Chapter 2

The neon haze of Neonspire’s undercity pulsed like a living thing, a labyrinth of flickering signs and shadowed alleys where deals were struck in whispers. Elara Vex navigated the chaos with the practiced ease of someone who’d spent a decade dodging enforcers and rival dealers. Her coat, a patchwork of synth-leather and hidden pockets, concealed vials of memory shards—glimmering fragments of lives not her own, ready to be sold to the desperate or the depraved. But tonight, as she slipped into the back room of The Shatterglass, a dive bar reeking of burnt circuitry and cheap stims, a gnawing unease coiled in her gut.

She’d been off-kilter since the last deal, two nights ago. A client, cloaked in a holo-mask that blurred their features into a shifting mosaic, had purchased a shard she’d sworn was just another stolen recollection—a fleeting moment of joy from some forgotten soul. But when the transaction completed, a sharp, unplaceable ache had bloomed behind her eyes. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt it, but it was the strongest. Like a piece of herself had been carved out and handed over.

“Elara, you’re late,” grumbled Korran, her tech contact, as she slid into the booth across from him. His cybernetic eye whirred, scanning her with a cold, mechanical gaze. A tangle of wires snaked from his temple to the data-pad on the table, where he was decrypting a fresh batch of shards. “Got a buyer lined up for tonight. High roller. Wants something… specific.”

“Specific how?” Elara asked, keeping her voice low. The bar’s din—clinking glasses, murmured deals, the occasional burst of static from a malfunctioning holo-ad—masked their conversation, but you could never be too careful in Neonspire.

Korran leaned in, his organic eye narrowing. “They’re looking for trauma. Deep, raw stuff. The kind that rewires you. They’ve got creds to burn, but they’re picky. Said they’d know it when they felt it.”

Elara’s fingers tightened around the vial in her pocket. Trauma shards were rare, valuable, and dangerous. Extracting them often left the donor a hollow shell, and implanting them could fracture a buyer’s psyche. She’d sold a few over the years, always with a pang of guilt she buried under the weight of survival. But something about this request felt personal, like a predator sniffing for her scent.

“I’ve got something that might fit,” she said, pulling out a shard labeled with a cryptic string of numbers. She didn’t know its contents—dealers rarely sampled their own wares; it muddled the mind too much—but the source had been a desperate junkie, willing to sell anything for a fix. “Run it through your rig. See if it’s got the edge they want.”

Korran plugged the shard into his data-pad, his cyber-eye flickering as he skimmed the emotional imprint. His face darkened. “This… this is heavy, El. Loss. Betrayal. The kind of pain that doesn’t fade. It’s perfect. But…” He hesitated, his gaze flicking to her. “It feels familiar. Like I’ve seen echoes of this in other shards you’ve brought me.”

Her pulse quickened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. Just… be careful with this buyer. They’ve been asking about you. Not by name, but they’ve dropped hints. Like they’re hunting for something specific about *you*.”

Elara forced a smirk, masking the chill creeping down her spine. “Everyone’s hunting for something in Neonspire. Let’s set the meet. Usual spot?”

Korran nodded, but his expression lingered with unspoken worry. They’d been partners for years—him cracking encryptions, her working the streets—and though they rarely spoke of personal matters, there was a quiet trust between them. She felt it fraying now, as if he sensed the cracks she couldn’t yet see in herself.

The meet was set for midnight in the abandoned transit hub on the edge of Sector 7, a cavernous ruin of rusted mag-lev tracks and shattered glass. Elara arrived early, her breath fogging in the cold, damp air. Her hand hovered near the concealed stun-rod at her hip as she scanned the shadows. The buyer emerged from the darkness, their holo-mask shimmering like liquid obsidian, distorting their form into an androgynous silhouette.

“You have what I asked for?” Their voice was modulated, a synthetic purr that echoed off the broken walls.

Elara held up the shard, letting the dim light catch its iridescent surface. “Trauma, pure and potent. Fifty thousand creds, non-negotiable.”

The buyer tilted their head, as if appraising more than just the shard. “I’ll take it. But I have a question first.” They stepped closer, and Elara’s grip on the stun-rod tightened. “Do you ever wonder where these memories come from? Whose pain you’re peddling?”

Her jaw clenched. “I don’t ask questions I don’t want answers to. Do you want the shard or not?”

They chuckled, a sound like static over a dead comms line. “Oh, I want it. I’ve been collecting quite a few from you lately. Pieces of a puzzle I’m eager to complete.”

The words sliced through her, sharp and cold. Before she could react, they pressed a credit chip into her palm, their gloved fingers lingering just a moment too long. “Keep bringing me treasures like this, Elara Vex. I’m building something… extraordinary.”

They turned and vanished into the shadows, leaving her standing alone with the weight of their words. How did they know her name? She hadn’t given it, not tonight, not ever. Her heart thudded as she pocketed the chip, the unease from earlier now a full-blown storm in her chest.

Back at her safehouse—a cramped, windowless room hidden behind a false wall in a derelict hab-block—she couldn’t shake the buyer’s words. Collecting. Puzzle. Extraordinary. She poured herself a shot of synth-whiskey, the burn doing little to dull the edge of her thoughts, and activated her personal holo-display. A scattering of files blinked into view, records of every deal she’d made over the past year. She hadn’t noticed it before, hadn’t wanted to, but Korran’s warning echoed in her mind. Familiar.

She cross-referenced the shards she’d sold to this buyer, pulling up their emotional imprints. Loss. Fear. Rage. A pattern emerged, a jagged thread of pain that felt too close, too intimate. Her hands trembled as she accessed a shard she’d kept for herself—a fail-safe, a memory of her own she’d extracted years ago as insurance against mind-wipes. She plugged it into her neural jack, wincing as the connection snapped into place.

The memory flooded her: a child’s scream, her own, as enforcers dragged her mother away. The cold bite of restraints on her wrists. The hollow promise of “we’ll be together again” fading into static. It was her darkest moment, the one she’d buried deepest. And it matched the imprint of a shard she’d sold three months ago.

Her breath caught, the room spinning. Someone was collecting her memories—her pain, her past—and she’d been handing them over, piece by piece, without knowing. But who? And why? The holo-mask, the modulated voice, the cryptic taunts—they were toying with her, drawing her in. She slammed the display off, the darkness of the safehouse swallowing her.

A soft ping broke the silence. A message from Korran, encrypted and urgent: *Got intel on your buyer. Meet me at Shatterglass. Now.*

Elara grabbed her coat, the weight of the stun-rod a cold comfort at her side. Whatever game this collector was playing, she was done being a pawn. She’d find them, uncover their purpose, and if necessary, shatter the puzzle they were building—even if it meant facing the pieces of herself she’d tried so hard to forget.