Chapter 3The Driver’s Eyes

The safehouse smelled of rust and old coffee. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, casting long shadows across stacked crates and a threadbare couch. Ezra wiped rain from his face and scanned the room—two exits, both narrow, both probably leading to alleys.

“Marcus?” Corbin’s voice echoed off concrete walls.

A click. The safety of a handgun disengaging.

“Show me the sphere.” The voice came from a corner near the boarded window. Young. Trembling beneath an attempt at steadiness. “Now. Or I walk.”

Ezra held up both hands. “We don’t have it.”

“Then we’re done.”

A shape emerged from the darkness. Marcus was younger than Ezra had expected—early twenties, maybe. Dark circles under his eyes, his jaw tight with the kind of fear that had calcified into paranoia. The gun stayed level with Ezra’s chest.

“I’m Ezra.” He kept his voice low, calm. “This is Lena. You knew her sister.”

The gun wavered. Marcus’s gaze flicked to Lena, then back. “Maya talked about you. Said you were the only honest auditor left.”

“She was wrong about a lot of things.” Ezra reached slowly into his jacket. “I’m going to pull out her journal. That’s all.”

Marcus watched him, finger hovering near the trigger. Ezra slid the journal onto a crate between them. The worn cover. The dog-eared pages. Something in Marcus’s face cracked.

He lowered the gun.

“Sit,” he said, and it sounded less like an order and more like surrender.

---

They arranged themselves around a scarred wooden table. Marcus kept the gun on his lap, barrel pointed at the floor, but his shoulders stayed tense.

“You have no idea what you walked into,” he said.

“Waste Site 7,” Ezra replied. “Corporate cover-up. Redacted memories. Your mother ordered the redaction to protect you.”

Marcus laughed. It was hollow. “She ordered it to protect herself. I’m just the excuse.”

Lena leaned forward. “My sister died because of that cover-up. She was trying to expose the dump, and someone ran her down. The memory shows you behind the wheel.”

“The memory shows what they wanted it to show.” Marcus’s voice cracked. “I wasn’t driving. I was in the passenger seat. The corporation needed a fall guy—someone with connections they could control. My mother’s position made me perfect.”

Ezra’s chest tightened. “Who was driving?”

“I don’t know. They wore a mask. But they had a corporation badge. Operations division.” Marcus rubbed his face. “They told me if I didn’t take the blame, they’d kill my mother. Then they’d redact her memory of having a son. She’d wake up alone, wondering why she felt empty.”

The room went silent. Lena’s hands were trembling on the table.

“You let my sister’s murder go unsolved,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but it cut.

Marcus met her eyes. “I was nineteen. I was scared. I’m still scared.”

“Give us the code,” Ezra said. “We can prove it wasn’t you. Clear your name.”

“And then what? The corporation still has people in Operations. They still have my mother’s file.” Marcus shook his head. “The memory sphere is my only insurance. If I give you the code, I lose leverage.”

“You don’t have leverage,” Lena said. “You have guilt. You have a dead woman’s blood on your hands. The only difference between you and the corporation is scale.”

Marcus flinched. Opened his mouth. Closed it.

Ezra pulled the journal across the table. “Maya knew the truth. She wrote it all down—the location, the dates, the names. She left you a way out, even if you didn’t take it.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“No,” Ezra said. “But you let her killer walk.”

The words hung in the air. Marcus stared at the journal. His hands moved to his face, and for a moment he was just a kid, drowning in something too big for him.

“The code is my retinal pattern,” he said finally. “That’s what they used to lock the memory. My eyes, looking at the road. The camera caught them.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small scanner—silver, professional-grade. “I stole this from my mother’s office. I knew someone would come eventually.”

Ezra’s pulse quickened. “You’ll give it to us?”

“I’ll give you the code.” Marcus set the scanner on the table. “But I’m coming with you. When you expose this, I want to be there. I want to look the driver in the face and tell them I’m not afraid anymore.”

Lena studied him. Her jaw worked. Then she nodded once.

Marcus activated the scanner. A blue light swept across his eye, and a string of numbers appeared on its small screen. He wrote them on a napkin, pushed it toward Ezra.

“Insert that into the memory sphere’s access port. It’ll unlock everything.”

Ezra took the napkin. His fingers brushed the ink. One string of numbers. One chance to prove he wasn’t the man the city thought he was.

“Thank you,” he said.

Marcus shook his head. “Don’t thank me yet. The corporation knows someone’s been pulling at this thread. They’ll have watchers on every road out of—”

Corbin’s communicator beeped.

He pulled it from his pocket, read the screen, and went pale.

“Delia just pulsed a city-wide alert,” he said. “She’s flagged our vehicle’s plates. Enforcers are already routing toward this sector.”

Marcus stood, grabbing his jacket. “There’s a basement. Hidden exit to the old sewer line. Follow me.”

The bulb flickered. Somewhere distant, a siren began to wail.

Ezra pocketed the napkin and the scanner, grabbed Lena’s hand, and ran.