Kairi woke to silence. Her partner's breathing, the soft shuffle of claws on stone, the familiar weight of their presence — all gone. She sat up, scanning the camp. Half her artifacts had vanished from their cases. The catalog lay open, pages flipped to entries she hadn't touched in weeks. She checked the storage rack first. Seventeen items missing. The empty slots formed a pattern she couldn't read yet. On the ground where her partner had slept, a single card lay face-up. Ancient. Faded hero image. Digitama script she'd never seen before. It wasn't hers. She picked it up, turned it over, felt the weight of a new entry demanding space in her catalog. Her partner had left her a replacement. Not a theft — a trade. She pulled out her notebook and began to write. The Cyberpunk Artifact House hummed around her as she worked, its blue-lit walls casting shadows across the remaining artifacts. She documented the card's dimensions, the script patterns, the fiber texture. Seventeen question marks now sat in her catalog where complete entries used to be. But this card — it was a message. Her partner had taken the solved mysteries and left her the unsolved one. She set down her pen and looked at the empty space where they used to sleep. The catalog would have to wait. She had a partner to find, and now she knew they wanted her to follow. Outside, frost covered the ground in patterns that reminded her of the script on the card. She locked the house and adjusted her goggles against the morning glare. Her partner had never done anything without reason. They knew her well enough to understand she couldn't ignore an incomplete entry. They'd counted on it. She slipped the card into her coat pocket and started walking. The artifacts could wait. Finding answers couldn't.