10. Engram: Elegy (3)

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We crossed through the woods much faster than during the previous night, not just because of the urgency of the situation, but also because I was wearing casual clothes and proper shoes this time. In a hurry to leave, I had tied my wet hair into a knot, and a trickle of cold water was now running down the back of my neck, making me shiver. I fastened my pace further.

As if we were worried that the forest itself might eavesdrop on anything we said, a nervous silence had hung between us from the moment we had snuck off the normal path in the campus park, and had followed the off-road trail deep into the forest. Only when we passed the wire fence and the ruins of the lost sector came into sight, Moon began to speak.

"Thanks for coming with me," she said. "'I'm glad I didn't have to go alone. This place is... kinda creeping me out."

"Of course. Wait – you find it creepy during the day but not at night?" I asked, raising my eyebrows at her.

She shrugged. "I find it a creepy at night too, but I'm usually more drunken then so I don't mind. Besides, it's the thought that somebody else is there that really unnerves me."

Perhaps it was due to the fact that I had spent a significant amount of time in simulations of ruins, but I was more fascinated than creeped out. In the broad daylight, I discovered numerous things that I had barely taken notice of before. For instance, I now got a much better look at the fantastic graffiti that covered almost every wall. Surreal images, colorful shapes and figures and artistic lettering of tags and slogans adorned the ruins all around us, some in places so high up that I wondered how the artists had gotten up there. Some if it looked very old and faded out, but coincidentally, or perhaps through some unspoken agreement of respect for previous generations of artists, had never been covered up.

In the shadow of a side alley, I stopped to take a closer look at one of the older graffiti. This one was pale and the paint was flaking, but the other artists had taken meticulous care not to infringe upon the boundaries of the piece, so it stood out from its colorful surroundings. The image was roughly one square meter sized and depicted a cat with a bee sitting on its nose. "Bugging you?" was written above them. The cat didn't look bugged, though, it stared down at the bee rather fascinatedly. Next to it, I recognized an illegible mixture of letters of the old Chinese and Latin alphabets, and a string of numbers.

2115-03-26, I read. A date? Is that even possible?

We had used a different calendar system for decades, so I had to think about it for a moment. That would have barely pre-dated the war, and even though many of the dilapidated structures in this area seemed to be at least based on foundations from the pre-war era, I highly doubted that the motive could have survived over four hundred years, even if the building might as well have already stood back in the day. Nonetheless, the thought inspired a tingling sensation at the back of my skull that I often felt whenever I came across something very old that excited my curiosity. But I had no time to dwell on my odd finding now, as intrigued as I was with the letters that I couldn't read.

Moon had already walked on, but stopped at the end of the alley to peek around the corner toward the entrance that we had taken the previous night. I stepped up behind her and looked over her head. We spotted half a dozen vehicles parked in front of the hangar, their sleek, black exterior glistening in the sunlight. Automobiles were a rather rare sight in Pharos, most people relied on public transport such as the monorail or subway, and automated cars were mainly used to transport goods around the city. These, however, were passenger cars.

"Can you see that in the back?" Moon whispered, "Is that a logo of sorts?"

I squinted my eyes and could make out a white symbol within a thin circle on the side of the black vehicle.

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