The safehouse was hidden beneath a functioning recycling plant, the constant grind of machinery providing perfect acoustic cover. Elias watched as Petranova accessed a hidden terminal, its technology older than any he'd seen in Neo-Arcadia.
"Who are you really?" he asked.
"Lena Petranova. Former archivist for the Historical Integrity Commission."
Elias barked a laugh. "The HIC is a myth. A conspiracy theory."
"Exactly what the Council wants you to believe." She brought up a series of files on the screen. "We've been preserving authentic memories since the Filtering. Ensuring someone remembers the truth."
The files contained memory engrams dating back decades, each tagged with verification codes more sophisticated than anything Elias had encountered.
"Why come to me?" he asked. "If you have all this?"
"Because you're the best authenticator in the city," she said. "And because the donor of that memory specifically requested you."
She brought up a profile. The face that appeared on the screen made Elias's blood run cold.
"Dr. Aris Thorne," he whispered. "But he's been dead for years."
"Officially, yes. But we recovered this memory from a secure archive three days ago. He left it for you, Elias."
"Why me? I never even met the man."
"Your father worked with him. Before the Purge."
Elias stared at the screen. His father had died in a laboratory accident when he was a child. The official report called it a containment breach.
"Thorne and your father were working on something called the Memory Preservation Initiative," Lena continued. "They discovered that historical memories were being systematically altered."
"The Council's propaganda..."
"No." Her voice was sharp. "Not just propaganda. Actual neural rewriting. They've been editing human recollection on a mass scale."
Elias thought of the countless memories he'd authenticated over the years. The subtle inconsistencies he'd attributed to natural memory degradation. The way certain historical events always seemed to align perfectly with Council narratives.
"It's impossible," he said, but the conviction in his voice was fading.
"Thorne hid something before he disappeared," Lena said. "A key memory that can't be altered or erased. The Council wants it destroyed. We need to find it first."
She brought up a map of the city's underground data conduits. "Thorne called it the 'Genesis Memory.' According to his notes, it's hidden in the oldest part of the network—the original infrastructure from before the Filtering."
"The foundations are flooded, irradiated. No one's been down there in decades."
"Then we'll be the first." She handed him a breather unit and a radiation badge. "The Council already knows you've seen the memory. They won't stop until you're silenced."
Elias looked at the equipment, then back at Lena's determined face. He thought of his destroyed office, the attackers, the impossible blue sky.
"Where do we start?"