Neurostatic: The Ghost in Monte Cero - Chapter 6

Fractures

He had dreamed this moment before.

Not in a dream of his own. In one they had given him—packaged, polished, rendered in flawless neural fidelity: Yara in crosshairs, standing in a corridor lit by broken LEDs and old betrayal.

And now, here she was.

Real.

Breathing.

Eyes hard as glass, coat torn, body trembling from the climb—but standing tall in the dark like she belonged there.

Sombra’s fingers flexed at his sides.

He hadn’t drawn his weapon.

Yet.

He didn’t trust the weight of it in his hands anymore.

Yara didn’t move either.

Behind her, two Null Signal operatives shifted their stance, ready. But not stupid. They could feel it—this wasn’t a fight. Not yet.

The silence between them buzzed louder than the servers.

“Lucía,” Sombra said.

Her name tasted strange in his mouth.

Yara blinked. Her lips parted—but she said nothing.

His heart betrayed him. A flicker.

A memory, unauthorized.

A rooftop in Aguada. Long ago. She was laughing. Wind in her hair. The two of them sitting on a rusted tank, sharing cold empanadas and arguing about neural ethics like kids who still believed they’d change the world.

And then—

White light.
A table.
A needle.

“You are Agent Martín Delgado. Assigned ID: Sombra. Mission priority: Contain unauthorized sentient neurocode. Secondary target: Lucía Ferreira.”

That voice had never left his head.

Until now.

“You remember,” Yara said.

It wasn’t a question. It was a wound.

Sombra nodded.

“I remember pieces. Enough.”

She took a half step forward. Her operatives tensed.

He raised a hand—not to shoot, but to still the moment.

“I was there,” he said. “When they first captured him. Ñandú. Before he was a ‘codebase.’ Before he was… segmented.”

Yara’s eyes narrowed. “You knew him?”

“I read him,” Sombra said. “Before the wipe. They made me study his patterns. Run simulations. See how his philosophy fractured neural conformity.”

“And what did you find?”

He paused. Looked past her—up the shaft, toward the tower above.

“That he wasn’t trying to start a war,” he said quietly. “He was trying to give people the right to forget.”

Yara exhaled. A sound between relief and sorrow.

“Then get out of the way.”

Another beat. The old dream returned. A choice he wasn’t supposed to make.

“There is a path,” Ñandú whispered in both their heads. “But only one of you can walk it.”

Sombra turned his gaze back to her. To the ghost drive. To the promise it held.

“I can’t stop the others,” he said. “But I can buy you two minutes.”

Yara’s eyes flickered. Then she nodded.

“Two minutes is enough.”