The Complete Journey - Complete
The Memory Broker
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Scene 1 of 3
Kaelo Reyes moved through the Chronos Exchange Trading Floor with practiced efficiency.
His vintage wristwatch ticked against his wrist. Holographic memory streams floated in vacuum-sealed glass columns around him.
LED displays pulsed with shifting prices in crimson and gold. Grief traded at forty-two credits per unit. Nostalgia spiked after the morning announcement.
Kaelo maintained exactly three feet of personal space. His left thumb rubbed against his index finger as he processed each extracted emotion. Pricing experiences with ruthless precision.
The Trading Floor buzzed with predatory energy. Traders circled like sharks. Memory commodities fluctuated in real-time.
Kaelo checked his watch again. The crystal face reflected crimson numbers. Time is money on the exchange floor.
A client approached from the periphery. The memory fragment between them flickered with instability. Deletion-marked. Unstable. Dangerous.
Kaelo prepared to assess its value. He reached for the holographic stream. His professional detachment remained intact.
Then a face materialized in the swirling data.
His mother.
Half-erased from the Great Purge of '47. Her eyes pleaded through the digital distortion. Remember me, Kaelo.
The carefully constructed wall of cynicism fractured.
The memory showed her final moments before therapeutic extraction. She refused to surrender her documentation of state atrocities. The memory showed her interrogation. Her voice remained steady. History cannot be deleted.
Suddenly Kaelo was twelve years old again.
He watched his mother's humanity dissolve. State-mandated contentment flooded her eyes. The woman she had been vanished behind a veil of mild satisfaction.
His professional detachment evaporated.
The holographic stream flickered between them. Deletion-marked. Unstable. His mother's face half-erased in the data.
Kaelo's hand trembled. His thumb stopped rubbing against his index finger. The Trading Floor receded into distance.
The client waited. The memory fragment pulsed between them. Prices shifted on the LED displays in crimson and gold.
Kaelo could not breathe.