But Sirena knew—and I knew—that my pendant cam was still operational.
She just wanted me out of her ear—or wanted Thorne to think they had privacy.
I wondered if the gargoyle would be that stupid.
“I need a pen and paper,” Sirena said, and Thorne added it to the list of whoever was bringing the med kit.
“What’d you see?” Sophia asked, recovering slightly.
“Not much,” Sirena admitted as the Maukin came to the door— I could see him coming from the hallway cams outside—andhe handed Thorne what he’d asked for. Thorne poured water for Sophia first, then Sirena, but Sirena ignored hers and wrote down a series of numbers and symbols: MIHR-097/BXΔ14.5, setting the piece of paper squarely in front of my cam.
Receipt acknowledged.
I locked the frame. Bumped contrast. Straightened the page.
The prefix was new.
MIHR.
Not in my lexicon.
Not in any public-facing medical index.
The kind of code that exists only where it was born.
Internal. Isolated. Opaque by design.
Working hypothesis: facility routing or inventory tag.
R-097 read like room/route/rack.
BX wasn’t bimaxillary here; it was box/bin or bay/exhibit.
Δ14.5 was an offset—angle, calibration, deviation.
Warehouse talk. Auction talk. Lab talk.
Sophia swallowed. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to remember—anything.”
“I know,” Sirena said. “Because I looked.”
I pushed the string through buildings/freight/storage instead of medicine: cached vendor catalogs, sitemap ghosts, waybills, HS code abstracts, private security armory logs, underground auction mirrors.
“Do you . . . know what that means?” Sophia asked, her voice thin.
“No,” Sirena said gently. “And I don’t think you do either.”
Sophia flinched. “What did you see?”
“Nothing,” Sirena said softly. “Not pain—absence. A window that opened onto black. And this.” She tapped the paper. “Only this.”
Returns: a lot of almosts—routing stubs, shelf maps, camera mount offsets—nothing that resolved to a place you could walk to. Which was the point, if someone wanted her unfindable.
Sophia’s eyes shone. “So I’m . . . no one?”
“You’re someone,” Sirena said, firm. “But your memories are curated. What’s left isn’t a life—it’s a label.”
Conclusion (for now): notwhatthey did to her, but where she was staged. Back room, not operating room.
