With a quiet, almost imperceptible sigh, he placed his hand on the concrete below him. From his palm, a tide of shimmering, silver nanites flowed into the rough, grimy concrete. The surface of the rooftop softened, becoming a liquid gray pool under his touch. The nanites began to weave, a low-relief sculpture, pulling the raw material of the building itself.

It was a weeping willow tree. Its trunk, made of thousand interwoven, complex circuits, like the exposed heart of a machine. Its branches, thick with the same intricate, technological detail, hung low and heavy. And from the tips of these branches, the leaves were not leaves at all, but streams of pure, flowing data that wept onto the ground in silent, shimmering waterfalls of light. At the base of this strange, sad, beautiful tree, sheltered beneath its weeping branches, were two small, simple figures huddled together—a boy and a girl.

Down in the stairwell, Alyna had collapsed, her back against the cold concrete wall, her body wracked with sobs. Her interface chimed, a soft, unobtrusive sound. She ignored it. It chimed again. With a ragged, frustrated breath, she opened the message.

It was a perfect, three-dimensional memory, rendered in impossible detail. It was a memory of the two of them, years ago, sitting on a rusty bench in a forgotten corner of the city, sharing a terrible synth-noodle soup. He was fourteen, a skinny, awkward kid with eyes that were too old for his face. She was thirteen, all sharp angles and defiant energy. And they were laughing. A real, genuine, unforced laugh.

She watched the memory play, her tears never stopped falling.

When he decided that it was time to head back inside, he descended the service stairs. When he reached the bottom, the hallway was empty. Alyna was gone.

He walked back into Arty's apartment. The chaotic, vibrant energy of the room felt like a world away from the cold, quiet space he had just left. Arty was stuffing his face with the last of the 100% organic pizza, a picture of blissful ignorance. He looked up, mouth full, and his smile faded slightly as he saw Ray's expression.

"Thanks for taking care of Selena for me," Ray said, his tone neutral.

Arty swallowed. "Where's Alyna?" he asked, wiping his mouth. Ray's gaze drifted to the window, to the city beyond. "Our talk… she needs some time to process it," he responded. The weight in his voice told Arty not to press further.

Selena stood up from the couch where she'd been working on a schematic with Arty. She walked to Ray, her expression a mixture of curiosity and a new, quiet concern. "Bye, Sensei," she said to Arty. Arty smiled warmly at her. "Take care, my student." He then placed a hand on Ray's shoulder, his usual manic energy replaced by a moment of genuine, serious friendship. "If you need someone to talk to, man... you know where to find me. I'll send you some memes to make you feel better."

Ray nodded and left the apartment. Arty walked to his workstation, glanced at the ceiling, and sighed quietly.

Ray and Selena left Arty's building as a heavy rain began to fall, the drops hissing against the hot pavement. Inside the car, a heavy silence hung in the air, broken only by the rhythmic hiss of the tires and the soft drumming of rain on the roof.

Selena broke the silence, her voice hesitant. "Was she your girlfriend?"

Ray kept his eyes on the road. "She had a boyfriend, but... he's gone. He died yesterday."

There was a long pause. Selena processed this, connecting the dots. "How was he?" she asks quietly. "Her boyfriend... before he died?"

Ray's hands tightened on the steering wheel, a subtle, almost imperceptible movement. He accessed the memories of Ray Callen, not as a computer accessing a file, but as a human remembering someone. He began to speak, his voice filled with a profound sadness and pity, a heartbreakingly honest eulogy for himself.

"He was... a crumbling statue," Ray said, his gaze fixed on the rain-streaked road ahead. "He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he was so terrified of being a burden that he pushed away the people he loved most. He was a ghost in his own life, Selena. A performance of strength hiding a storm of fear."

He told her of a young man who had sacrificed his own dreams, his own needs, on the altar of his responsibility to his sick mother. A person who had molded himself into a perfect reflection for the girl he loved, so terrified she would see the hollow man underneath. He spoke of a loyalty so profound it had become a form of self-annihilation.

Selena listened in silence, the story of this lost, broken soul echoing in the quiet of the car.

After they arrived home, Selena, deeply affected by the story, was quiet and introspective. She headed to the shower, leaving Ray alone in the main room. He checked on Max, who was sleeping peacefully on his futon.

Then, Ray stood in the center of the room. He felt the cool, recycled air on his skin, heard the hum of the building's systems, and watched the rain trace paths down the large window. He was not driven by the anxious need to do, like the old Ray; he could simply be, processing the present moment with profound, quiet clarity.

His thoughts drifted to His mother, Lina. He knew he had to tell her the same devastating truth he told Alyna—that the "Ray" she knew was gone. The thought was a cold, heavy weight, a duty that he knew would bring even more pain.

The quiet of the apartment was shattered by a single, unobtrusive ping in his interface. It was a message from #137, the mysterious Netstrider prodigy. The avatar was a simple, glitching numerical string. The message was stark and direct:

"Aethercore's experimental treatment for MS is a scam. But a true cure exists and I know how to get it."

Below the text was a single, high-resolution satellite image. It showed a vast, empty desert, and in the middle of it, a circular oasis of impossibly thick, jungle-like vegetation. In the center of the jungle, barely visible, were the ruins of an ancient, pre-Collapse city, surrounded by a perimeter of monolithic black walls. The image file was titled: Hell_Garden.png.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Ray's gaze shifted to the shower room. He needed to talk to her.

The warm water did little to calm the storm in her own mind. The sound of the water drumming against the cheap plasteel of the shower stall was a rhythm that couldn't drown out the chaotic thoughts in her head. Her hand slowly lifted, her fingers tracing the implant at the base of her skull, it's the cold, alien feel a stark contrast to the simple comfort of the warm water on her skin. She had asked Ray about it a couple of times, but he had always found a way to dodge a clear answer. He must have his reasons, she thought.

Porcelain Jack. Did he install this mod? The name, a whisper from a nightmare she couldn't remember, surfaced again.

She sat on the floor of the shower, bringing her knees to her chest, and let herself drift into the quiet, internal space Ray had taught her to find. The storm in her head lessened, the chaotic thoughts becoming distant traffic. He really does seem to care for us, she whispered to the silence.

Later, after she had dressed, she was lying on her futon when a soft knock came from the plasteel panel that separated her room from Ray's. "You can enter," she whispered.

Ray slowly pushed the panel aside and knelt on the floor beside her futon. His posture was unnervingly still. His expression was serious, his silver eyes seeming to glow faintly in the dim light from the window. She slowly propped herself up.

"How do you feel?" he asked her.

"I'm… fine," she responded, unsure why he was asking.

"I must confess something to you," he said, his voice low and even.

"Okay. I'm listening." She responded as she slowly sat up.

"The implant at the base of your skull is the reason for your memory loss. It's a modified memory editor." Selena's hair stood on end.

"Who did this to me? Did Porcelain Jack do it?" she asked, her fingers curling into the blanket.

"No. He didn't, but the one who did is dead," Ray responded, his voice cold as ice. "I killed him with my own hands for what he did to you." Selena's grip on the blanket lessened, but only just.

"Good," she responded. "But why didn't you take it out?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly.

"Because I wanted you to be in a better mental state before it was removed," Ray explained. He paused, letting her digest his words. "And I am planning to use it on Max."

"What?!" she screamed, scrambling to her feet and physically putting herself between Ray and the sleeping Max, her body becoming a literal shield. "You can't do that! You want to put that thing in my brother's head? The same weapon that monster used on me? Are you insane?"

"There are other ways!" she challenged, her voice fierce. "Therapy! Time! We can help him!"

"In Max's case, the memory editor could help tremendously," Ray stated, his voice a calm, unmoving rock against the storm of her anger. "Initially, that technology was created to erase PTSD in combat veterans, by erasing the memories of the incident that caused the trauma. But humans always find a way to weaponize.The road to hell is paved with good intentions. "

"There's really no other way?" Selena asked, her voice pleading as she glanced towards where Max was sleeping.

"No," Ray declared. "Without this, even with our support, he will remain trapped in that silent, screaming place for years. The human mind is resilient, but it can endure only so much before it shatters. And Max… Max has endured too much."

"What happened to him?" she whispered, the question a raw wound. "How did he really lose his legs?"

Ray's silvery eyes looked into hers.

"Please," she said. "I need to know."

Ray gave a single, slow nod. And then he told her. He described the main "sound stage" of the Final Cut, the blood-soaked floor, the cameras, and the grotesque director named Pig. He told her how he had found Max, strapped to that table, a centerpiece in a theater of horror, his small body mutilated.

Selena rushed to the toilet, the pizza she had eaten with Arty coming up in a violent, acidic rush. Ray was there in an instant, a silent presence. His movements were calm, efficient, and almost unnervingly gentle as he held her hair back and then wiped her face with a cool, damp cloth.

She looked up at him, her own eyes a storm of grief and a new, terrible resolve.

"Do it," she said, her voice a raw, broken whisper. "Max didn't deserve what he went through. He deserves a chance to be whole again. To be a kid." She threw her arms around him, clinging to him, her face buried in his chest. Ray held her, a silent guardian in the dark.

"You are a strong girl, Selena," he said to her, his voice a quiet murmur.

Selena and Max's breaths were a soft, steady rhythm in the quiet of the apartment.

Ray laid down on the couch, his eyes closed.

The physical world melted away and a kaleidoscope of pure data exploded in his mind, a torrent of light and color.

He found himself standing in a digital space that resembled an apartment, but it was a minimalist sketch, the lines of the walls and furniture pixelated and blurred, as if the artist hadn't bothered to finish the rendering.

Ray's own avatar, the simple, stick-figure, looked around until he spotted the reason he was here. Standing on a couch that seemed to be made of shifting, glitching static was #137. His avatar was the same blank, androgynous mannequin from the tournament, its featureless face a mask of perfect, unreadable neutrality.

Ray walked towards him, his own simple avatar making no sound on the pixelated floor, and stood on the couch opposite him. The two beings, one a synthesized ghost, the other a digital prodigy of unknown origin, faced each other in the silent, artificial space. There was no preamble.

"You sent me a message," Ray stated, his voice a flat, synthesized tone.

"I did," #137 replied, his own voice equally devoid of inflection. "You have a problem and I have a potential solution."

"The experimental nanite treatment from Aethercore that you are pursuing for your mother," #137 began, "is a hoax."

Ray remained silent, but a cold knot tightened in his core. He had amassed a vast amount of data on the treatment, but the technology was new, its secrets heavily guarded.

"The process of using nanites to repair the kind of systemic, degenerative neural damage caused by advanced multiple sclerosis has been attempted before," #137 continued. "Many times. Even with the resources of the pre-Collapse era, it was a failure. The nanites can patch and repair, yes, but the degradation is too rapid and too widespread. The treatment provides temporary relief through the reversal of symptoms. However, the underlying condition always returns, often more aggressively. It is far from a cure; it is better described as a subscription service for a slow, inevitable decline."

Ray processed the words, the cold, brutal logic of them. It made a terrible kind of sense. A cure was a one-time payment. A recurring treatment was a revenue stream.

"You said a true cure exists," Ray said, cutting to the core of the issue.

"I did," #137 confirmed. He gestured with a hand, and a massive, holographic data file bloomed in the air between them. It was a detailed history, full of redacted military reports, classified geological surveys, and censored pre-Collapse news feeds. The subject: The Las Vegas Exclusion Zone, colloquially known as "Hell Garden."

"What was once Las Vegas is now a silent, green anomaly in the middle of the desert," #137 narrated, his voice a cold, dispassionate guide. "A city-sized tomb, walled off for fifty years. The official story is that it was hit with a mutagenic viral bomb during the Third Corporate War." #137 leaned forward and despite his avatar not having eyes, Ray could feel his gaze boring in to him "That is a lie."

The data shifted, showing them the interior. It was a humid, overgrown jungle, a perverse Eden run rampant. Massive vines choked the skeletal remains of old casinos, and a thick canopy of mutated foliage plunged the streets into a perpetual, emerald twilight. "This ecosystem is not natural," #137 explained. "It is sustained by the ruptured geothermal and water reclamation systems of a top-secret military black site that was buried beneath the city: Project Chimera."

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