Memory — Year 31 after first contact
Hernández's workshop had been the best in the region.
Ethan remembered it by the smell: hot metal and machine oil mixed with something harder to name, the specific concentration of a place where someone had spent decades doing one thing well. Hernández had spent forty years forging pieces for whoever needed them. He wasn't selective with his clients. That had been his mistake.
The pieces he had forged in the last two years before the collapse ended up in the wrong hands. Not because Hernández knew it. Because no one told him there were wrong hands until it was too late.
Ethan had arrived at the workshop looking for alloys that could withstand prolonged contact with high-corruption zones. What he found was the workshop empty and the tools covered with that grayish film he already recognized too well.
Hernández had not fled. He had worked until the end because the workshop was the only thing he had, and letting go of the only thing you have requires a kind of courage not everyone finds in time.
Ethan looked at the tools for a moment.
Then he kept walking.
Kai: (quietly) Did you know him?
Ethan: I knew him late. When it no longer mattered.
Kai: Was he good?
Ethan: He was the best I found. And I found him too late.
Marcus arrived at the apartment on Saturday with the same punctuality as the previous week.
Ethan had cleaned. Not with enthusiasm, but with the correct result. The table clear. The surfaces without the accumulated inventory of the last days. Enough for the space to say what it needed to say without saying more.
Marcus entered, evaluated the apartment with his usual scan, and sat in the desk chair.
Marcus: What are you going to show me?
Ethan opened the laptop.
Ethan: The complete system. Not the market. The system that contains it.
Forty-two minutes of data in silence. Marcus didn't take notes. Ethan didn't expect him to.
Marcus: This vulnerability pattern. Is it replicable?
Ethan: Under specific conditions. But it's not the objective.
Marcus: What is the objective?
Ethan closed the laptop.
Ethan: The game launching in less than a year is not just a game. The capsules are not just immersion technology. The complete system was designed with a purpose almost no one knows.
Marcus: How do you know that?
Ethan: Because I was part of the original design.
Marcus: How old are you?
Ethan: Twenty. The body is twenty.
Marcus processed that distinction without pressing it.
Marcus: What do you need from me?
Ethan: Three things. Cybersecurity infrastructure. Participation in the market operation that closes in five days. And that you be available for what comes after.
Marcus: What comes after?
Ethan: A base of operations. A team. And a cover for the energy consumption the capsules will generate.
Marcus: What kind of cover?
Ethan: An operational company on top of the installation.
Marcus: What kind of company?
Ethan: A glass factory.
Marcus looked at him.
Marcus: A glass factory?
Ethan: Melting furnaces have one of the highest consumption per square meter of any light industry. No one questions that number.
Marcus: Does it produce real glass?
Ethan: Real glass. Real employees. A secondary purpose they don't know.
Marcus remained silent. Then he tilted his head slightly.
Marcus: Are you telling me we're going to build a functional glass factory as a front for virtual reality capsules?
Ethan: Yes.
Marcus: That is either very intelligent or very excessive.
Ethan: They are the same thing in this context.
Kai: (in the background) He liked it.
Ethan: I noticed.
Marcus: Do you have a location?
Ethan: I have criteria. You have the instruments.
Marcus: When?
Ethan: Two weeks.
Marcus took out his phone.
Marcus: Give me the criteria.
Ethan gave them. One by one. Without ornament.
Marcus: Two weeks.
Ethan: Two weeks.
Marcus: (standing up) You paying for the office?
Ethan looked around the apartment.
Ethan: We're in the apartment.
Marcus: (without changing expression) I know.
He left.
Kai: (after a moment) That was a joke.
Ethan: I noticed.
Ethan: It's consistent.
Kai: (pause) You just analyzed Marcus's humor.
Ethan: It was an observation.
Kai: A very detailed observation for someone who doesn't have friends.
Ethan didn't respond.
Two hours later Marcus sent a message.
Not about the location. About something else.
There is a fifth faction tracing the origin of the embezzlement. It is not a consortium.
Ethan read that twice.
Kai: What does it mean that it's not a consortium?
Ethan: The four consortiums that lost money operate with structures Marcus can map. This fifth faction doesn't have those characteristics.
Kai: Is it more dangerous?
Ethan: It's larger.
He wrote the response: How much do you know?
Marcus took three minutes.
Enough to know they have more resources than the other four combined. Not enough to know who they are.
Ethan left the phone on the desk.
Kai: That should worry us.
Ethan: No.
Kai: Why not?
Ethan: Because if they intended to act they already would have. They are observing.
Kai: And that's better?
Ethan: It means something interests them beyond money.
Ethan: Us.
Kai processed that in silence.
Ethan: What?
Kai: When you say it like that, it doesn't reassure me.
Ethan: I wasn't trying to reassure you.
Kai: (pause) Do you know who they are?
Ethan: I have a hypothesis.
Ethan: If it's correct, they are not a threat. They are exactly what we need.
Kai: How can you know that if Marcus couldn't identify them?
Ethan: Because the profile only matches an organization with the resources and discretion to operate like that.
Kai: What reasons?
Ethan: The same as us. Only they've known longer.
Kai didn't respond immediately.
Kai: When will we know?
Ethan: When they make contact.
Kai: And if they don't?
Ethan: They will.
Kai: How do you know?
Ethan: Because I would choose the same.
The way back had a stop that wasn't in the plan.
Ethan stopped in front of a second-hand store.
Kai: What are we doing here?
Ethan: The wardrobe is not adequate for the meetings ahead.
Kai: My clothes don't work?
Ethan: They communicate scholarship student.
Kai: (pause) Second-hand?
Ethan: The right pieces are indistinguishable.
Kai: Makes sense.
Ethan moved along the racks. He took out a dark blue shirt.
Ethan: This?
Ethan: Why?
Kai: Dark blue says decision. Black says protocol.
Ethan: (processing) You learned that at work?
Kai: Four years.
Kai: Why did you buy it?
Ethan: Because you wanted it.
Kai: (very quietly) Thank you.
Ethan: It doesn't require—
Ethan: What?
Kai: Thank you.
Ethan walked half a block before responding.
Ethan: You're welcome.
In front of a bakery Kai took control.
Kai: Can we go in?
Ethan: It's not on the route.
Kai: It's two minutes.
Ethan: What do you want?
Kai: The cheese bread Mira always ordered.
Ethan: We go in.
The employee packed four pieces.
Employee: Is it a gift?
Ethan: For Saturday.
Kai: (very quietly) For Mira.
Ethan: For Mira.
The apartment at six had the stillness of days that produced more than expected.
Ethan left the bread in the kitchen and sat at the desk.
Three hundred fifty-three days.
Ethan: What?
Kai: The memory this morning. Hernández's workshop.
Ethan: What about it?
Kai: Is that why Rein?
Ethan: Among other reasons.
Kai: How many were like him?
Ethan: Enough.
Kai: (pause) That's not an answer.
Ethan: No.
Kai: (quietly) Many.
Ethan: Yes.
Kai: We're doing well.
Ethan: Yes. We're doing well.