms (Unlisted)
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