The Mnemosyne Gamble- Chapter One: Leave Every Yesterday

It had been only a few decades since the last election, when competing corporate interests condensed into two dominant entities.

The public's complaints about corruption, scandal, and failed leadership gradually disappeared—not because those problems had been solved, but because no one expected anything better. Civic outrage gave way to apathy, and apathy gave way to neglect. Infrastructure deteriorated faster than anyone could repair it. Some agencies continued issuing paychecks despite producing nothing at all. Others delivered results without ever receiving funding. Eventually, the bureaucracy became too large to sustain itself. It collapsed under its own weight, and few mourned its passing.

Officials insisted the nation's "restructuring" was still underway. Only the old—or the stubborn—believed them. Everyone else understood the truth. Government offices had become hollow shells, their phone numbers dead ends, their departments little more than abandoned letterheads.

Then came the Great Condensing.

Many believed civilization would collapse once government ceased to be run by the people and for the people. Instead, people slowly realized it had not truly belonged to them for a very long time. It became fashionable to laugh at the old slogans. In the end, it wasn't democracy that had held the country together. It was currency. Money continued to move long after the politicians who claimed authority over it had become irrelevant.

As the old order dissolved, the nation's population retreated inland. The coasts, battered by decades of neglect and economic decline, were gradually abandoned in favor of the interior.

Two powers emerged from the vacuum.

The Central North Conglomerate controlled the remnants of the nation's military and civil engineering industries. Massive factories still churned, rail lines still operated, and aging infrastructure remained standing—however, only for that which served the local corporate interests. All else was quietly shut off.

To the south lay the Midwestern Dominion, where medicine, biotechnology, and research became the engines of prosperity. Every year brought another supposed miracle treatment, another elective enhancement, another promise to make life longer, healthier, and more comfortable. Between the two corporate powers, the Dominion earned the reputation of being the more elite employer of the two. It was the difference between being bookish or hands-on. Both arguably had their merits and disadvantages.

Rhynar belonged to the first generation raised almost entirely under the new order.

She grew up in the Midwestern Dominion in what would have once been considered a comfortably upper-middle-class family. Her parents divorced while she was still young, leaving her old enough to remember life before the separation but too young to understand it. Like most children of her generation, she had no biological siblings. Instead, friendships filled that role. The same classmates moved with her through school, technical training, and community programs until they eventually entered the corporate workforce together.

The rest of her life unfolded almost exactly as it had been designed.

After the divorce, her mother relocated to a modest condominium in one of the Dominion's retirement villages, while her father remained in the family home with his new wife. Rhynar never quite fit there again. Once she was accepted into technical school, she left without hesitation, living in the dormitories until graduation before moving into subsidized corporate housing alongside every other junior employee.

The path ahead was already written: forty years of employment, retirement, relocation to a quiet village much like her mother's, and eventually death.

It was a small life. Predictable. Comfortable. No better or worse than the one almost everyone else expected.

Both corporate powers understood the same fundamental truth: people rarely rebelled when they were fed, housed, and given purpose, of course, to be balanced between personal pursuits.

Those who rejected the system existed beyond corporate borders. They were the modern-day Travelers cum Nomads.

The unincorporated territories were almost solely populated by runaways, failed trainees, convicted criminals, and families who refused corporate employment altogether. They possessed complete freedom—and almost nothing else. Without stable industry or centralized infrastructure, settlements rarely lasted. Of the communities that tried to build up independently, they were quickly found to fracture over leadership, resources, or ideology long before they could establish functioning local economies. Much like a commune would fold over time and for the same reasons. Scattering people who continuously drifted through abandoned suburbs and forgotten towns, scavenging what remained of the old world.

School textbooks kindly portrayed the unincorporated settlements as ambitious experiments in independence that had ultimately failed under the weight of internal conflict.

Her father had described them more simply.

"A bunch of wild bums running through empty neighborhoods," he'd say. "Too busy arguing about how to build a future to ever actually build one."

Rhynar had done everything right—or as right as anyone could.

She'd stayed out of trouble growing up. Attended a respectable post-primary school. Built a quiet life with her partner, Rollo, after landing her first real job. It was an ordinary existence, the kind that looked successful from the outside. Happiness had never really entered into the equation. Life simply kept her fed, housed, and employed. She survived comfortably enough, but she never truly lived.

Rollo, meanwhile, thrived.

From the day he entered the workforce, he joined every club, committee, networking group, and social circle he could find, some more respectable than others. He traded favors, collected acquaintances, and somehow always managed to leverage one connection into the next opportunity. Doors seemed to open for him simply because he knew which hands to shake.

Rhynar dismissed them all with a single phrase: "Boys' clubs." It wasn't until years later that she realized how dismissive she'd been toward Rollo himself. Her distaste had never really been for him, but for the endless procession of self-important "buddies" who always seemed to matter more than she did.

Rollo never seemed to have time for Rhynar. She never found the patience to care about whatever his next grand ambition happened to be. She worked as a Quality Assurance Technician in Corporate Medical Research and Development. The title sounded impressive. The work wasn't.

She was one of hundreds responsible for protecting the company's digital records from human error. In practice, that meant reviewing files another department had already reviewed, confirming that previous reviewers had correctly identified mistakes for yet another team to examine afterward. Most days she spent hours clicking through endless queues of flagged records, verifying that each page had, in fact, been flagged appropriately.

Whether she cared or not changed almost nothing. She would be paid either way, and there were so many people performing identical tasks that individual competence had become statistically irrelevant. Modern society had developed an obsession with oversight. Every process required another verification, another approval, another audit, another signature. Entire careers existed solely to confirm someone else's work. After enough layers of bureaucracy, nobody believed any of it actually mattered.

Today was different.

For the first time, Rhynar had been assigned a small group of trainees fresh out of school. The promotion should have felt rewarding. Instead, it came with a new supervisor: Nala, who now officially was her boss.

By every reasonable measure, Nala should have been Rhynar's subordinate. Instead, while still a student, she'd been singled out by one of her instructors, later married him, and climbed rapidly into management through the network of influential connections he'd cultivated over decades.

Rhynar hadn't gotten a single leg up on the steps of her own ascent; Rollo made sure of that. Nala carried herself with the effortless confidence of someone who had never doubted a door would open for her. Whenever they occupied the same room, Nala always found a way to slip in a remark—a compliment with a hidden barb, a joke at Rhynar's expense. Rhynar was a girl's girl, while Nala was there for the boys. Their personalities clashed at every level.

As far as the trainees were concerned, Rhynar had already decided they were spoiled.

She couldn't get them to complete even the simplest busywork, which was saying something in a department where very little actual work seemed to exist. To keep them occupied, she instructed them to "familiarize themselves" with their workstations. She walked them through the supply checkout procedures, then told them to finish setting up their desks until everyone regrouped after lunch.

She had barely finished introducing the morning's schedule when Nala wandered in late.

Rather than quietly taking a seat, she planted herself behind Rhynar and listened with folded arms. Every few sentences, she'd interrupt to "correct" something Rhynar had said, citing nonexistent regulations or inventing procedures on the spot, all with the confidence of someone who expected no one to question her. She wasn't contributing anything useful. She simply wanted everyone in the room to know she outranked Rhynar.

Finally, Rhynar turned toward her.

"Do you really need to be here right now?"

Nala wrinkled her nose in exaggerated disgust.

"Ew. Your breath is so nasty, even for you." She fished a mint from her purse and tossed it toward Rhynar. "Here."

The room fell silent.

"Oh—and, kiddos," Nala added, smiling at the trainees who were about her age, "if you need anything, come see me. I'm the one she reports to." She punctuated the remark with a wink before strolling back out of the room, looking entirely too pleased with herself.

Laughter rippled through the trainees.

Rhynar felt the heat climb into her face.

She dismissed the trainees sooner than planned, directing them to the supply office while she spun around, fully intending to confront Nala.

Too late. Nala had already disappeared down the corridor toward Mr. Mackinac's office.

Rhynar knew the routine. The two of them would vanish into his office for hours at a time, emerging only when they were certain no one was paying attention. It had become so predictable that most of the department barely acknowledged it anymore.

Rhynar's hands curled into fists. She was going to put Nala in her place.

If Mr. Mackinac wanted to write her up for insubordination afterward, so be it.

She had spent months quietly covering for both of them, using the duplicate credentials they'd given her to sign off on work they couldn't be bothered to complete themselves. If they wanted to play games, she was done protecting them.

For once, she would embarrass Nala instead.

Rhynar paused outside Mr. Mackinac's office.

She leaned against the door, listening.

Inside, Nala laughed.

"I feel so sexy today."

Rhynar took a slow breath, settled on the excuse that she'd forgotten to ask a work-related question, and pushed the door open.

The words died in her throat upon viewing the scene that was in front of her.

Mr. Mackinac sat behind his desk, one hand inside his trousers.

Nala knelt on the carpet before him, her uniform disheveled, her blouse hanging open.

For a heartbeat, none of them moved.

Rhynar's stomach lurched.

"I'm... sorry."

She backed out, slammed the door shut, and stood frozen in the hallway.

"Well." She thought to herself. "That had gone spectacularly wrong."

She hurried back toward her cubicle, her pulse hammering.

She'd always suspected their relationship crossed professional boundaries. Everyone did.

She just hadn't expected to walk in on that.

Ordinarily, she almost appreciated how much time they spent hiding together. Every hour they locked themselves away was another hour they weren't hovering over her shoulder while she quietly completed work under their names.

Even so, she despised workplace affairs. They never stayed between the people involved. Favoritism, resentment, gossip, shifting loyalties—they infected every corner of an office until everyone was forced to deal with the fallout. Today had proved the point.

The trainees were still laughing among themselves when Rhynar returned to her desk.

Ignoring them, she opened her messages.

One was from Rollo. He was confirming their plans to meet after work for the annual drone show. Despite everything else in their relationship, Rhynar looked forward to this tradition. It was one of the few evenings each year that belonged to the two of them, instead of another networking event where she served as Rollo's obligatory plus-one. She replied with a quick confirmation. Then she buried herself in work.

After lunch, she released the trainees early, assigning them independent study on departmental policies covering supply inventories and equipment logs. They left without complaint.

For the first time all day, the office grew quiet. Rhynar lowered herself into her chair, grateful for the silence, though she doubted it would last.

Rhynar changed out of her office clothes in the employee locker room before her planned meet-up with Rollo outside. She fixed her hair in the restroom mirror, took a long breath, and told herself to forget the day. The express elevator that zoomed up and down from floors ten to the lobby had other plans.

She stepped inside without looking up. Nala and Mr. Mackinac were already there. The doors slid shut. Silence settled over the three of them.

Nala avoided Rhynar's eyes, repeatedly combing her fingers through her hair in a transparent attempt to hide the fresh hickey blooming along the side of her neck. Mr. Mackinac stood close behind her, his jaw clenched, his glare fixed on Rhynar's reflection in the mirrored wall. At one point, he slammed a fist into the elevator panel beside him.

Rhynar flinched. Neither of them said a word. That frightened her more than if they had.

Both were married to influential people inside Corporate. She had embarrassed them, and now she was trapped in a metal box with them as the floors ticked by at an agonizing pace.

When the elevator finally chimed, the doors barely had time to open before Rhynar hurried out.

Across the walkway, Rollo was waiting beside his car.

She had never been so relieved to see him.

Without thinking, she wrapped both arms around him.

Rollo stiffened. "...Hey," he muttered, patting her awkwardly before gently pushing her back.

"Come on." Public affection wasn't his style. Neither, if she were honest, was private affection anymore.

The drive to the river passed mostly with no words between them on account of Rollo's loud music making conversation difficult. Their spot overlooked the water from a secluded stretch of shoreline where they had watched the annual drone show every summer since they'd started dating. Rollo reclined his seat and opened the moonroof as the last orange light faded from the horizon.

Rhynar leaned back beside him.

She realized then how hungry she was.

She'd worked straight through lunch.

Across the river, music drifted from the festival grounds as hundreds of illuminated drones climbed into the evening sky, weaving intricate patterns overhead. Then the clouds rolled in.

Within minutes, the lights became little more than blurred colors behind a blanket of gray.

Rollo finally broke the silence. "How's QA?"

Rhynar laughed once. "I'm supervising trainees." She hesitated. "Oh... and if I disappear someday, it's because Nala knows I caught her having an affair with leathery old Mr. Mackinac." She meant it as a joke. Mostly.

Rollo snorted in resentment toward her, "Leave those good people alone."

Rhynar blinked, confused.

Rollo doubled down, "You know how you get."

There it was again. Without knowing a single detail, he'd instinctively taken someone else's side. She found Rollo to be too quick to condemn her at every turn. His readiness to criticize her had poisoned their once comfortable relationship, although he could probably have said the same of her.

She swallowed her frustration. "Fine." She turned toward him. "How's medical implants these days?"

He answered, "I transferred."

She questioned, "When?"

Rollo passively said, "A few weeks ago."

Rhynar frowned. "You... never mentioned it."

Rollo acted as if he could not be less invested in their chitchat. "I moved into Marketing."

He sounded almost proud. "I'm working on Nano-Transfusion now."

That caught her attention. Nano-Transfusion. The name alone made her stomach tighten.

She remembered reviewing the project over a year earlier. It had been pitched as the future of preventative medicine—a programmable treatment capable of identifying disease before symptoms appeared, accelerating healing, and correcting congenital disorders before they became life-threatening.

It was also one of the worst-reviewed projects she'd ever audited. The internal reports described catastrophic compatibility problems with living tissue. The treatment failed to integrate with the body, accumulating instead in ways no one could safely remove. After enough failed trials, the project had quietly disappeared from her workload. She had assumed Corporate had buried it. Apparently not.

"I flagged that study," she said carefully. "The compatibility issues were severe."

Rollo retorted, "That was a year ago." He was on the defensive. "We solved it."

Rhynar, in disbelief, asked, "How?"

Knowing his answer was an omission of fault in the project, Rollo sheepishly admitted, "We switched to animal trials."

Rhynar stared at him. "Animal trials? Like from the Victorian Era?"

He nodded. "The results were good enough to move into marketing."

Rhynar sat upright. "Rollo, that's not how science works."

He frowned.

She continued, "Animal models were phased out for a reason. You can interpret almost anything as a success if you want to badly enough. Labs frequently manipulate the variables to their liking. It's a loophole to game the results."

Folding his arms, he said, "They worked."

Rhynar corrected him with, "They appeared to work. There's a big difference." She shook her head. "The original reports practically described it as injecting microscopic metal into living tissue with no way to remove it."

Rollo's expression hardened. "You always do this."

"Do what?" She questioned, knowing he was setting her up to diminish her character since he could not disprove her facts. A petty tactic he often resorted to when he felt outdone.

Now, not even looking at her, he insinuated. "Find reasons to dump on something, because you're not included."

Rhynar knew him too well. She knew he was afraid and was in over his head, but also that he would go all the way under just to prove her wrong. "I'm trying to protect you." She explained and tried to reason with him.

Rollo flatly denied her attempt at an olive branch with a stern "No." He reached forward and started the car. "You're trying to ruin the biggest opportunity I've ever had."

Rhynar froze. "What do you mean?" She didn't understand why he was taking a step back from medical into marketing, a lower tier within the company, to work on something that put him at such risk.

Rollo, fighting within as to whether to further explain himself or not, blurted out, "I'm the face of the launch."

The words hit harder than she expected. His department wasn't simply asking him to market Nano-Transfusion. They wanted him to become its public success story. "Rollo..." She leaned toward him. "Please don't do this. They chose you because you never say 'no'. You've always been a people pleaser, but this one you've got to say 'no'. You could die."

Rollo was unmoved. "I won't."

Rhynar couldn't tell if he was trying to emotionally provoke her or if he was really that far gone on this one. She pushed back all the same, "You don't know that."

Rollo childishly said, "I know more than you think."

Rhynar wasn't letting this one go. "You know what they told you."

Rollo unrelentingly held on to his stance. "They're my team."

For the first time that evening, genuine fear crept into her voice. "They don't care what happens after the cameras stop rolling. They care about the product. I care about you."

Rollo met her begging with a long, heavy silence. He looked straight ahead through the windshield. When he finally spoke, his voice was unfazed. "See? This is why I didn't tell you. You make everything miserable." The rest of the drive home passed without another word.

Nothing improved after that. She was afraid to go to work and depressed to be home.

Rollo had recently adopted a habit he called greystoning. She called it stonewalling. Whenever they disagreed, he simply... disappeared. Not physically, but emotionally. He stopped arguing because he stopped engaging altogether. At home, he looked through Rhynar instead of at her. Questions received one-word answers. Conversations ended before they began.

After several days of living with a ghost, Rhynar accepted what she had been avoiding.

She couldn't save someone who had already chosen everyone else over even themself.

So she packed a suitcase.

Then she submitted a transfer request.

Not to another department.

To Central North Conglomerate.