Lire le chapitre 9: The Mayor's Party

The Palais Garnier at night was a gilded trap. Luca knew it the moment he stepped through the staff entrance, his borrowed press badge swinging against a cheap polyester suit that smelled of someone else’s sweat. The chandeliers above the grand foyer blazed with simulated candlelight, but the real illumination—the kind that mattered—was the soft blue glow of data streams flickering across the eyes of every guest. Paris’s elite had come to pay homage to Catherine Moreau, and they wore their memories like jewelry.

He adjusted his collar. The locket pressed against his chest, warm, almost impatient.

“Press?” A sleek usher in a charcoal uniform blocked his path, scanning his badge with a bored flick of her wrist. “You’re not on the list, Monsieur…”

“Martin. Paul Martin, *Le Canard Enchaîné*.” Luca smiled, all teeth and no warmth. “I was told Véronique would have a slot for me. Political desk. She’s expecting me.”

The usher’s eyes glazed for half a second—long enough for Luca to note the implant behind her ear, a cheap compliance model that left her wide open to social engineering. She checked her tablet. No Véronique. No slot. But the name had done its work: she hesitated, uncertain whether to call her supervisor and risk embarrassing a real journalist who might write about the snub.

“One moment, Monsieur.”

She turned. Luca’s fingers brushed his pocket—the bug was there, a grain of rice wrapped in synthetic myelin, designed to mimic ambient data traffic once planted. He had exactly one shot at Adrian, and he needed to get close enough to shake his hand, bump his shoulder, or slip it into the pocket of that perfectly tailored security chief coat.

The usher came back, frowning. “Monsieur, I’m afraid I can’t—“

“No problem.” Luca’s smile shifted, apologetic, harmless. “I’ll just wait by the bar. Paul Martin, *Le Canard*. If Véronique shows, tell her I’m here.”

He didn’t wait for her response. He melted into the crowd, a shark slipping through champagne-soaked currents.

The main hall was decked in red velvet and brass, every surface polished to a mirror sheen. Luca scanned faces, implant filtering for known tags. There—third cluster near the stage, flanked by two granite-jawed men in earpieces: Adrian Moreau. Catherine’s brother had not deigned to appear, but Adrian was his proxy, a bulldog in a bespoke suit, working the room with forced charm. He was mid-laugh with a senator, one hand resting on a champagne flute, the other hovering near his holster—a habit, Luca guessed, that never truly left him.

“Adrian,” Luca said, inserting himself into the conversation with practiced ease. “Paul Martin, *Le Canard*. I was hoping for a word about the new memory-safety bill in the 18th?”

Adrian’s eyes narrowed. The senator beside him excused himself with a polite nod, grateful for an escape. Adrian didn’t offer a handshake.

“You’re not on my list, Martin.”

“I’m not on a lot of lists.” Luca kept his tone light, conspiratorial. “That’s why I’m good at my job. I hear things. For instance—I heard your boss’s opponent is planning a nasty little surprise for the debate next month. Something about a missing memory.”

The effect was immediate. Adrian’s jaw tightened, a tic so small most people would have missed it. But Luca was watching for it. The security chief’s pulse jumped visibly at his throat.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adrian said, too quickly.

“Of course you don’t.” Luca smiled, reached out, and clapped Adrian on the shoulder—a gesture of false camaraderie that let him slide the bug into the seam of the man’s jacket collar, just above the Kevlar lining. “But if you do, maybe give me a call. Off the record. I write flattering pieces, when the subject cooperates.”

Adrian’s hand closed around Luca’s wrist, hard. “Stay away from the Moreau family, journalist. For your own good.”

“Noted.” Luca pulled free, still smiling. “Enjoy the champagne, Adrian. You look like you need it.”

He turned, forcing himself to walk slowly, casually, toward the bar. His heart hammered. The bug was planted. Now he just needed to get out before Adrian’s paranoia escalated to a pat-down.

He ordered a whiskey he didn’t drink, watching the crowd in the mirrored back bar. Adrian remained rooted for a full thirty seconds, scanning the room. Then the chief’s jaw moved—he was speaking into his own implant, subvocally, no visible lips.

Luca’s earpiece crackled. The bug was live.

“…said a missing memory. How does he know?”

A pause. Then another voice, female, clipped—someone on Moreau’s communications team, likely. *“He’s fishing. You know the line we’re feeding. It’s a forged cube, circulating black markets. We’ve seeded that story for months.”*

“Then why is she asking where the original went?” Adrian’s voice dropped, almost a growl. “She called me an hour ago. Said if the opponent accuses her of deleting a murder memory, she’ll have to respond.”

*“She won’t respond. She can’t. She doesn’t know—“*

“I know what she doesn’t know.” Adrian cut her off. “But Victor does. And if Victor thinks I’m the one who leaked it, he’ll feed me to the void. I need to find out who’s selling that cube. I need it destroyed.”

Luca’s breath caught. *She doesn’t know.* It confirmed everything Maya had said—Catherine Moreau was walking around with a hole in her head, a surgical void where a murder used to live, and her own security chief was terrified of her brother discovering how deep the secret ran.

He set down his untouched glass. Time to leave.

But the crowd had shifted. Two men in civilian clothes—but with that unmistakable military posture—were moving toward the exits, scanning faces. Luca’s gut twisted. Adrian had already called it in.

He ducked behind a marble column, calculating exits. The main doors were blocked. The staff corridor behind the stage was his only shot. He moved, keeping his pace measured, forcing himself not to run. His mother’s locket shifted against his chest—and then it pulsed.

Not warm. Hot.

Luca stumbled, grabbing the column for balance. The locket was vibrating, a low, insistent hum he felt in his teeth, and for a split second the sound around him vanished—replaced by a whisper he heard not with his ears but inside his skull.

*“Don’t go home.”*

His mother’s voice. Unmistakable. Or a memory of it, ghost-printed on circuits he didn’t know he had.

The hum stopped. The noise of the party crashed back in. Luca stood frozen, hand pressed to his chest, heart slamming against his ribs.

*Don’t go home.*

He knew what that meant. His safehouse was burned. The clinic raid had already told him that. But this was different. This was a warning about *now*.

He forced his legs to move, ducked through a velvet curtain, and found himself in a narrow service corridor. A cleaning bot buzzed past. He pressed his back to the wall, breathing hard, and pulled out his comm.

“Maya,” he whispered, “I need safe ground. Not home. Not the clinic. A buffer I’ve never used.”

Her voice crackled back, tinny and annoyed. *“What did you do now?”*

“Adrian knows someone’s selling the cube. He’s hunting it. And—” Luca paused, the whisper still ringing in his ears. “My mother just spoke to me.”

Silence. Then: *“Well. That’s new.”*

“It’s not new, Maya. She’s been watching me. She’s been *waiting* for me to get this far. I don’t know if she’s alive, or a program she left behind, or something Victor built to control her—but she just told me not to go home, and I don’t think it’s because of Adrian.”

Another pause. Maya exhaled, ragged. *“Where are you going?”*

Luca looked up. Above him, through a glass ceiling panel, the drone hovered—a single red eye, steady, patient. Moreau’s drone. Still tracking him. Still waiting.

“I’m going to find out why my mother is whispering inside my head,” he said. “And I think I know who has the answers. Doctor Bellamy. The surgeon who deletes Moreau memories.”

He pressed the locket once, feeling the warmth pulse against his palm.

“She deleted Catherine. She deleted my mother. She must know what was in that January operation—and what Victor was trying so hard to bury.”

*“Bellamy’s a fortress, Luca.”*

“I’ve broken into worse.” He started walking. “Meet me at Saint-Merri. Old crypt, north entrance, two hours. Bring the original cube. I think it’s time I tasted what Catherine Moreau is so afraid to remember.”