Chapter 3: The Archivist's Bait
The utility corridor Riel found himself in smelled not just of metallic ozone and the lingering scent of Siphon activity, but of mildew, stagnant water, ancient, uncleaned industrial grime, and the sharp, coppery tang of leaked coolant—a dark, honest change from the enforced, sterile silence of the upper Plateaus. He leaned heavily against a cold-fusion relay box, the chill of the metal doing little to combat the deeper, colder emptiness where his mother's lullaby used to reside. The deliberate void was terrifyingly effective; his mind was a razor, capable of instant, cold calculation, devoid of any sentimental distraction, but his spirit was stretched thin, brittle, functional only through necessity and the sheer, exhausting force of his will. He was now Rank C: Sleuth, a significant, violently forced jump in power, yet the achievement felt less like a victory and more like a cruel, self-inflicted amputation. He was stronger, faster, and more perceptive, but profoundly, irrevocably less human.
The phantom residue of Senator Arkham's voice—smooth, condescending, and profoundly arrogant—still clung to the air near the discarded drone, an invisible layer of psychic pollution that only his upgraded The Scar could register with agonizing clarity. "The Perfect Siphon Target." The designation was a surgical strike of psychological warfare, designed to frame Riel's desperate struggle not as an act of courageous defiance, but as a fully anticipated, easily quantified variable in Arkham's vast, cold, mathematical design. Arkham hadn't feared his escape; he had counted on it, calculating that the intense trauma and desperate Fatal Recall would yield exceptionally high-quality, stabilized Grief Fragments for the Senate's coffers. The message was clear: Your freedom is a temporary dataset. Riel knew then that simply surviving was a futile effort; he needed to understand the entire, terrifying logic of the game, to break the very code of the Archivist who saw him as nothing more than valuable, consumable data ripe for harvesting.
His new Skill Unik, Residual Scent, was a humming, overwhelming, almost painful presence beneath his temple, an entirely new dimension of perception that drowned out the world's simple visual and auditory inputs. He tested it cautiously, slowly opening his awareness to the corridor's true nature. The corridor wasn't just metal, grime, and pipes; it was a screaming history of forgotten energy and emotional runoff from decades of controlled existence. He could literally 'smell' the faint, panicked relief of a maintenance worker who had almost dropped a heavy tool weeks ago; the residual, deep-seated resentment of a Watcher who despised his routine patrol route; the pungent, chemical scent of synthetic lubricant; and the faint, overly sweet smell of a nutrient bar consumed hours prior. It was a torrential, cacophonous rush of trivial data, overwhelming and bordering on debilitating, but Riel's Sleuth mind began, agonizingly, to find patterns. Within that torrent lay the sharp, focused, distinct trail of the Siphon.
He tracked back meticulously, using the Residual Scent to follow the faint, precise, and highly arrogant geometric trail of the abandoned Siphon drone. He found it wedged behind a stack of damaged memory processors, the faint smell of residual combat protocols still clinging to the metal. The casing was cracked, a small hairline fracture near the power core, but the internal logic board was intact. He knelt, his new Sleuth precision guiding his fingers with almost unnatural speed. He needed the drone's entire log data. He quickly performed a demanding Rank C Echo Recall, pulling the precise memory of the drone's standard maintenance protocol, its encrypted field logs, and the deeply nested decryption key used by Rank A field agents.
Riel's Recall Detail & Analysis (Deep Dive): The memory of an encrypted file transfer protocol, a rapid-fire sequence of binary codes, instantly overlaid with the cold, precise calculation of required data extraction time and the potential security risk of leaving the drone behind. The file structure was overly complex, a symptom of Kyra's confidence. He wasn't just reading the file; for the duration of the recall, he was the drone's high-speed processing unit, capable of running multiple simulations at once, analyzing the efficiency of Kyra's actions. He found the crucial record: the full diagnostic report Kyra sent moments after his escape. The report confirmed that the Fragment Memory of Elara's laugh was successfully tagged, categorized as Rank S Emotional Asset – Volatile, Source: Riel, and immediately routed to The Central Archive, designated officially as Project Chimera-7. Crucially, the report also contained a highly restricted schematic of The Spire's outermost security perimeter, a careless, momentary detail Kyra had left on the drone's temporary cache during the high-stress moment of his unexpected escape. Riel performed a deep-scan analysis on the schematics, memorizing every sensor placement, every blind spot, and the precise moment of Watcher rotation, knowing this data was perishable and would be updated soon. The sheer depth of the information required his Scar to thrum dangerously, but his new Rank C stability held the data in perfect, cold stasis.
The Central Archive was situated in the deepest, most protected sector of The Spire, Arkham's personal domain—an impossible fortress for a mere Rank C Sleuth. Riel knew the schematics alone were useless without a fundamental shift in perception—a way to bypass the human element—the psychological profiling and security screening that would instantly flag a known Remembrancer like him as a source of Chaos. He needed two critical assets: a secure entry method that involved social engineering on a Rank B scale, and a Memory Fragment of incredible disguise or infiltration expertise. This meant only one necessary and extremely dangerous destination: the heart of the underground information network, the illegal Remembrancer Exchange.
He followed a thick Residual Scent trail—the sharp, metallic signature of illegal, untaxed currency, the lingering scent of controlled, transactional aggression, and the deep, rich smell of imported nutrient paste—leading him out of the utility maze and into a dense, heavily policed district of the Plateaus. This area was deceptively quiet, the populace exhibiting the highest degree of Measured Peace—a telltale sign that the presence of Memori Lord informants (The Watchers) was intensely high and subtly pervasive. Riel needed a Fixer who dealt specifically in Rank A and S knowledge fragments, someone utterly reliable and entirely untrustworthy.
He was looking for a contact known only by his codename, "The Cartographer." The Cartographer didn't sell raw combat memories; he sold knowledge—fragments detailing secure routes, social codes, diplomatic expertise, corporate secrets, and the exact weaknesses of the Senate's protocols. Riel found him operating out of a small, dimly lit, nondescript noodle stall near a major transport hub, the only stall in the area without blinding synthetic lighting. The Fixer was a frail-looking man named Pev, his eyes constantly moving, registering every subtle shift in the passing crowd, his hands never quite steady. Pev didn't possess The Scar, but he possessed the highly valued, rare ability to stabilize and store high-rank fragments without degradation—a dangerous talent that made him invaluable to both criminals and, almost certainly, the Senate itself.
"You smell new, Ghost," Pev said immediately, not looking up from his bowl of steaming, pungent nutrient paste. His voice was flat, efficient, cutting through the background noise. "And you smell violently expensive. The aroma of freshly harvested Pure Grief follows you, Riel, intensely mingled with the acrid, metallic scent of a Rank D Echo Recall overdose. You survived a Siphon, and you took a piece of her data. Commendable, if utterly reckless." Pev's directness was jarring, his immediate, accurate assessment unnerving. He was speaking in a transactional code that implied deep knowledge of Riel's recent trauma.
Riel maintained his distance, his newly enforced Sleuth control preventing any visible or palpable emotional response. "I require infiltration expertise, Pev. I need coordinates, a clear path, and a Level A Fragment for deep infiltration. Something that bypasses retinal scans, thermal sensors, and the Senate's psychological profiling at The Spire's inner gates—not just a physical bypass, but a mental one."
Pev set down his utensils with a deliberate, slow clatter, finally meeting Riel's eye with a tired, sharp gaze. "You're asking for a memory that exists only in The Spire's executive core. That's not infiltration, Riel; that's a suicide attempt disguised as a rescue mission. Especially since a Rank A Siphon just spent substantial Senate time trying to harvest your brain and failed. The Senate expects you to run. They do not expect you to climb." He took a slow, deliberate sip of his nutrient paste, holding the eye contact. "The price for such a fragment is commensurate with the risk."
"The Siphon collected something else," Riel replied, his voice a low, steady rumble, tapping the side of his head firmly. "My reason for breathing. The fragment is tagged Chimera-7. I need it back, and that means walking through Arkham's front door, blending into the very air he breathes. Price is not an object. Efficacy is."
Pev sighed, rubbing his forehead with a thin, tired finger. "Very well. Dangerous, but clear motivation. I have something that might get you past the first perimeter without triggering immediate Watcher response. It's a fragment of The Diplomat's Memory." Pev reached beneath his counter, retrieving a small, tightly sealed glass cube, glowing faintly with a subdued, bureaucratic blue light. "This is a fragment of the former Ambassador Kael, a highly trusted Senate official until his quiet, convenient execution for 'data tampering.' It contains the Memory of Perfect Posture, Unquestionable Authority, Complete Vocal Command, and the Innate Certainty of Social Privilege. If you successfully recall it, you won't look like a Remembrancer or a common criminal. You will project the necessary aura of a Rank B executive—someone whose presence is not only expected but absolutely necessary for the functioning of the Senate's logistics."
"What's the price, Pev? Be precise," Riel demanded, ignoring the sheer value of the item.
Pev's smile returned, thin and unnerving. "The price is simple, Riel, and non-monetary. I need you to destroy a specific, obsolete piece of hardware once you're inside the secondary perimeter of The Spire. A small logic module near the main air filtration hub, specifically the Sieve Regulator 47. It's functionally irrelevant to the Senate's grand design, but its continued existence is detrimental to my... business—and the freedom of a few thousand souls on the lower Plateaus who use its vulnerability for illicit memory transfer."
Riel immediately activated his Residual Scent, focusing his Sleuth precision on the glass cube. He 'smelled' the memory: high authority, undeniable presence, and beneath that professional façade, a faint, deep-seated disgust for the Senate's core philosophy. But he also smelled something else—a profound, recent, crippling fear and paralysis attached to the glass cube itself. The residual energy of the fear was sharp, like a sliver of ice, overwhelming the authority.
"The memory is tainted, Pev," Riel challenged, his voice flat, the Sleuth data processing the conflicting scents and the historical data he recalled from the Siphon drone. "Kael's memory contains an infection. What did the Senate do to him before they executed him? You are selling me a memory with a kill-switch."
Pev leaned back further, defeat showing clearly in his eyes. "You are sharper than any Rank C should be, Ghost. The memory is powerful, yes. But Kael committed suicide immediately after the fragment was taken—not from pain, but from philosophical collapse. The Senate spent weeks flooding his mind with the ultimate paradox: That order requires the death of truth. The memory contains Kael's final, fatal doubt about the Senate's legitimacy. If you recall it too long—if you let that doubt integrate fully—you will absorb his paralysis, and you will hesitate—paralyzing yourself with philosophical indecision—at the worst possible moment of the infiltration. It's a deadly, internal fail-safe engineered by Arkham himself."
Riel felt a wave of chilling understanding. This was the Archivist's signature move. Arkham used tainted memories as bait, letting them circulate through the underground to weed out the weak and prove his thesis. Pev wasn't just asking him to destroy a module; Pev was asking Riel to willingly inject a crippling self-destruct sequence into his own mind. It is the Archivist's bait, Riel thought, the realization cold and absolute. A perfect Rank B infiltration memory, deliberately tainted with a paralysis trigger. Arkham wants me to self-sabotage, proving his cynical philosophy that all Remembrancers are fundamentally unstable and doomed by their own emotions.
"I'll take the risk," Riel stated, the words sounding hollow but final. He reached into his satchel. "The price is accepted. But I don't trade in credits, Pev. You need something raw. I need to know the risks involved in acquiring this Pure Rage."
Pev quickly pushed the cube toward Riel. "I trust your word, Ghost. Now, pay me in something I can use. I need a Fragment of Pure Rage—something raw and uncontaminated from The Gloom, not that synthetic fear from up here. Something with lethal, honest momentum that I can use to stabilize my supply. The Gloom is where the Senate dumped its worst trauma; you'll be fighting raw, residual emotion. You need to focus the rage—don't let it consume you, or you'll be lost to the lowest form of chaos."
Riel took the cube, the cold glass a harsh counterpoint to the growing coldness in his heart. He needed to find what Pev demanded—a dark, forgotten, dangerous corner of The Plateaus bordering on The Gloom, where residual memories of ancient, bloody gang fights were heavily concentrated. He was trading his personal safety for lethal social expertise, his morality for a chance at Elara's memory, and his sanity for a chance at infiltration. He turned, his gait already slightly straighter, the inherent, cold authority of the Sleuth beginning to manifest. The scent of ozone was still in the air, but Riel's own scent—the scent of calculated risk and cold, singular purpose—was growing stronger, overshadowing all else. He walked away from Pev and towards the deepest shadows, where the city's true chaos lay.