Beneath the flickering neon of San Telmo’s back alleys, Elena Varga wiped fingerprints from her neuro-implant console. Her clients came for nostalgia, regret, or blackmail—never the truth.
But tonight was different.
A man with hollow eyes slid a vial of liquid memory across her desk. “I need this erased,” he rasped.
Elena reached for it, then froze. The memory’s timestamp: her own birthday, 1998.
His voice wavered through the haze. “Forgive me, Lena.”
The moment she injected the memory, her world unraveled. Her father’s suicide—or was it murder? Buenos Aires pulsed around her, its tango bars and decaying mansions twisting into a labyrinth of secrets. A detective with a vendetta. A smuggler trading in stolen time. A lover Elena couldn’t remember.
“You sell ghosts,” the client hissed, “but you’re haunted too.”
In the end, Elena faced a choice: erase the past or let it consume her.
Outside, the rain-slick streets whispered their answer.