The shockwave threw Elias across the room. Glass rained down as the reinforced window held against the blast. He scrambled behind his desk, the only cover available.
Two figures in black tactical armor moved through the smoke. They didn't speak, communicating through silent hand signals. Professional.
Elias reached for the emergency panel under his desk. His fingers found the hidden catch just as a armored boot kicked the desk aside.
"Elias Vance." The voice was synthesized, robotic. "The data-chip."
"I don't have it," he gasped, the wind knocked out of him.
"The analysis. The records."
The second figure was already at his terminal, inserting a device that bypassed his security. Elias watched helplessly as his life's work was downloaded in seconds.
Then the first figure raised a weapon. "The Council sends its regards."
A shot rang out, but it wasn't from the attacker's weapon. The figure crumpled, a neat hole in their helmet. The second attacker spun, returning fire toward the doorway where Ms. Petranova stood, weapon raised.
In the confusion, Elias grabbed the heavy data-drive from his terminal and smashed it against the second attacker's head. The armor protected them, but the impact bought Petranova the second she needed.
"Move!" she shouted, firing twice more.
They fled through the emergency stairwell, the sound of alarms growing distant below them.
"Who were they?" Elias demanded as they emerged onto a rooftop landing pad.
"Council enforcers," she said, activating a stealth transport. "They've been monitoring me. Your analysis must have triggered their response."
"The sky," Elias realized. "The blue sky."
The transport lifted off just as more armored figures burst onto the roof. Petranova executed a evasive maneuver that pressed Elias into his seat.
"You need to see the complete memory," she said, handing him a viewer. "Not just the analysis."
Elias placed the viewer against his temple. The memory unfolded around him—not as data, but as experience.
He stood on a grassy hill, feeling a breeze that carried scents of earth and growing things. Above him stretched the impossible blue sky, so vast it made him dizzy. In the distance, a city shimmered, but unlike Neo-Arcadia, its towers were clean and white, interspersed with green parks.
A voice spoke beside him, though he couldn't see the speaker. "They'll try to erase this, like they've erased everything else. But the truth is buried in the oldest systems."
Then the memory fractured, dissolving into static.
Elias removed the viewer, his hands trembling. "That wasn't a vacation memory."
"No," Petranova agreed. "It's a memory of the world as it was. Before the Council, before the Great Filtering."
"The Great Filtering was a climate disaster," Elias said automatically, repeating the official history. "It nearly destroyed humanity."
"That's what they want us to believe." She guided the transport toward the industrial district. "But what if history itself has been edited?"