The Conduit -

He felt his own memories slipping away to make room for the torrent. He saw his mother's face, a childhood memory of a green field—and then it was overwritten by the blueprints of a railgun. He cried out, blood beginning to trickle from his nose beneath the goggles.

The air in Sector 4 always tasted like copper and cold rain, a byproduct of the massive atmospheric scrubbers that hummed above the city. Silas sat at his workbench, his fingers dancing over the exposed circuitry of a neural relay. He was a Weaver, one of the few who could translate the chaotic symphony of raw data into something a human mind could comprehend. But Silas was different. He didn't just translate data; he was a Conduit. The Conduit

Silas lay on the cold floor, staring at his palms. The silver filaments were charred black, ruined. He had traded his memories and his gift for a handful of credits and a broken body. He closed his eyes, trying to remember the green field from his childhood. All he could see were the blueprints of a railgun. He felt his own memories slipping away to

Silas was drowning. The digital leviathan swallowed him whole, and for a moment, he was nothing but a ghost in the machine. But in the belly of the beast, he saw it—the pure, uncorrupted core of the tactical logs, trapped like a pearl in an oyster of malice. The air in Sector 4 always tasted like

"You’re the best we have," Vaelen countered, stepping closer. "And the Core will pay handsomely. Enough credits to get you out of this rust bucket of a sector and into the Upper Spires."