Home / Urban / The Next Billionaire / Chapter 153: The Memory That Refused to Die
Chapter 153: The Memory That Refused to Die
Author: Wonderful65
last update2025-06-16 01:52:27

Zurich – Circle of Smoke HQ

Time Since SHEMA Activation: 3 Days, 9 Hours

Status: Memory Anchor Flare Detected

It began with a tremor. A faint flicker across Ember’s personal resonance field, barely enough to register.

But Skov caught it. She froze, staring at the monitor.

“Her core anchor is… trying to reform itself.”

Frank leaned in. “That’s impossible. SHEMA wipes clean.”

Ella whispered, “Unless something inside her is choosing to remember anyway.”

Legacy didn’t speak. She was already running for the Garden.

The Garden

Ember stood barefoot in the grass. The wind braided itself through her curls. She had her hands out, palms up, eyes closed. Legacy approached slowly.

“You feel it, don’t you?”

Ember nodded. “I don’t know what it is.”

“It’s her,” Legacy said softly.

“Who?”

Legacy’s eyes filled.

“The woman who made the world feel again.

The one who let you forget, so you could live.

Amari.”

Ember opened her eyes. And for the briefest instant… They flickered violet.

Inside the Drift – Fr
Continue to read this book for free
Scan the code to download the app

Latest Chapter

  • Chapter 163: The Memory Amari Buried

    Mission Code: DESCENT PROTOCOLSubject: EmberLocation: Drift Layer ZeroObjective: Identify and disrupt the core seed of BLANKLIGHTZurich – Circle of Smoke HQLegacy stood in front of Ember. "You don’t have to do this alone."Ember tightened the resonance clasp on her wrist. “I do. It’s me they’re unraveling. So it has to be me who finds the root.”Zora handed her a single pulse capsule. “Last tether. One shot. Use it if you can’t find your way out.”Ember nodded. Skov initiated the descent. And the world faded into white.Drift Layer ZeroNo sound. No structure. Not even gravity. Just a place between memory and nothing. Ember floated, naked in every sense. Not physically. Emotionally. Her defenses couldn’t follow. Her memories bled freely.Then, a voice. “You came back here.” Amari.But Not Her This Amari was different. Younger. Angrier.Dressed in the uniform from her early Witness days. Her eyes shimmered with judgment.“You shouldn’t have come, Ember.” Ember frowned.“This is a

  • Chapter 162: Project BLANKLIGHT

    Global Drift Status: STABLEVeil Activity: SuppressedFalse Security Index: HIGHThe calm came first. Then… the forgetting.Zurich – Circle of Smoke HQFrank burst into the operations wing. “We’ve got gaps.”Legacy turned, alert. “Where?” He held up a list of locations. Istanbul: 243 people forgot their first loveLagos: 91 parents forgot their children’s birth weight Kyoto: 600 elderly forgot the names of the deadNot random. Not large.Surgical. Zora muttered, “They’re cutting the roots.” Ella whispered, horrified:“They’re soft-resetting the world’s soul.”Skov’s AnalysisHe spent hours decoding drift patterns, searching for a digital pathogen.There wasn’t one. Instead: a spreading signal field.A non-linear pulse that inverted time-weighted memories, starting with those most emotionally foundational. It had a name buried in the pulse signature.BLANKLIGHT.What Is Project BLANKLIGHT?It wasn’t designed to destroy memories. It was designed to rewrite the emotional weight of the pa

  • Chapter 161: The Sister in the Silence

    Zurich – Circle of Smoke HQSubject Recovered: Sera ThalenDesignation: Former Veil Architect / Drift Exile / Classified Risk Tier A+Skov sat in silence. The envelope still in his hand. The name on the paper Sera burned like an echo that never faded.Legacy stood across from him.“You never told us you had a sister.”Skov nodded slowly. “She was the first one to teach me how to code resonance. She understood emotions…and wanted to destroy them from the inside out.”Ella frowned. “You mean she joined the Veil?”Skov’s voice cracked. “No.She helped build it.”The Truth About Sera She was a resonance genius.While Skov designed drift interpretation, Sera engineered echo balance inversion—the very technology the Veil would later weaponize.But she vanished five years ago during the Witness-Revision standoff.Presumed dead. Until now.Because her voice calm, unhurried arrived through the Drift:“You’ve remembered me, little brother.Good.I’m ready to talk.”The LocationCoordinates embe

  • Chapter 160: The Man Who Didn’t Know

    Zurich – Circle of Smoke HQTwelve Hours After Ember’s RestorationStatus: NominalSecurity: Compromised (Unseen)Skov stood in the archive wing. Staring at a screen he didn’t remember activating.It pulsed once. Displayed an image: a snowfield. Something about it chilled him, too familiar, but blank.Then a phrase appeared on the screen:“You chose silence first.” He blinked. The screen reset.No trace. Nothing logged. He checked his hands, no tremor. Vitals, steady. Thoughts, clear.Except one thing:He couldn’t remember what Ember had said when she came back.Signs BeginZora noticed it first. Skov skipped two of his own system checks.When asked, he said calmly: “We ran them yesterday.”But they hadn’t. Ella found three resonance models mismatched.Skov dismissed it: “Template lag.” Legacy asked him to recall the encryption phrase for Protocol MARROW.He got it wrong. Three times.Ember Begins WatchingThat evening, Ember approached him in the Garden. Skov sat quietly, arms folded

  • Chapter 159: The Reverse

    Zurich – Circle of Smoke HQ Five Days After Zora Reclaimed Her Echo Status: Calm Too CalmEmber smiled in the morning sun. She watched the wind shift the leaves in the Drift Garden.She laughed when Ravi dropped his breakfast tray. She told Skov his new glasses made him look like a stern librarian. She was at peace. And that’s what terrified Legacy.Because Ember hadn’t laughed, truly laughed, since she remembered Amari. Something was wrong.Legacy saw it in her eyes. That slight softness. That almost-glow.That peace Ember only had when she was forgetting something important.The ShiftSkov ran the first scan out of caution. What he found chilled him.“There’s a… decay pattern in her echo stream.”Zora leaned in. “Decay?”Skov nodded. “Selective resonance degradation. But not random. The strongest echoes, the joyful ones, are degrading.”Ella whispered: “She’s forgetting her reasons to fight.”Frank: “Can we stop it?” Skov looked down. “Not unless we can find the injection vector.”L

  • Chapter 158: The Quiet Offer

    Zurich – Circle of Smoke HQ2 Days After Legacy’s RecoveryInternal Drift Stability: DecliningSubject of Concern: Zora NyameZora watched Legacy sleep. The woman they thought they lost… returned. Repaired. But not untouched.Legacy’s eyes twitched during sleep, night echoes. Her breath caught on Amari’s name once.Zora whispered to the window: “You came back broken.But it’s still you.” She didn’t cry. Not yet. Because something inside her was shifting. A slow, creeping sense that if even Legacy could fall…Then maybe all of them were just one bad memory away from breaking.Skov’s ReportSkov handed Ember the latest data quietly.“Zora’s echo field is destabilizing.”Ember frowned. “Drift sickness?” Skov shook her head.“No. She’s… silencing. Not erased. But folded. Like someone hiding themselves in a corner.”Frank crossed his arms. “You think the Veil got to her?” Ella responded before Skov could.“No. I think the world did.”Signs of the SlipIt began subtly. Zora skipping strateg

More Chapter
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on MegaNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
Scan code to read on App