Chapter 7: The Ghost in the Machine

Silence had a new texture. It wasn’t the quiet of an empty apartment or the lull between gigs. It was the silence inside my own head, a vast, white room where echoes died as soon as they were born. The twenty-five thousand dollars sat in the offshore account, a monument to my own absence. I’d log in sometimes, just to watch the number, a lone, bright digit in a dark vault. It meant nothing.

Days blurred. I didn’t return to the delivery apps or the chat support. The thought of putting on the cheerful, servile mask made something in my chest ache dully, a phantom pain from a removed organ. I was like a machine that had run one complex, brutal program and now couldn’t reboot to its old, simple operating system.

My mother called. The sound of her voice, warm and laced with worry, was a key scraping against a rusted lock. “Mija, are you eating? You sound ... far away.”

“I’m fine, Mama. I have a new ... consulting contract. It’s good money. I’m sending more this week.”

“That’s wonderful, but you don’t sound happy.”

“I’m tired. It’s a lot of focus.”

“Of course, of course. Just don’t forget to live, Cariño.”

Live. The word was a foreign concept. I was existing. I was processing inputs: light through the blinds, the taste of plain rice, the ache in my neck from sleeping too long. I was not living.

Kyle’s messages piled up, unread. Variations on a theme: We need to talk. The data is incredible. There are implications. I’m worried about you.

Sloane was more direct, a single line: Asset 7-4-3, your unique skill set remains in high demand. Confidential inquiry attached. Reply for terms.

I deleted it. I was not an asset. I was a ghost haunting the shell of Asset 7-4-3.

However, the world of ghosts is porous. The invitation from Vorn A.V. had been a crack. I hadn’t replied, but the fact of its existence was a pinprick of light in the white room. He saw me. Not the construct, not the protocol. He saw nothing, and he wanted it. That was a kind of recognition.

The crack widened with a physical letter, slipped under my door on heavy, cream stationery. No return address. A single line of elegant script.

The most perfect masks are not worn but grown. Yours has fused. I have a gallery for such artifacts. Come see.

Beneath it was an address in the historic district and a time: tomorrow, 8 PM.

It wasn’t from Vorn. The voice was different. More aesthetic, less violent. Yet, it was from the same shadow-world. The network Kyle had uncovered, the collectors of “real-human emotional scenarios” had found me. Cronenberg Academy wasn’t just a website; it was a club, and I had passed its most stringent initiation.

Curiosity was the first real emotion I’d felt in weeks. It wasn’t fear or anticipation. It was a cold, clinical curiosity. What did a gallery for human artifacts look like? What was my price tag in that market?

I went.

The address was a converted brownstone that gave no sign of being anything but a private home. A discreet camera lens watched from above the polished brass door knocker. I wore simple black trousers and a loose black sweater. No armor. No statement. Just a shade.

The door opened before I could knock. A man in his sixties, with the ageless, groomed look of extreme wealth, smiled. He wore a velvet smoking jacket. “Ms. Perez. An honor. I am Alistair. Please, come in. We’ve been eager to meet the author of the Vorn Report.”

The inside was not a home. It was a pristine white cube, a gallery in the truest sense. But instead of paintings, the walls held large, high-definition screens. Instead of sculptures, there were platforms in the center of the room, each holding a single person.

My breath caught, not in shock, but in a terrible, resonant recognition.

On the screens played loops of scenarios. A woman, bound only by her own hesitation, is standing frozen in a crowded subway car as her skirt slowly unravels. A man trying to give a speech while a programmed collar delivers escalating, humiliating feedback only he can hear. The footage was crisp, intimate, focused on the face, the micro-expressions of struggle, collapse, and finally, a hollowed-out acceptance.