"I say we go to your place," Kira said, brushing wet strands from her cheek. Her tone was clipped but tired. "It's close, and I need to reconfigure the device before it fuses again."
Sterben turned and gave her a deadpan look. "Great idea. Let's make it even easier for them. Set up tea and cookies while we wait for REMCORE to blast through my door."
She folded her arms. "It's not like I've got a list of safehouses. I was improvising."
"You're bad at improvising," he muttered.
The tension hung between them for a moment, both damp from the rain, breathing heavily after what felt like their hundredth sprint.
Then, grumble.
His stomach betrayed him.
A second later, hers did too.
They both paused, then exchanged a reluctant glance.
Sterben sighed. "Look. We're no good running on empty. I know a place. Close enough. No security, no tracking, no synthetic menus. Just food and chairs."
Kira hesitated. "You trust it?"
"I trust the owner," he said. "And he doesn't even know how to spell 'internet.' We'll be fine."
Kira nodded once. "Lead the way."
Navigating the city was trickier now. REMCORE's street cams didn't track facial patterns in real time, they scanned for anomalies in posture, gait, and thermal trail. Sterben knew this, and more importantly, knew the blind spots.
They weaved down back alleys slick with oil and rain. Passed under broken archways. Over chain-link fences whose alarms had long since died. Sterben's memory worked like a compass, every twist of the path a move he'd learned avoiding supervisors, scraping between warehouse shifts and lab courier runs.
Kira kept pace without complaint.
Finally, they reached the corner of 12th and Marble. A rusted neon sign buzzed above a door that looked like it hadn't opened in a decade.
[TOMO'S DINER - Real Food. Real Hours. Real Quiet.]
Inside was another world. Warm. Orange light. Stale grease in the air, the kind that clung to your clothes and made everything feel human. Vinyl booths.
A scratched countertop. A dust-covered TV playing static.
Behind the counter stood Tomo himself, half-glasses low on his nose, bald head gleaming under a flickering bulb.
He didn't look up when Sterben walked in.
"You're late," the old man said, flipping a page in his newspaper.
"Didn't know I had a reservation," Sterben answered.
"You don't. But your stomach always shows up around this time."
He finally looked up, raising an eyebrow when he saw Kira.
"She dangerous?"
Sterben gave Kira a look. "Very."
Tomo nodded once. "Good. You kids want a booth or you planning on breaking something?"
"Just food tonight," Sterben said.
"Then sit. Don't bleed on the seats."
They took a corner booth, out of sight from the windows.
Kira glanced around. "No cameras?"
"Not functional," Sterben replied. "Tomo says they interfere with digestion."
She smiled faintly. "Remind me why you stopped coming here?"
Sterben shrugged. "Internship. Bills. And REMCORE doesn't like its employees eating where they can't be watched."
An android waitress with half its face panel missing shuffled over, its voice box sparking. It didn't ask for names, just blinked its single red eye and waited.
"Egg sandwich and a bowl of noodles," Sterben said.
Kira hesitated, then added, "Same."
The android nodded and shuffled off.
They sat in silence for a beat. The fluorescent hum above them buzzed like static.
Finally, Sterben leaned forward.
"So. Facility Zero."
Kira slowly pulled a pen from her jacket and grabbed a napkin. She began sketching lines, network paths, he realized. Grids.
"It was the first one. Before REMCORE got clearance. Before they became legal."
He frowned. "I've never even heard of it."
"Exactly. No public record. The government covered it up after some 'prototype recall issues.' But the structure? It's still there. Just… repainted."
Sterben looked at the sketch. "Why do you care about a buried lab?"
"Because it's where all this started."
She tapped the briefcase. "This prototype, it's not a new model. It's a resurrection. A testbed REMCORE mothballed and tried to forget."
Sterben narrowed his eyes. "Why bring it back?"
"Because they need someone who can activate it."
She met his gaze.
"And you did."
The food arrived, hot and greasy. The scent broke the moment like a snap of fingers.
Sterben leaned back. "I didn't do anything."
"Exactly," Kira said, jabbing a fork at him. "You didn't do anything. No commands, no password. You just touched it. And it lit up."
Sterben stared at the steaming egg sandwich. Something about that scared him more than the chase.
"I'm not special," he muttered.
"That's what makes it interesting."
He shook his head. "I don't remember any of this. No labs. No tech. No Facility Zero."
Kira looked thoughtful. "REMCORE wipes are deep. Sometimes trauma-buried."
Sterben bit into his sandwich to keep from saying something he wasn't ready to say.
He chewed. Swallowed.
Paused.
"I've been dreaming," he said finally. "Same hallway. White walls. Voices through glass. And sometimes… sometimes I think someone was holding my hand, but-"
He trailed off.
Kira didn't interrupt.
After a moment, he finished the sandwich. Kira was halfway through her noodles, eating mechanically.
He glanced toward the counter.
Tomo was watching them now.
Sterben stood slowly. "Stay here."
He approached the old man, who didn't look up this time.
"You always did get quiet when something was wrong," Tomo muttered. "Figured you'd show up sooner or later."
Sterben kept his voice low. "Has anyone been asking about me?"
Tomo nodded. "Last week. Clean suit, wrong shoes. Said he was a recruiter. Didn't order anything. Didn't blink."
"REMCORE?"
"Or someone worse," Tomo said.
Sterben felt his throat tighten.
"You tell him anything?"
"I told him my eggs were burning."
A beat passed.
"You need a place to stay, kid, I've got the attic. But if suits start coming through that door…"
"I know," Sterben said. "We're leaving soon."
He turned to head back to Kira, then stopped.
Tomo finally looked up.
"There's something different about you," the old man said.
Sterben met his gaze. "Yeah?"
"You're starting to remember."