Malak's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Malak knelt inside the stone labyrinth, his scepter laid across his knees. The hidden walls held the only copies of the records that could end the corporation. He opened her file first, as he did every morning. The screen blinked. Her name was gone. He stood fast. His shawl slipped back as he moved deeper into the chambers. The corporation had begun erasing people from their own crimes. She was the first. He had looked her up. He had found her alive. Now they were trying to make her never exist. Malak ran outside. On the sand sat a cracked disc on a stone base, a marker he had built the day he first read her name. It was warm. A bird of prey circled above it, sharp-eyed, waiting. He had set the marker to warn him. The warning had come. He went back in and pulled the broken floating box from its shelf. Sparks jumped between its coils. Inside its shielded core, he had saved a mirror of her file the night before, by instinct he had not named. He fed it power. Her name returned to the screen. Her photo. Her years. Malak sent the bird out with a coded burst to his three contacts. The message was short. Begin. The erasure had started. He would not wait for the second name to vanish.