The memory shifts one last time, settling on the most recent, the most precious. Selena's sixteenth birthday. The apartment is decorated with a string of scavenged, multi-colored LED lights. On the small table is the cake. Max gives her a gift first: a small, intricate sculpture of a bird, cleverly welded together from discarded scraps of metal. Then it's Ralph's turn. He hands her a small, heavy box. Inside is a vintage, multi-layered toolkit, each piece meticulously cleaned and restored. A practical gift. A gift that says, "I want you to be able to fix your own world." Selena's eyes, storm-gray and green, light up with a brilliance that outshines all the neon in Virelia. She throws her arms around him, her hug fierce and strong. "Thanks, Dad," she whispers.

Ray was back in the cold, sterile quiet of the clinic. The warmth of the memory fades, leaving a profound ache in its place. He is still kneeling, still holding Selena's hand. These weren't his memories. This wasn't his love, his pride, his pain. But he was the vessel. He was the ghost in the machine, and now, the ghosts of a loving family haunted him too.

He slowly stood up and gently lifted his hand toward Selena's sleeping face, but stopped midway. His lips formed a tight line as he drew his hand back.

Outside the room, Julia was standing on a chair, her datapad in hand as lines of code reflected in her eyes. She spoke before Ray could even ask. "Do what you have to do."

He offered a tight nod and left.

KAMIGAMI was waiting outside the clinic. He mounted the bike and drove away as the sun settled, and night took over the city. Neon light ran like blood along the grey frame of his bike. After twenty minutes, he arrived at his destination: a squat, ferrocrete apartment block that had been forgotten by the city's architects and left to the mercy of time and acidic rain. Its façade was stained with long, dark streaks, and the single light over the main entrance flickered erratically, casting the doorway in a sickly yellow strobe. Exposed conduits and bundles of fiber-optic cables snaked across the walls like metallic veins, some of them sparking faintly in the gloom.

He parked nearby, engaging the bike's security system. A group of teenagers glanced at him, their faces a mixture of smug smiles and fake attitude. He ignored them and walked to the building. Placing his hand on the panel beside the door and it clicked open. He stepped into the stairwell. The air was thick with the smell of damp and decay. The walls were a chaotic mural of overlapping cables and faded gang signs. Overfilled trash bags slumped against the walls, leaking a dark, unidentifiable fluid onto the cracked floor. He climbed. Apartment 23. The door was new, a cheap plasteel replacement that didn't match the grime of the surrounding wall. As he approached, a ghost image from Ralph's memory overlaid his vision: the old, scratched-up door and the faint sound of his children's laughter from within. The memory vanished, leaving only the cold, silent reality. He accessed the building's old server, searching for what had happened after Ralph and his kids were taken. Barely three days later, a new tenant had moved in. A bulky man in his thirties with a modded arm and spinal bracing. A construction worker.

He knocked. No answer. He knocked again. After the tenth time, he heard heavy footsteps approaching. The door swung open with a pneumatic hiss. The man was a wall of muscle, his cheap synth-muscles rippling over a powerful frame. His eyes were bloodshot, and a crude, spiderweb tattoo was etched onto his neck. Ray noted the shotgun mounted to the wall just inside, well within the man's reach.

"What do you want?" the man growled, his breath a foul wave of cheap booze.

Ray kept his gaze level. "A family lived here before you. What happened to their belongings?"

"Threw them away," the man grunted, moving to close the door. Ray's hand shot out, stopping the door dead in its tracks. The man's gaze hardened, and Ray could hear the servos in his cybernetic arm whine as they powered up.

"Get. Your fucking. Hand. Off. My. Door."

A surge of anger, hot and unfamiliar, flooded Ray's systems. It wasn't his own. It was Ralph's. "Where did you throw them?"

"Why the fuck would I tell you? It was trash. Old stuff. Barely made enough credits off it to buy some beer," the man said with a smug grin.

"What about a heavy box with a vintage toolkit inside? That would have fetched a good price," Ray pressed, the memory of Selena's smile flashing in his mind.

"Yeah. I'll put it to good use," the man sneered.

Ray was tired of talking. His hand shot out faster than the man could react, clamping onto his cybernetic arm. A powerful electric charge surged from Ray's Zapper Hand. The man spasmed violently, his hair standing on end as his eyes rolled back. Ray shoved him, and he collapsed inside the narrow corridor.

Ray closed the door behind him. The apartment was a single, cramped room that had been brutalized by its new occupant. A stained mattress was shoved into one corner, surrounded by a fortress of empty beer bottles and discarded food containers. A kitchenette unit against the far wall was piled high with dirty dishes. The air was thick with the smell of stale booze, drugs, and faintly of piss. Cracks like spiderwebs ran along the walls.

Ray could see the ghost of the home it once was. He saw the spot where the family's photos used to hang on the wall, now covered by a cheap, holographic poster. He walked to the kids' former bedroom, a smaller, curtained-off alcove. It was now the man's personal sty. In the corner, half-buried under a pile of filthy clothes, he saw it: Selena's toolkit, intact. He looked around and found more: Max's metal bird figurine, an old datapad with some of Selena's projects, and a battered laptop. He placed them all inside his coat, the nanites forming a secure fabric pouch around them.

He walked back to the unconscious man and knelt, sending a smaller jolt of electricity through him. The man jolted awake, baring his teeth as he scrambled to attack, but froze when he saw Ray's hand, the fingertips, elongated into razor-sharp claws resting a millimeter from his throat.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Where did you throw the photos?" Ray asked, his voice a low whisper. The man's face went pale, the alcohol instantly purged from his system by sheer terror.

"Trash! Bag in the kitchenette!" the man stammered, his eyes wide with terror. "What did you do to me? My interface is dead!"

"I injected a targeted virus. If you move, it will fry your neural link and ignite," Ray lied calmly, standing up. "Don't worry. It will dissipate a few minutes after I'm gone."

The man didn't move, frozen like a scared puppy. Ray walked to the kitchenette, retrieved the bag of photos, and placed them in his coat. He left the apartment without a backward glance.

Back on the street, he saw the group of teenagers huddled a safe distance from his bike. One of them was rubbing his arm, his hair standing on end and smelling faintly of burnt ozone.

"Told you not to touch it," another one hissed.

They scattered as Ray approached. He mounted KAMIGAMI and drove away, the memories of a dead family secured safely against his chest.

Back at Julia's clinic, Ray stepped inside the room where Selena was kept. Julia had moved her to a small, quiet cot where she was resting. He didn't bother Julia, who was deep in concentration, working on a patient in the main room. He glanced at Selena for a moment before carefully lifting her into his arms and heading to the back entrance leading to the back alley where Monzo's modified car waited. He returned for Max, gathering him up just as gently. He settled both children into the vehicle and drove away into the city's gray heart.

A system ping pulled Ray from the digital ocean. He opened his eyes, the real world snapping back into focus. Six hours had elapsed. He looked at Max. The boy had woken up, but he was still a cadaver, a statue of trauma. Ray gently approached him.

"Max?" Ray called, his voice soft. There was no response. "How are you feeling?"

Nothing. The boy's eyes remained fixed on a point on the far wall. Elective mutism, Ray noted, drawing from the terabytes of psychological data he had downloaded. He placed a hand on Max's shoulder. There was a flinch, a sharp intake of breath, but nothing more.

Then, Ray's enhanced senses picked up a foul, acrid odor. He carefully pulled back the sheet covering Max's lower body. The couch beneath him was soaked, the fabric stained a dark, ugly color.

For a moment, Ray was still. There was no disgust, no hesitation. There was only the problem, and the solution.

He gently lifted the boy, whose body was limp and unresponsive. He carried him to the small shower room, the stench now overwhelming. With methodical precision, he undressed him, the soiled clothes falling to the floor. He started the shower, the water temperature calibrated to a perfect, non-threatening warmth. He held Max upright under the spray, his grip firm but gentle, as he washed the filth from the boy's pale, thin body. Max remained a ghost, his eyes open but unseeing, a living statue being cleansed by a machine.

Ray dried him with a clean towel and carried him back to the main room, wrapping him in a fresh blanket. He laid him on the undamaged end of the couch. He then turned to the mess. He placed a hand on the stained fabric, and a tide of gray nanites flowed from his palm, covering the area. They moved like a colony of metallic ants, deconstructing the waste at a molecular level, leaving the couch pristine and sterile in seconds.

He stood over the boy, now propped up on the couch, a ghost in his own life, completely dependent on Ray for the most basic needs. His self-aware and sensitive personality, shattered by the violation of his body, had retreated so far inward that he had become almost unreachable. He made no move to feed or hydrate himself; Ray had to gently administer nutrient paste and water. And by necessity, he had to fit the boy with a medical-grade diaper he had acquired. The only sign of the life still within him was the occasional, violent flinch as phantom pain shot through his nervous system. Ray had placed the metal bird he had retrieved right next to him, but so far, Max had not even glanced at it.

Selena woke up a few hours later after a sixteen-hour sleep. Her awakening was the polar opposite of Max's silence. Her eyes snapped open and she screamed, a raw, terrified sound. "Don't take me! Don't take me!" She scrambled off the couch, her movements frantic and clumsy.

Ray moved towards her, but the moment he took a step, she recoiled, screaming, "Don't come closer! Leave me alone!"

He stopped instantly. He accessed the memories of hostage negotiators, trauma counselors, and interrogators.

Subject is hysterical.

Direct approach will escalate.

De-escalation protocol required.

He slowly raised his hands, palms open and visible, a universal gesture of non-aggression he had seen work in a hundred different violent memories. He kept his distance, his posture deliberately non-threatening.

She calmed slightly, her screams subsiding into ragged, panicked breaths. Her storm-gray and green eyes darted around the unfamiliar apartment. "Where am I?" she demanded, her hands trembling. Then her entire body stiffened as a new, more profound horror dawned. "Why… why can't I remember anything?" she whispered, the words choked with rising panic. The whisper became a scream. "WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER ANYTHING?!"

She rushed past him, shoving him aside with surprising force, and ran for the door. It was locked. She smashed her fists against the hard plasteel, screaming, "Somebody help me!!!" Then she turned, pressing her back against the door, a cornered animal, her body tense and ready to fight or flee.

Ray didn't move from his spot. He kept his voice low and calm, pitching it to a frequency designed to soothe. "You were in a bad accident. It caused severe memory loss."

"And you really think I would believe that?" she spat, her eyes flashing with defiance. Her gaze flickered to the sleeping form on the couch, to the empty space where his legs should have been. "What did you do to him? Why doesn't he have legs?"

"He was caught in the same accident," Ray explained, his tone never wavering. He paused, letting the information sink in. He could see her mind racing, trying to find a flaw in the narrative. "His name is Max. He's your little brother."

The words hit her like a physical blow. Her defiant posture faltered, a flicker of confusion and a deep, ache crossing her features.

"Your father was critically injured," Ray continued, carefully constructing the new reality for her, a temporary splint for her shattered mind. "He and I knew each other for a few years, worked at the same factory. He told me to come and get you. I brought you here, to my apartment, to take care of you."

It was a logical, plausible story, delivered with absolute conviction. He watched as her breathing became shallower, the adrenaline of her panic beginning to recede, replaced by a wave of overwhelming emotional and psychological exhaustion. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and before she could hit the ground, Ray was there to catch her. He lifted her gently and carried her to one of the new futons he had set up.

He stood over her for a moment, running a psychological analysis based on Ralph's memories. Her self-confident, assertive mind, built on a foundation of control, was at war with her own identity being stolen. The extreme distress was caused by the feeling of powerlessness and a crippling paranoia that would view every gesture as a trick. She would see control in every corner, a threat in every shadow. This would be more difficult than any physical fight.

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