File integrity unstable.
Primary sequence reconstructed from Nu4nc3 neural memory.
Portions of dialogue exhibit structural deviation consistent with third party memory imprint.
Cross contamination probability: 17 percent.
Estimated integrity: 74 percent.





This part of the story is where things seem to be very confused. You have no idea who to trust and where the real truth is, but you cannot avoid a deep dive into the cave and confront yourself with some very bad looking people.

“And that is the problem. We trust our memories because we know they cannot be tampered with or modified, but often a partial memory is worse than no memory at all, Spiky,” shouted Nu while keeping both eyes on the road and both hands on the handle of his Trike.

“Yes, I understand that. But I am not sure it is completely true. Imagine you have a piece of memory that is your mom talking to you. Who cares what happened earlier or after? You can conserve and share your mother’s sight, the smell of her hair and the colour of her eyes. I would prefer that rather than nothing.”

Jin sounded nostalgic, hanging tightly on the back of the Trike while the road became bumpier.

“Yeah, I know you would. But we need to get prepared for when we reach the third outpost. The Club is always open, but it is an open road, and you know we do not like those Kazegami living in those hills.”

Nu tried to deflect the attention toward their imminent arrival.

When you exit Keshuma City, you always need a reason to exit the city. It is less complicated for a Kodaka who can access his terminal, but once outside the safe walls of Mother K, you need to pay attention to mostly two things: the Road and the Wind.

The dangerous part of the Road is this. Most of them have, at the edge of the large path, two magnetic convey bands running under the surface layer. They are suspended on those magnetic fields while driving. It is an absolute pain in the ass if your transport runs on magnetic field force to levitate and dynamic hovering for propulsion. You risk entering the loop of the convey bands and ending like a ball in a flipper, or worse, like several balls trapped in the same flipper machine.

Those convey bands are needed for the big automatic transports that keep the City running and connect most of the real hub with several resource processing facilities. Some of them are also run by Kazegami. Jin calls them the “old guardians” because some of them seem older than most people in the city, and they know things he would love to know, especially about igniting exploding materials.

But the Wind is not what we normally think. It is not a breeze or a gentle current. It is the danger hidden in the low canyons left and right of Mother K. It is the recurring sand daredevils appearing when passing the second outpost. It is the fear of the ancient nature the Kazes still control today.

“That freaks me out, Nu. Imagine having access to a couple of cm2 of GummyBoom. Simply detonating them would cause an entire district to tremble. It would be so loud and, for sure, air suckers would not be sufficient. Dust would cover at least half of the buildings for a couple of kilometers. And the Club has meters of it. I am sure they used it when they attacked the replacements for the Express train.”

Jin checked the small holographic terminal on his wrist, following the map and keeping a tight grip on the back of the Trike.

“I am not convinced the Club was involved there. That is the Kaichukans’ version, so they can justify continuing to patrol the three closest outposts. I cannot share the details, but I know for sure someone mentioned again the Crimson Lightning and the Awake of the Winds.”

Nu covered his face against a sandy current.

“Not something we can talk about on the road, right?”

Jin’s voice sounded troubled. The third outpost was visible down the road, standing like a flag in the middle of the moon. The two tents covering the sign “Outpost Entrance” were more agitated than usual, a sign that strong winds were blowing through the nearby canyons.

Nu began slowing down, hovering between the convey bands and using their magnetic field to zigzag without consuming power, as the battery already showed thirty percent.

“We want to come back if we are able to get the transistor,” Nu said, switching off the engine, which silenced itself like an old lever cutting power to a blackout city.

The Trike slowed its movement and landed perfectly in front of the outpost boundary. There was no physical gate, only a glowing line on the floor and several pointed arrows that looked dangerous enough to discourage any sudden step forward.

Once stopped, Nu placed a foot on the floor. The line lit up, following their steps until they reached the front of the invisible barrier.

Nu removed his pod from the Trike and projected its holograms onto his wrist. A sudden pole arose from the floor, opened into what looked like an old console and projected a small screen in the air, resembling ancient televisions seen in documentaries about the mysterious Legacy that founded Keshuma City.

A face appeared, or something resembling one. A demon mouth mask, solder goggles and a Nabe hat. The voice sounded metallic and androgynous, not robotic, but as if someone were speaking through a thin aluminum can.

“I see the Kodaka boy is here again. And this time he has brought no friends. I am not sure you should enter this time. We cannot guarantee your safety. Nobody likes you here, Nu.”

“That does not sound friendly, Makim, especially because he is accompanying me, and his only role here is to prevent you freaks from turning a transaction into another explosion. Where is your boss?”

“Doesn’t matter. Tell your friend to remove the glove and leave it outside. We do not like tech inside. And leave your box in the examination unit. We do not want anything to explode, right?”

“Jin, how am I not surprised those are your friends? I always thought explosions did not make many friends.”

“Do not start this again. My friends are sometimes not to your liking, but your superior Kodakas are not far from them. Same stinky people, different coats. You are not familiar with them as I am. Exploding things create friends, just as burning bridges does.”

Jin’s tone alluded to the Health Bay bridge Nu once burned during training.

“You like remembering those moments, eh?”

Nu entered first. An apparent cube of energy formed around him, moving like a thin air elevator descending underground. Runes glowed and his stomach felt heavy and light at the same time. The technology could transport only one person at a time, so Jin waited for the examiner to finish scanning the box before descending into the Club.

If you ever thought the Joint had Kazegami vibes, you never entered the Club. No tech was allowed here. The tents and curtains made the space look like a soldier’s health camp, where wounded bodies lay while doctors try to save them.

Here, the beds were replaced with tables and chairs. Behind the curtains, deals were being made. Nothing like the Secret Market. More like a natural bazaar where, at any turn, a sharp blade could end your life.

Jin landed with a pale face. He had never been a fan of this method of transport, nor of Mother K elevators. He always preferred stairs.

Behind a curtain, a Kaze hat appeared. Red goggles, green mask, long coat. The figure pointed toward another curtain twenty meters away, then vanished again.

Nu and Jin recognized Bambo.

Jin approached him, signaling Nu with his hand to keep distance while holding the box close to his body. Nu slowed his walk. He usually commanded these incursions, but with the Club, if it were not for Jin, they would not even have reached the inside.

“Bambo, I see you are still alive.”

They looked at each other as sparks ignited in their eyes.

Bambo reached into his pocket, threw a small amount of dust into the air, caught it midair, spat on it and threw it toward Jin, who mirrored the gesture perfectly. When their hands clashed in a handshake, a small explosion erupted in smoke, confirming both their love for explosives and their brotherhood.

“…and kicking. Could not expect anything better from you, my brother. Still using the same pink powder though. Never converting to the chemical?”

“Nothing beats the Planis nectar. Dried under sunlight, this natural powder is ten thousand times more explosive than your cyanotic chemical mixture,” said Bambo peremptorily.

“Sure. Mother K would say otherwise. But we have different views.”

“Yeah, but Jin, this time it hasn’t been easy. What you asked for is prohibited tech. We could find it, but the problem is not the price…”

“Are you kidding? Jin, I hope your friends are men of their word, or we need to rediscuss our agreement,” Nu said, irritated.

Bambo stopped opening the box. His hands fell onto the table. He sat calmly, looking at Jin.

“Jin, remind your four eyed friend that we do not make deals with Kodakas. He should be grateful to be here. Usually none of them get access unless accompanied by someone we trust. That was supposed to be you. So keep your friend quiet.”

Nu did not realize that two dark figures had positioned themselves behind him until they sparked their Stingy Poles.

These poles had two settings. Low charge caused a painful shock. High charge produced IEM discharge capable of destroying any piece of electronic implant with needle precision, without burning the skin.

Cold sweat slid down Nu’s bucket hat. He stayed silent.

Bambo opened the box, examined the tech piece and nodded.

“The problem is not the price. This counts as payment for the previous agreement you failed to fulfill. Now we are settled. We can discuss what you must do to get that transistor.”

“Bambo, your appetite has always been huge. So I brought this as well.”

Jin took out a piece of meat wrapped in green paper.

Bambo stared.

“Do not tell me that…”

“Absolutely. It is that meat.”

Nu understood instantly. Memory infused meat. For some outcasts without growth path limits, that meant development.

“Jin, I like you. And this kind of gift makes me love you. But as I said, this is not about price.”

“Bambo, when it is not about price, it is about access. And you do not have access. So maybe I should speak with someone else.”

“Exactly. I can only bring you in. And allow you to talk through me.”

He signaled the two behind Nu.

“Zenji wants to speak with him.”

The poles struck. Nu’s limbs went numb. He could see and hear, but could not move.

Jin resisted. Bambo pinned him with a Stingy blade, technical in design, precise like the poles.

Nu was moved to another table.

Zenji approached.

He removed his mask, revealing a controlled smile. His eyes were small but sharp. Not like Bambo.

“Now we have two paths. A painful one, where I extract the truth from you. Or a comfortable one, where you tell the truth and the chair confirms it. If you lie, we return to the painful one. Choose wisely.”

Nu stared back.

“You are not Bambo’s style. But your words are honest. You want truth. Show me you deserve it. Then we talk.”

Zenji’s smirk returned.

He unrolled a leather wrap on the table.

TT34.

The transistor.

The key to building the Condenser.

“Now, Nu. Are you ready to tell me what the Condenser is?”





END_OF_TRANSMISSION // LOT 1.6.21
REFERENCE: FINAL_LIBRARY INDEX

Integrity 74 percent.
Secondary imprint trace present.
Source contamination under observation.
Restoration pending.

All Rigths Reserved
Copyright protected by Patamu nr 283794

File integrity unstable.
Primary sequence reconstructed from Nu4nc3 neural memory.
Portions of dialogue exhibit structural deviation consistent with third party memory imprint.
Cross contamination probability: 17 percent.
Estimated integrity: 74 percent.





This part of the story is where things seem to be very confused. You have no idea who to trust and where the real truth is, but you cannot avoid a deep dive into the cave and confront yourself with some very bad looking people.

“And that is the problem. We trust our memories because we know they cannot be tampered with or modified, but often a partial memory is worse than no memory at all, Spiky,” shouted Nu while keeping both eyes on the road and both hands on the handle of his Trike.

“Yes, I understand that. But I am not sure it is completely true. Imagine you have a piece of memory that is your mom talking to you. Who cares what happened earlier or after? You can conserve and share your mother’s sight, the smell of her hair and the colour of her eyes. I would prefer that rather than nothing.”

Jin sounded nostalgic, hanging tightly on the back of the Trike while the road became bumpier.

“Yeah, I know you would. But we need to get prepared for when we reach the third outpost. The Club is always open, but it is an open road, and you know we do not like those Kazegami living in those hills.”

Nu tried to deflect the attention toward their imminent arrival.

When you exit Keshuma City, you always need a reason to exit the city. It is less complicated for a Kodaka who can access his terminal, but once outside the safe walls of Mother K, you need to pay attention to mostly two things: the Road and the Wind.

The dangerous part of the Road is this. Most of them have, at the edge of the large path, two magnetic convey bands running under the surface layer. They are suspended on those magnetic fields while driving. It is an absolute pain in the ass if your transport runs on magnetic field force to levitate and dynamic hovering for propulsion. You risk entering the loop of the convey bands and ending like a ball in a flipper, or worse, like several balls trapped in the same flipper machine.

Those convey bands are needed for the big automatic transports that keep the City running and connect most of the real hub with several resource processing facilities. Some of them are also run by Kazegami. Jin calls them the “old guardians” because some of them seem older than most people in the city, and they know things he would love to know, especially about igniting exploding materials.

But the Wind is not what we normally think. It is not a breeze or a gentle current. It is the danger hidden in the low canyons left and right of Mother K. It is the recurring sand daredevils appearing when passing the second outpost. It is the fear of the ancient nature the Kazes still control today.

“That freaks me out, Nu. Imagine having access to a couple of cm2 of GummyBoom. Simply detonating them would cause an entire district to tremble. It would be so loud and, for sure, air suckers would not be sufficient. Dust would cover at least half of the buildings for a couple of kilometers. And the Club has meters of it. I am sure they used it when they attacked the replacements for the Express train.”

Jin checked the small holographic terminal on his wrist, following the map and keeping a tight grip on the back of the Trike.

“I am not convinced the Club was involved there. That is the Kaichukans’ version, so they can justify continuing to patrol the three closest outposts. I cannot share the details, but I know for sure someone mentioned again the Crimson Lightning and the Awake of the Winds.”

Nu covered his face against a sandy current.

“Not something we can talk about on the road, right?”

Jin’s voice sounded troubled. The third outpost was visible down the road, standing like a flag in the middle of the moon. The two tents covering the sign “Outpost Entrance” were more agitated than usual, a sign that strong winds were blowing through the nearby canyons.

Nu began slowing down, hovering between the convey bands and using their magnetic field to zigzag without consuming power, as the battery already showed thirty percent.

“We want to come back if we are able to get the transistor,” Nu said, switching off the engine, which silenced itself like an old lever cutting power to a blackout city.

The Trike slowed its movement and landed perfectly in front of the outpost boundary. There was no physical gate, only a glowing line on the floor and several pointed arrows that looked dangerous enough to discourage any sudden step forward.

Once stopped, Nu placed a foot on the floor. The line lit up, following their steps until they reached the front of the invisible barrier.

Nu removed his pod from the Trike and projected its holograms onto his wrist. A sudden pole arose from the floor, opened into what looked like an old console and projected a small screen in the air, resembling ancient televisions seen in documentaries about the mysterious Legacy that founded Keshuma City.

A face appeared, or something resembling one. A demon mouth mask, solder goggles and a Nabe hat. The voice sounded metallic and androgynous, not robotic, but as if someone were speaking through a thin aluminum can.

“I see the Kodaka boy is here again. And this time he has brought no friends. I am not sure you should enter this time. We cannot guarantee your safety. Nobody likes you here, Nu.”

“That does not sound friendly, Makim, especially because he is accompanying me, and his only role here is to prevent you freaks from turning a transaction into another explosion. Where is your boss?”

“Doesn’t matter. Tell your friend to remove the glove and leave it outside. We do not like tech inside. And leave your box in the examination unit. We do not want anything to explode, right?”

“Jin, how am I not surprised those are your friends? I always thought explosions did not make many friends.”

“Do not start this again. My friends are sometimes not to your liking, but your superior Kodakas are not far from them. Same stinky people, different coats. You are not familiar with them as I am. Exploding things create friends, just as burning bridges does.”

Jin’s tone alluded to the Health Bay bridge Nu once burned during training.

“You like remembering those moments, eh?”

Nu entered first. An apparent cube of energy formed around him, moving like a thin air elevator descending underground. Runes glowed and his stomach felt heavy and light at the same time. The technology could transport only one person at a time, so Jin waited for the examiner to finish scanning the box before descending into the Club.

If you ever thought the Joint had Kazegami vibes, you never entered the Club. No tech was allowed here. The tents and curtains made the space look like a soldier’s health camp, where wounded bodies lay while doctors try to save them.

Here, the beds were replaced with tables and chairs. Behind the curtains, deals were being made. Nothing like the Secret Market. More like a natural bazaar where, at any turn, a sharp blade could end your life.

Jin landed with a pale face. He had never been a fan of this method of transport, nor of Mother K elevators. He always preferred stairs.

Behind a curtain, a Kaze hat appeared. Red goggles, green mask, long coat. The figure pointed toward another curtain twenty meters away, then vanished again.

Nu and Jin recognized Bambo.

Jin approached him, signaling Nu with his hand to keep distance while holding the box close to his body. Nu slowed his walk. He usually commanded these incursions, but with the Club, if it were not for Jin, they would not even have reached the inside.

“Bambo, I see you are still alive.”

They looked at each other as sparks ignited in their eyes.

Bambo reached into his pocket, threw a small amount of dust into the air, caught it midair, spat on it and threw it toward Jin, who mirrored the gesture perfectly. When their hands clashed in a handshake, a small explosion erupted in smoke, confirming both their love for explosives and their brotherhood.

“…and kicking. Could not expect anything better from you, my brother. Still using the same pink powder though. Never converting to the chemical?”

“Nothing beats the Planis nectar. Dried under sunlight, this natural powder is ten thousand times more explosive than your cyanotic chemical mixture,” said Bambo peremptorily.

“Sure. Mother K would say otherwise. But we have different views.”

“Yeah, but Jin, this time it hasn’t been easy. What you asked for is prohibited tech. We could find it, but the problem is not the price…”

“Are you kidding? Jin, I hope your friends are men of their word, or we need to rediscuss our agreement,” Nu said, irritated.

Bambo stopped opening the box. His hands fell onto the table. He sat calmly, looking at Jin.

“Jin, remind your four eyed friend that we do not make deals with Kodakas. He should be grateful to be here. Usually none of them get access unless accompanied by someone we trust. That was supposed to be you. So keep your friend quiet.”

Nu did not realize that two dark figures had positioned themselves behind him until they sparked their Stingy Poles.

These poles had two settings. Low charge caused a painful shock. High charge produced IEM discharge capable of destroying any piece of electronic implant with needle precision, without burning the skin.

Cold sweat slid down Nu’s bucket hat. He stayed silent.

Bambo opened the box, examined the tech piece and nodded.

“The problem is not the price. This counts as payment for the previous agreement you failed to fulfill. Now we are settled. We can discuss what you must do to get that transistor.”

“Bambo, your appetite has always been huge. So I brought this as well.”

Jin took out a piece of meat wrapped in green paper.

Bambo stared.

“Do not tell me that…”

“Absolutely. It is that meat.”

Nu understood instantly. Memory infused meat. For some outcasts without growth path limits, that meant development.

“Jin, I like you. And this kind of gift makes me love you. But as I said, this is not about price.”

“Bambo, when it is not about price, it is about access. And you do not have access. So maybe I should speak with someone else.”

“Exactly. I can only bring you in. And allow you to talk through me.”

He signaled the two behind Nu.

“Zenji wants to speak with him.”

The poles struck. Nu’s limbs went numb. He could see and hear, but could not move.

Jin resisted. Bambo pinned him with a Stingy blade, technical in design, precise like the poles.

Nu was moved to another table.

Zenji approached.

He removed his mask, revealing a controlled smile. His eyes were small but sharp. Not like Bambo.

“Now we have two paths. A painful one, where I extract the truth from you. Or a comfortable one, where you tell the truth and the chair confirms it. If you lie, we return to the painful one. Choose wisely.”

Nu stared back.

“You are not Bambo’s style. But your words are honest. You want truth. Show me you deserve it. Then we talk.”

Zenji’s smirk returned.

He unrolled a leather wrap on the table.

TT34.

The transistor.

The key to building the Condenser.

“Now, Nu. Are you ready to tell me what the Condenser is?”





END_OF_TRANSMISSION // LOT 1.6.21
REFERENCE: FINAL_LIBRARY INDEX

Integrity 74 percent.
Secondary imprint trace present.
Source contamination under observation.
Restoration pending.

All Rigths Reserved
Copyright protected by Patamu nr 283794