====== CHAPTER 1 — Story That Already Happened ====== The Afterlife didn’t like ghosts. ---- Not the dead kind. ---- The other kind. ---- ---- Stories that didn’t belong. ---- ---- Ace felt it before Rogue spoke. ---- ---- Not tension. ---- ---- Discrepancy. ---- ---- Conversations— ---- slightly off. ---- ---- Names repeated— ---- out of place. ---- ---- Fragments of things— ---- that hadn’t happened. ---- ---- “Media job,” Rogue Amendiares said. ---- ---- Flat. ---- ---- Dismissive. ---- ---- That alone made it worse. ---- ---- “No bodies,” she continued. ---- ---- A beat. ---- ---- “No blood.” ---- ---- Another. ---- ---- “Just people remembering things that never happened.” ---- ---- Silence. ---- ---- Short. ---- ---- Ace stepped closer. ---- ---- “Explain.” ---- ---- Rogue tapped a shard on the counter. ---- ---- Didn’t push it forward yet. ---- ---- “CatCo Worldwide Media,” she said. ---- ---- “Newsroom’s gone sideways.” ---- ---- V frowned. ---- ---- “…Sideways how?” ---- ---- Rogue leaned back slightly. ---- ---- “Journalists,” she said. ---- ---- “Editors.” ---- ---- A pause. ---- ---- “They remember writing pieces they never filed.” ---- ---- Another. ---- ---- “They remember publishing stories that don’t exist.” ---- ---- Mai’s gaze sharpened. ---- ---- “System discrepancy,” she said. ---- ---- Rogue shook her head. ---- ---- “No,” she said. ---- ---- “System’s clean.” ---- ---- A beat. ---- ---- “People aren’t.” ---- ---- That landed. ---- ---- Rogue finally slid the shard across. ---- ---- Mai picked it up. ---- ---- No delay. ---- ---- Data unfolded— ---- clean— ---- consistent— ---- correct. ---- ---- Internal logs: * no unauthorized access * no missing files * no phantom edits ---- ---- Everything— ---- intact. ---- ---- But attached— ---- annotations. ---- ---- Human notes. ---- ---- Conflicts. ---- ---- “This article was published yesterday.” \\ → no record ---- ---- “I edited this section at 14:00.” \\ → no timestamp ---- ---- “He was here.” \\ → no entry log ---- ---- Mai stilled. ---- ---- “Memory divergence,” she said. ---- ---- Flat. ---- ---- Rogue nodded once. ---- ---- “Yeah.” ---- ---- A pause. ---- ---- “And it’s spreading.” ---- ---- That changed it. ---- ---- Ace didn’t look at the shard. ---- ---- “Source.” ---- ---- Rogue’s expression didn’t change. ---- ---- “Datashard,” she said. ---- ---- A beat. ---- ---- “Maybe.” ---- ---- That wasn’t certainty. ---- ---- “That’s what they think,” she added. ---- ---- V exhaled. ---- ---- “…Of course it’s a shard.” ---- ---- Mai scrolled further. ---- ---- Stopped. ---- ---- Zoomed. ---- ---- One annotation— ---- different from the others. ---- ---- More precise. ---- ---- More detailed. ---- ---- “You were in the building,” it read. ---- ---- “Lower floor. Around 19:20.” ---- ---- Mai’s eyes flicked up. ---- ---- To Ace. ---- ---- Silence. ---- ---- Short. ---- ---- Ace didn’t react. ---- ---- “Incorrect,” she said. ---- ---- Flat. ---- ---- Rogue watched her. ---- ---- “Yeah,” she said. ---- ---- “That’s the problem.” ---- ---- A pause. ---- ---- “It matches security chatter.” ---- ---- Another. ---- ---- “Someone remembers you being there.” ---- ---- V blinked. ---- ---- “…Wait,” they said. ---- “…you weren’t.” ---- ---- Ace didn’t answer. ---- ---- She didn’t need to. ---- ---- Mai closed the shard. ---- ---- Carefully. ---- ---- “This is not corruption,” she said. ---- ---- A beat. ---- ---- “This is insertion.” ---- ---- Rogue nodded again. ---- ---- “Exactly.” ---- ---- She leaned forward slightly. ---- ---- “Client wants it contained.” ---- ---- Flat. ---- ---- “Quiet.” ---- ---- No headlines. ---- ---- No panic. ---- ---- No story. ---- ---- That was ironic. ---- ---- “Value,” Ace said. ---- ---- Rogue didn’t hesitate. ---- ---- “High.” ---- ---- Of course it was. ---- ---- Mai stepped back. ---- ---- Processing— ---- fast— ---- but controlled. ---- ---- “Propagation vector unknown,” she said. ---- ---- A pause. ---- ---- “Containment requires identification.” ---- ---- Rogue shrugged slightly. ---- ---- “Then identify it,” she said. ---- ---- A beat. ---- ---- “Before it writes something bigger.” ---- ---- Silence. ---- ---- Ace turned. ---- ---- “We go.” ---- ---- No delay. ---- ---- No negotiation. ---- ---- As they moved— ---- Rogue added one thing. ---- ---- “Hey.” ---- ---- Ace didn’t turn. ---- ---- “What.” ---- ---- Rogue’s voice stayed even. ---- ---- “Fix it before it becomes a headline.” ---- ---- A beat. ---- ---- “Because once it does—” ---- ---- she tapped the shard once— ---- light— ---- precise— ---- ---- “—it stops being memory.” ---- ---- Another pause. ---- ---- “And starts being truth.” ---- ---- That was worse. ---- ---- And as they stepped back into Night City— ---- the noise returned— ---- the flow— ---- the constant movement— ---- ---- unchanged. ---- ---- Because somewhere— ---- inside a system built to record what happened— ---- something had already decided— ---- what would be remembered. ---- ---- And it wasn’t waiting for permission.