The air in the lab grew heavy, thick with cold tension. Vochak’s grey pupils locked onto the faded puncture beside her clavicle. A reek of burnt wiring clung to the air from his uniform. “A… a quarantine inoculation,” Liskra stammered, her voice thin, betraying her. She felt the tell-tale stutter forming, a weakness she loathed. “From the… the Biosecurity protocols. When I transferred to the lower wards. They’re… they’re standard.” Her hand still hovered at her throat, a shield against the truth her memory refused to yield. Vochak didn’t move, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop. His gaze didn’t waver from the scar, then slowly, meticulously, swept up to her eyes, searching, dissecting. A flicker of recognition played across his features. The tenderness from moments before had evaporated, replaced by the chilling focus of a predator. “Standard, you say?” His voice was a low growl, devoid of his usual rasp, dangerously calm. “Funny, I don’t recall a quarantine mandate for transferees to the Coffin Wards. Only for those returning from the surface, or those exposed to… novel biological agents.” Liskra’s throat tightened further. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was desert dry. “Maybe… it was an administrative oversight.” Her words trailed off, weak and unconvincing even to her own ears. The lie tasted like ash. Vochak took another step, closing the distance between them. The metal flask remained lowered, forgotten. He leaned in, his clean oxygen scent overriding the usual lab sterility. “Or instead,” he murmured, his voice dropping into a rasping cadence, “you’re lying to me, Doctor Liskra.” His eyes narrowed to sharp points. “It’s a peculiar place for a jab, isn’t it? Almost… defensive.” He paused, letting the implication hang in the air, a poisonous vapor. “I’ll be sure to check the Biosecurity logs. Just for my own peace of mind.” He straightened, shoulders squared with rigid discipline. He turned abruptly, striding out of the lab without another word, leaving Liskra trembling amidst her half-finished work. The door hissed shut, sealing her in with her burgeoning panic. She pressed her fingers against her throat, trying to flatten the tissue. Minutes later, Pravik burst in, his face flushed, eyes wide with a frantic energy. He was clutching a small, greasy sack that smelled faintly of recycled synth-bread. “Liskra! Gods, you won’t believe it! I found him! The data broker! Kribb, down in the low bazaars. He’s got it, Liskra! He’s got the whole thing!” Pravik practically bounced with agitated excitement, oblivious to the icy dread that had settled over her. “Got what, Pravik?” Liskra asked, her voice still shaky. “The Volkhov’s old analog backup! From the hotel lobby, that night! Kribb sells old data – real physical tapes, not just encrypted streams. Says he salvaged it before the internal security sweep. Pristine condition! He’s asking for a fortune in pure oxygen credits, but it’ll have everything, Liskra. The face, the time, the… the whole damn incident.” Pravik’s words, usually a source of frantic amusement, now struck Liskra with the force of a physical blow. An analog tape. Unwiped. A physical record. She had focused entirely on digital logs, ignoring the possibility of ancient magnetic tape. The woman from the storm. Her face. Her actions. All recorded, all waiting to be discovered. Liskra’s mind raced. Vochak was incubating the cure. A living, breathing bioreactor. If that spool reached him before his marrow finished cooking the serum, he would drag her to the execution wall without hesitation. He would execute her, and the city, already spiraling into a sleepless nightmare, would descend into utter oblivion. She couldn’t just hide anymore. She had to act. She had to destroy that tape. And quickly. “Pravik, we have to go,” Liskra said, her voice regaining a steeliness she rarely displayed. “Now. To the lower stalls. We need to buy that tape.” Pravik’s jovial expression curdled into one of apprehension. ““Down into the muck? You sure, Liskra? It’s filthy down there. And Kribb is tricky. Might need more than just credits.” He patted a suspicious bulge in his worn coat. “Just in case.” “Just in case of what, Pravik?” she asked, watching his twitching hands. “Oh, you know,” he said, avoiding her gaze. “For… persuasion. Or… distraction. Just a little… spore-grenade. Non-lethal, mostly! Just a good dose of… temporary incapacitation. Smells like rotten eggs, gives you a hell of a cough. Pure black-market genius, this. Made it myself.” He beamed, holding up a small, dull grey sphere that looked suspiciously unstable. Liskra stared at the crude device, then at Pravik’s grinning face. The man was a walking disaster, but right now, he was her only ally. “Fine,” she said, snatching the grenade from his hand. “Just… don’t let it go off by accident.” The journey down was a descent into the city’s drainage sump, through rusted conduit tunnels far below the sanatorium. The air grew thick with copper rot and the sticky sweetness of fermenting synth-waste. Here, the oxygen filters were barely functional, and the working class, their faces etched with the tell-tale shadows of the sleep-plague, moved like ghosts through the dim, flickering light. Kribb’s stall was located in a particularly grimy alcove, half-hidden behind a stack of broken ventilation units. A thin, sickly aroma of ozone and burnt wiring emanated from it. As they approached, Liskra felt a prickle of unease. The usual clamor of the barter stalls died near this junction. A patrol of enforcers, plate armor stamped with the sector seal, stood rummaging through Kribb’s metal crates. The data broker himself lay slumped over his makeshift counter, a dark, viscous stain spreading across the cracked synth-stone. He was dead, and the enforcers were boxing up the merchandise. A scarred guard lifted a bulky, rectangular cassette. A datapad. On its screen, the clear, unmistakable image of a reel-to-reel analog tape spun slowly. “Found it, Officer Rellik,” he grunted, his voice echoing in the sudden silence. “The primary asset. Looks like the intel was correct. This old junker kept the raw feed from the Volkhov luxury suite’s lobby security.” Officer Rellik, a lean woman with eyes like chipped flint, nodded curtly. “Excellent. Bag it, seal it. No contamination. This goes straight to Commander Vochak. He’s been demanding this exact record for days.” Liskra froze. Vochak. The tape was going directly to him. She had minutes before the reel landed on his desk. Her fingers gripped Pravik's cast-iron sphere, the crude seams biting her palm. She looked at the Magistrate guards, their backs to her, intent on their task. She looked at the few, terrified market dwellers, huddled in the shadows, too weary to flee. Detonating it now would create chaos. It would buy an escape route, but the fungal dust would rupture the fragile lungs of every sleepless laborer nearby. Yet, if she didn't, the city would be doomed anyway. The choice hung before her, a knife’s edge in the gloom. Do I unleash this plague, or allow the greater one to consume us all?

Analog Decryption