Seoul Cyberpunk Story-Chapter 32: Machina (2)

The girl the priests called the “Guide” slowly opened her eyes.

In her pupils, the border between reality and dreams shimmered faintly.

It took her a few more seconds to fully grasp where she was—or why she was here at all.

Her unfocused gaze looked like it was staring into some distant, forgotten memory.

Like watching old film stock through a projector, scenes from the day she first arrived here flickered through her mind.

The day I first came here...

Time had passed, a lot of it—but the girl remembered that day with the clarity of data precisely logged into a computer.

The sudden abduction.

The ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ other kids trembling in fear.

The priests who looked like unidentified machines.

When the process of gathering those memory fragments finished, the girl turned her gaze toward the giant window of the room.

From it, a pale white light spilled in—a color that didn’t belong here.

As if to say this place, more than the corrupted world outside, was hiding a filthier kind of darkness.

Looking down from the glowing white window, she saw a scene straight out of hell.

Towers shaped like cathedral spires vomiting endless black smoke.

Ashen snow falling from the sky, dyeing the world in pitch black.

A barren wasteland that no human should be able to survive in, no matter how long she stared.

“What was yesterday...?”

She muttered, activating her memory implant.

As she tried to recall the events of the day before, a mechanical chime rang in her head.

<Compiling data...>

Moments later, yesterday’s memories began to play inside her mind like a video.

Waking up.

Eating a meal.

Blankly watching the scenery past the window while organizing her thoughts.

Then—collapsing into unconsciousness for no apparent reason.

But the memory was riddled with holes, like a worn-out rag.

There were so many missing pieces that she couldn’t tell what had really happened.

As if someone had intentionally deleted specific scenes.

She knew.

She knew it was one of the functions of the memory implant her brother had made for her.

An implant designed with one goal:

To preserve only happy memories.

A memory database knows no forgetting.

So he made a function to imitate forgetting—for her sake.

“Brother...”

She placed a hand on her crown and mouthed the word in silence.

There was no sensation at her fingertips.

Only the visual confirmation that her hand was resting on her head.

If not for the implant, she probably wouldn’t have lasted this long.

Those horrifying memories would’ve crushed her mind long ago.

Even without them, she had a hunch.

The priests of the Machina Cult always smelled faintly of blood.

The girl slowly looked down at her own body.

A black robe made of fine fabric.

An artificial body—nothing like what she remembered.

A white porcelain face and figure, shaped to resemble the "Guide" drawn on the murals of the cult.

Tubes and wires trailing from her back into the ceiling.

No matter how much she stared, it didn’t feel like her body.

That, more than anything, was why people who underwent full-body prosthesis often lost their minds. But the girl was used to it.

Even before becoming a full-body cyborg, she had memory dysfunction.

Every morning, waking up, she’d already felt like her body wasn’t her own.

“Brother, please come soon...”

She whispered his name, trying to summon his face in her mind.

The brother who had designed and built the memory implant to save her after the accident that damaged her brain.

But maybe it had been too long without maintenance.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t recall his face.

A hazy silhouette. A gentle voice. Warm hands.

It all felt like something brushed past her in a dream.

And still—her brother remained the only salvation she remembered.

“You have to hurry.”

At the edge of her vision stood a massive factory.

Inside, a giant robot, as tall as a building—

No, not a robot. A full-body prosthetic was being constructed.

The girl shivered at the sight.

There was no way a person could stay sane after linking their brain to something like that.

All she could do was pray—desperately—that her brother would come for her soon.

****

The outskirts of the Burning Duct. A fringe zone scattered with skeletal ruins of old buildings.

I stood on the rooftop of one such derelict, looking down at the open clearing below.

Leaning against a cracked concrete ledge, I stared at a massive building that I had no memory of being there.

“Seriously weird.”

I muttered aloud.

That whole giant structure had supposedly popped up overnight.

No matter how I looked at it, there was no way something like that was human-made.

The architecture was a hybrid between a gothic cathedral and an industrial hellscape. Spires like knife tips pierced the sky in droves.

In front of the building, a crowd had gathered. Priests in white robes stood smiling, distributing food to the people.

The poor. The starving. All flocking toward the cult.

On the surface, the Machina Cult looked like a benevolent religious group.

No obvious opening to slip in...

I frowned.

There were just too many people.

The crowd was packed so tight there wasn’t even space to plant a foot.

But I mean, they were offering free meals as bait—so of course people showed up.

If they’d been giving out free pizza, I probably would’ve joined them myself.

Not like I could just whip out a blade and start carving everyone up, either.

Most of the people there probably had no idea they were kneeling to a religion that chopped kids up like spare parts.

Ugh, screw it...

In the end, I gave up thinking and just blended into the crowd like another curious bystander.

Pushing through the mass of bodies, I suddenly thought of Victor.

How the hell did Victor infiltrate a place like this?

All he’d done lately was send emergency rescue pings, but thinking about it now—

He really was Seoul Dispatch’s top infiltration expert for a reason.

I made it to the entrance, and a group of white-robed priests spotted me. Their eyes went wide.

“A full-body prosthetic user.”

“They said to guide them to the sanctuary, right?”

They whispered to each other, then—

Shockingly—they welcomed me with open arms, gesturing politely toward the entrance.

“Please come in. May the blessing of the Implant be upon you...”

The priest’s voice held a faint trace of expectation.

Following him, I approached a giant steel door.

The surface was engraved with intricate reliefs of implants intertwined with machine parts.

The priest pressed his palm against the door—

A burst of blue light flared from his hand, and the door opened silently.

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A warm glow spilled out from within.

As I stepped in, a faint aroma filled the air.

The floor was pristine white marble, and the ceiling soared above.

Stained glass windows lined the walls, projecting colorful patterns onto the floor.

Further in, past the brightness and sanctity, stood a massive mechanical altar.

Tiny tubes and wires dangled from the ceiling, all connecting to the altar.

The priest led me to a cushioned chair in front of it.

“Please wait here. A high priest will be with you shortly.”

He bowed deeply and left, silently closing the door behind him.

I glanced around the room.

Paintings depicting the fusion of machine and man lined the walls.

In one corner, various implant parts sat displayed in glass cases.

I can’t believe I got in this easy...

I was honestly a bit baffled at how smoothly this was going.

Given how fanatically obsessed they were with implants, I guessed it made sense—

But I didn’t expect this level of VIP treatment.

Naturally, I wasn’t planning to wait for the high priest.

I swapped my coat for priest robes, quietly opened the door, and slipped out.

Inside the building, the atmosphere was different.

Way fewer people.

Only the priests moved about.

As I crept deeper inside, something caught my eye in the corner of a massive hall—

A gleaming steel sign.

<FREE PIZZA>

Holy sh—!

The ring in my chest pulsed, flashing with an intense blue glow.

I nearly choked on my own breath.

Free pizza?

The instant I saw the sign, my feet had already started moving toward it.

Round pepperoni.

Cheese baked to a perfect golden brown.

Crisp, crunchy pizza bones...

I could almost smell the damn thing.

But I clenched my eyes shut and forced myself to stop.

Then, slowly, I turned away.

Pizza or not, rescuing a teammate came first.

Victor, you owe me a hundred pizzas after this...

Grinding my teeth, I pushed the temptation behind me and headed deeper into the cult’s sanctum.

Thump. Thump.

My footsteps echoed against the marble floor.

****

Victor followed one of the Machina Cult’s slaves into a shadowy cavern.

The slave, gripping a pickaxe, kept glancing back to make sure no one was following.

He led Victor into a narrow hidden crevice deep inside the cave.

They squeezed between jagged rocks until a small gap appeared.

The space looked like the slave’s private hideout—barely big enough for two people to sit.

The ground was covered in scraps of old cloth, and a rusty metal container and water bottle sat in the corner.

“Please... wait here...”

The slave rasped, his voice cracked and dry.

“I’ll return... when evening comes.”

Victor gave a small nod.

The slave turned and made his way back to the cave’s entrance.

Victor watched him go.

Wires hung from the man’s back, thick metal joints jutted grotesquely from his limbs, and malformed tool-like implants distorted his silhouette.

“My name is Victor,” he called. “Mind telling me yours?”

The slave paused.

“...329. I... don’t remember my original name.”

****

They must’ve carved out parts of their brains...

That was all Victor could think as he sat alone in the cramped cavern.

An atrocity, done to squeeze labor from human bodies.

It happened often in Babel.

And every time, Victor felt the same bitter irony of this hellhole of a world.

If AI hadn’t created corrosive zones—if they could’ve fully replaced humans—

Then there’d be no need for brain surgery.

They could’ve just used robots.

And yet, some part of Victor was glad AI couldn’t replace people completely.

Because if they had, the current megacorps would’ve stopped pretending to be corporations and just declared themselves kings.

As those thoughts tangled in his head, faint sounds drifted from the mouth of the cave.

Victor pressed himself against the wall in alert.

329 had returned, battered and worn.

Black oil dripped from the implant on his back.

The tool attached to his arm was smeared with soot.

The two sat across from each other in the narrow hollow.

“Hey...”

Victor began, cautiously.

But 329 raised his hand, stopping him.

“I... can’t really... think properly,” he said.

“My brain... lacks the capacity for thought.”

He pointed to a massive scar running across his skull.

“All I have is... a memory-assist device embedded in my brainstem. Everything I say is... forced together by its AI.”

Victor heard that and knew—he’d been right.

The Machina Cult had mutilated these people’s brains, leaving just enough to keep them breathing and working.

“...”

329 fell silent again, as if waiting for Victor to say something.

And in that awkward, heavy pause, Victor finally asked the obvious.

“Why did you help me?”

329 slowly stood.

He reached into a crack in the cave wall and pulled out an old metal box.

It was rusted all over, but the lock mechanism still looked intricate.

“There is... something I must do,” 329 said.

“Something I absolutely... have to finish...”

Carefully, he opened the box.

Inside were some old sheets of paper and a small data chip.

He handed Victor the paper.

Victor gently unfolded it. It was covered in faint handwriting.

Considering 329’s impaired cognition, this must’ve been written little by little over the course of years.

Each word, each sentence, must’ve taken immense effort to recall, to construct.

The letter was the story of a slave—

No.

The story of a brother.