Kaelen’s breath hitched, a faint rasp in the stale air of the derelict data-vault. Ryu Kai’s gaze, a mercury sheen, bore into her. He’d barely moved since her last desperate pronouncement, his lean frame a coiled spring of unpredictable power. Her carefully constructed narrative, a fragile web of half-truths and outright fabrications, teetered on the edge of his amnesiac abyss. “You just… you couldn’t do anything to me,” she repeated, her voice steadier now, laced with a feigned certainty. “Not after everything.” His head tilted, a predator’s slow assessment. A flicker, almost imperceptible, crossed his features. Doubt, or perhaps an unsettling curiosity. He didn’t believe a word. His silence was louder than any accusation. Then he took a step. Her gut clenched. His shadow fell over her, cool and heavy. A hand, scarred and strong, lifted. Kaelen stiffened, every nerve screaming. His fingers brushed her neck, a feather-light touch that sent ice through her veins, a stark contrast to the rough grip she remembered from their previous encounter. “Why?” His voice was a low growl, devoid of inflection. A single word, sharp as a razor. She flinched. The casual intimacy of his touch, unsettling her deeply. “Huh?” “Why can’t I do anything bad?” “Uh, it’s because…” Her mind scrambled. His touch lingered, a ghost of pressure against her carotid artery, a silent threat. Her heart hammered, a frantic drum against her ribs. She remembered the fear, the moment he’d pinned her, the cold glint of the neural collar she’d used to control him. How easily he could crush her windpipe. How close he’d come. Biting her lip, Kaelen searched for an answer, some scrap of logic that would deter a man who lived outside the law. Law? What law mattered in the shadowed alleys of Neo-Kyoto? Only the law of the strong. “It’s because… the law says so!” The words burst out, an instinctive, desperate plea to some non-existent authority. “Law?” A furrow appeared between his brows, a flicker of genuine confusion. “Yeah, so, it’s…” Kaelen’s teeth dug harder into her lip. She had to sell this. She needed a truth, a *big* truth, to anchor her lies. A dangerous idea, a spark of pure, reckless cunning, ignited in her cynical mind. It was a desperate gamble, but her options were dwindling faster than a synth-fuel tank in a high-speed chase. A glint appeared in her eyes, sharp and predatory. “If you… if you kill me, it’ll be a uxoricide.” The word felt foreign on her tongue, ancient and binding. She saw the opening, a desperate, final gambit for her safety. Ryu Kai’s face contorted, a primal frown deepening the lines around his mouth. He was holding the custom-fitted neuro-scanner she’d given him, a delicate piece of surgical tech. His fingers spasmed. The device clattered to the floor, its optical lens shattering with a brittle crack. A prick of conscience, fleeting as a dying pulse, touched Kaelen. She’d weaponized a concept she utterly disdained. But survival trumped sentiment. Her poker face snapped back into place, a mask of grim determination. “Because I’m—I’m your wife.” --- Days later, Kaelen hunched over a work-slab in her hidden clinic, the smell of ozone and antiseptic thick in the air. Gritty dust coated every surface, a fine powder from the city’s constant degradation. Flickering holo-ads bled through the reinforced plasteel of her window, casting lurid neon stripes across the scarred chrome of her tools. She was trying to lose herself in the intricate dance of bio-salvage, to silence the nagging dread that gnawed at her. Her current project was a neural-pattern archive, a relic from the Old World. A client, a wizened data-broker named Emiko, had paid a fortune for Kaelen to repair the corrupted memory banks. It was Emiko’s son’s final recording, a digital echo of a life lost to the corporate wars. “The surge hit it bad last cycle,” Emiko fretted, her voice thin and reedy as she hovered nearby, wringing her hands. Her eyes, magnified by thick glasses, were red-rimmed. “He’s gone, but… his memories. I can’t lose those too, Kaelen. It’s all I have left.” Kaelen focused on the delicate work, her enhanced optical implant zoomed in on the fractal damage within the data-matrix. The intricate spiderweb of corrupted neural pathways looked like a lightning strike had scoured it clean. An unexpected, almost poetic, parallel to the source material. “It’s severe,” Kaelen murmured, her voice steady and professional. She selected a micro-welder, its tip glowing blue. “Deep-level data-rot. I’ll need to re-splice the primary memory conduits, reinforce the core, then run a full-spectrum integrity check.” Silas, her burly, perpetually grumbling associate, leaned against a stack of discarded cybernetic limbs. “You sure you want to take that on, Kae? If it flatlines, the old lady’ll have your head. Or what’s left of your creds, anyway.” Kaelen didn’t look up. “The core architecture isn’t completely fried. There’s a chance for recovery. Besides,” she added, a dark humour flickering in her eyes, “it’s her son’s legacy. She’s paying top-tier cred for a miracle. And I need the distraction.” Silas grunted, knowing better than to press. He’d seen the exhaustion etched around Kaelen’s eyes, the faint purple shadows under them that no amount of synth-coffee could erase. Her hands, usually so precise, trembled just a fraction. She felt a tremor run through her, unrelated to the delicate vibrations of her tools. Her own nerves were frayed. Her mind, despite her best efforts, kept drifting back to Ryu Kai, to the moment she’d branded herself his wife. The thought was a raw, festering wound. --- A shrill buzz tore through the clinic’s tense silence. Kaelen’s comm-link. She froze, micro-welder hovering. The caller ID was a secure, encrypted channel, one she’d set up weeks ago for a single, terrifying purpose. Her calm demeanor shattered. “Gonna grab that, boss?” Silas asked, chewing on a stim-gum. Without a word, Kaelen ripped off her optical implant, letting it clatter onto the work-slab. She moved to the grimy privacy of a service alcove, her movements stiff, like a synth on a dying battery. She clapped a hand over her other ear, shutting out the city’s omnipresent hum. “Yeah?” Her voice was tight, barely a whisper. “Kaelen. Doc Vesper. We finally have a readout on… our mutual acquaintance.” The voice on the other end was a neutral, clipped corporate drone, almost too calm. Kaelen’s breath hitched. “What do you mean, ‘readout’? He was awake. You said he was just… disoriented.” Her nails dug into her palm, drawing thin crescents. She paced the small alcove, a caged animal, resembling a debtor fleeing a ripper-gang. “I spoke with him. He was violent, unpredictable. He… he was certainly awake.” The memory of his unpredictable bursts of anger, the unsettling vulgarity, was too fresh. “Yes, Kaelen. His higher brain functions registered activity. His consciousness returned. That’s what we initially observed.” A pause. “But there’s been a complication.” Kaelen squeezed her eyes shut. She already knew. She’d felt it in her bones since the moment Ryu Kai collapsed after her desperate lie, collapsing as if the very words had sapped his life force. She’d scrambled for help, calling Vesper’s contact, waiting in a cold sweat for days. “What complication?” she grated, forcing the words out. “He hasn’t woken up since.” A cold dread bloomed in Kaelen’s stomach, then quickly turned to a bitter frustration. “What are you talking about? He woke up! I just told you!” “Kaelen, he’s in a state of hypersomnia.” She frowned, confusion warring with her fear. “Hypersomnia? What in the hell is that?” “It’s also known colloquially as Sleeping Beauty Syndrome. His brain activity shows full consciousness, but his body remains unresponsive, locked in a deep sleep. We’ve run every diagnostic. No discernible trauma, no chemical imbalance we can identify.” Kaelen’s mind reeled. Sleeping Beauty? This wasn’t a fairy tale. This was Neo-Kyoto, a place where fairy tales came to die. “What’s the prognosis?” she asked, her voice barely audible. “It’s rare. Unpredictable. He could sleep for days, weeks… longer. We’re still monitoring, but there’s no clear indication of when he’ll rouse.” A metallic sigh came through the comm-link. “He’s been asleep for twelve standard days now.” Twelve days. Kaelen blinked. The numbers didn’t compute. Her anxiety, a suffocating weight, began to dissipate, replaced by something else entirely. A dawning, horrifying, glorious realization. “So,” she began, her voice still shaky, but now laced with a cynical wonder, “you’re telling me… Ryu Kai isn’t comatose. He’s conscious, but effectively… locked away in his own head? And no one knows when he’ll snap out of it?” “That’s the current assessment,” Vesper confirmed, a hint of weary resignation in their tone. “Huff.” Kaelen let out a ragged breath, a laugh threatening to bubble up. The tension that had held her captive for weeks, the fear of Ryu Kai’s retribution, of her dangerous lie unraveling, vanished in a rush. She sagged against the cool plasteel. Her eyelids fluttered, a raw, almost painful sense of relief washing over her. The perfect out. The ultimate deception. “Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much.” The words tumbled out, heartfelt and entirely self-serving. She could just tell him it was all a dream. A vivid, violent dream, yes. But a dream nonetheless. She could simply deny everything. The lie, her desperate claim of being his wife, had a shelf life after all. A very long shelf life, it seemed. Returning to the work-slab, Kaelen picked up her optical implant, a newfound spring in her step. Emiko still hovered, a picture of despair. Kaelen clapped her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Emiko,” she said, her voice bright, deceptively optimistic. “I’ll bring your boy’s memories back. Good as new.” She just needed to ensure her own deadly secret stayed buried, a quiet hum in the wires and circuits of a sleeping mind. She grinned, a flash of white teeth in the dim light. Sometimes, the universe delivered the cruelest, most convenient miracles. Especially in Neo-Kyoto. ---

Sleepwalking Through a Lie