The rain hadn’t stopped in six days. It smeared the city lights into veins of neon blood that ran down the high-rise towers of District 9 like tears from a giant, unblinking eye. I watched the mess from behind my dusty office window, sipping synth-coffee laced with cortisol inhibitors. Somewhere between 2 a.m. and a system update, a knock came.
She walked in—tall, seventeen, and carrying the weight of wars she hadn’t fought but had inherited. Her name was Lena, but the file chip she slid across my desk said Subject 97-A. A throwaway kid from the State Sanctum for Disruptive Youth. I knew the type: born during the food riots, raised on military surplus and algorithmic parenting, emotionally scorched before puberty.
“I need answers,” she said, voice flat like a weather report. “Why do I feel like I’m dying when nothing’s wrong?”
I plugged the chip in. Her genome danced across my terminal—methyl tags lit up like hazard signs.
“Stress locks the door, Lena,” I muttered. “But trauma? Trauma changes the blueprint of the whole damn building.”
“English, please.”
“Your genes. They’re turned on and off like bad neon. Chronic cortisol saturation, high synaptic feedback loops—your body thinks the war’s still on.”
She looked down. “But it’s not.”
“No,” I said. “But your cells don’t know that. They remember everything.”
I handed her a holocard—the symbol of a black spiral on white.
“Memory Helix Institute. Off-grid lab down south. They’re trying to reverse the damage. Gene reprogramming, neuro-epigenetic wash. It’s not legal, but neither is what’s happening to kids like you.”
She pocketed the card but didn’t stand. “You lost someone, didn’t you?”
I didn’t answer. But the ghost of my brother—Tobias, age 13, overdose at 27—sat beside me, silently nodding.
“You can run,” I finally said. “You can even heal. But they’ll still come for you.”
“Who?”
I looked at the skyline. At the Ministry of Behavioral Corrections tower pulsing red like a wound.
“The ones who profit from you being broken.”
She stood and walked out. No thanks, no tears. Just the quiet resolve of a girl who knew she was more than her blueprint.
I turned off the light and poured another synth. Maybe she’d make it. Maybe the world could forget what it did to its children. But my genes? My genes still burned with the memory of every system that failed us.
In this city, memory wasn’t just something you had.
It was something you were.
