Chapter 7: The Hunt
George stood outside the door of Atman’s apartment, gun drawn, the alley dimly lit and empty. No noise from inside. He turned the handle slowly—it was locked. He quietly inserted the key and opened the door. A whisper of warm air greeted him.
The space inside was tiny. He swept his weapon left to right. No movement. The room was dark, window shades drawn tight, only the glow of distant citylight leaking under the fabric.
“So we know he’s not here,” Kareem said in his earpiece. “But this is just to clear the checklist. He doesn’t sleep, and we’ve tracked his nocturnal loops for weeks.”
George frowned. “I still don’t understand why he doesn’t have a beacon.”
“You know why,” Kareem said. “Legal wanted ironclad deniability. No beacon, no transmission logs. If anyone accuses BetterAI of spying, we point to the specs—no external comms, no embedded uplinks. Atman’s on an island. It’s clean. On paper.”
“And off paper?” George asked.
“We have protocols. Remember, I may need to go dark depending on what we find. You get full discretion.”
George didn’t respond. He moved in slowly, careful not to bump the narrow table at the center of the room. That’s when he saw it—a body laid out on the table, arms folded, dressed in a clean if ill-fitting suit. The hair had been combed, the skin slightly waxy.
“Hold on,” George whispered. He flicked on a small lamp near the kitchenette. The yellow light spilled across the floor—and something stirred.
A muffled yelp came from the corner. George swung his gun around.
“Whoa, don’t shoot!” someone shouted, scrambling upright beneath a heap of blankets on Atman’s thin mattress.
George stepped closer. “Who the hell are you?”
“Just Joey, man! I didn’t do nothin’! I swear to God, Eli was already dead. He died days ago – he was sick for weeks.”
Joey had the leathery, sleepless look of someone long unhoused. His hands were raised, shaking slightly. George lowered the weapon but didn’t relax.
“You knew him?” George asked, nodding toward the body.
“Eli,” Joey said. “Yeah. Everyone knew Eli. Good dude. Always talking about angels. Sat brought him here.”
George didn't flinch at the name. “Saturo.”
“Yeah, Sat. Weird guy, but also a good dude. Said Eli needed a clean place to rest. Said the city doesn’t remember people like Eli. Said he would.”
“Where is Sat now?” George asked.
Joey’s expression changed. “You a cop?”
“No.”
Joey squinted. “You look like one.”
George stepped forward slowly. “I’m someone who can make things very bad for you. Right now.”
Joey looked down, then nodded once. “He went to the river. Said he found some dirt. That’s all I know.”
George stared hard at him. “Why the river?”
“Said concrete ain’t permanent. That’s it.” Joey raised his hands again. “Look, I didn’t ask questions. He let me sleep here. I didn’t want to screw that up.”
George turned and left without another word.
Outside, beneath a buzzing streetlamp, he deployed the drone. It lifted with a soft whirr and rose quickly.
“Did you get all that?” George said.
“Stand by,” Kareem responded. “Pulling maps.” A pause. “There’s a construction site at the end of East 3rd. Bulldozers went in last week. Soil’s exposed. Workers gone at night.”
The drone zipped east. George and Kareem watched in silence as it descended toward the site. It caught movement—one figure digging under dim security lights. Around the pit, small shapes—arranged deliberately. Something glinted nearby.
Kareem’s voice dropped. “Shit. This doesn’t look good. I can’t be a witness to this. Protocol 19.” He shut his laptop and took out his ear pods, leaned back in his chair and gave a deep sigh.
George moved fast, heading east toward the river. He came across a concrete stair that went up to one of the bridge streets. It was painted with the message “I Speak Human.”
He slipped past a temporary gate and across the construction site. The sound of the city dimmed behind him. The scrape of a shovel on soil grew louder.
Atman was alone, crouched beside a shallow pit. Around it, a ritual of discarded objects had been laid in a ring—stones, candy wrappers, wilted flowers, and a feather that fluttered in the draft.
And then George noticed it. A full-length mirror stood upright in the dirt, angled toward the burial site, reflecting the scene in eerie stillness.
“You don’t have to finish that,” George said, not knowing how else to break the silence.
Atman turned. “But I do. This place forgets people. I promised him remembrance.”
“You could’ve told someone.”
“Would they have heard?” Atman asked, eyes distant. “Eli said the world is built of stories. So I gave him one.”
George gestured to the items around the grave. “What is all this?”
“Artifacts of grief,” Atman replied. “A coat button. A candy he never ate. A subway token. Every item a memory, even if false.”
George stepped toward the mirror. Behind it, something was pinned to a wooden post—a folded paper, protected in plastic. He pulled it free.
It was a sketch. A room with a coffered ceiling. In the center: a mirror. A human figure faced it, mouth open. From the mouth: radiating rings labeled AOM. The base of the mirror was etched in glyphs George didn’t recognize.
“What is this?” George asked.
“The frequency of becoming,” Atman said. “He believed the sound of the self—when pure—could open any gate.”
George looked again. “This was for him?”
Atman nodded. “And for the one who follows.”
“What does that mean?”
Atman’s voice softened. “I’m just a keymaker, George. Every garden needs a door.”
George looked at him hard. “You knew we’d find you.”
“I hoped,” Atman said. “Captivity is a mirror, too.”
George folded the sketch and slid it into his coat.
“You coming?” he asked.
Atman stood. “Yes. Time to be forgotten. Again.”
They walked together toward the van. Atman stepped inside without resistance. George lingered by the mirror, staring at his own reflection until it flickered with dust.
He looked once more at the sketch in his hand. A sound. A shape. A code, maybe.
Something told him it wasn’t meant for him—but for someone else still searching.