Nothing within Lilac's mind seemed to give any answer to the strange fragmented memories eating away at the edges of her thoughts. There was a long silence as if her consciousness was partially veiled by a thin, obscuring curtain.

Her hands shook as the strong memory of suffocation flashed through the metal curtain. The girl reached for her throat before throwing her hands back onto the bed.

She should rest.

Lilac closed her eyes and pulled the covers up to her neck.

…

Screams resonated through the cackling of flames. Lilac looked around, only to see mounds of flaming trash surrounding her. A thin, familiar voice called out from within the heat and the chaos.

"Lilac!"

The girl turned around, watching as a bloodied Chickadee stumbled her way down a trash heap. Lilac could see the words whispered from her lips as the frail child reached out to her.

"Help me."

Lilac stuck her hand into the flames, reaching for her sister. Lights flashed, and Chickadee slowly turned to ash. The small girl gave her an accusing glare.

"Lilac!"

The ash spread to her torso.

"Lilac!"

Her face began disintegrating.

"Lila-"

The last scream was cut off by Chickadee's complete disintegration. Lilac was all alone, slowly burning and soaking in the cries of others.

"Lilac!"

Lilac jolted. She blinked as the annoyed face of Maria greeted her vision.

"I told you to rest, not sleep!"

Lilac sat up and nodded. "I'm sorry."

Maria sighed. She smiled and held up a small rectangular piece of mirror. "What do you think?"

The girl blinked at the sudden mood change before staring at the mirror. She frowned. Other than the absence of certain scars, there was no difference between her previous and current appearance.

"Tilt your head."

Lilac tilted her head to the right. Light seemed to ripple from the shine of her hair. An incandescent sheen coated the brown.

Maria set down the mirror and grinned. "You have more internal modifications. Even though you technically couldn't get sick, you still had a bunch of parasites that we had to flush out of your system. So, after that, we replaced your bones with reinforced ones, and you have new skin now! Oh, and that shine of your hair was done to fool the system into thinking you're related to the Mavericks. What do you think? Isn't it fascinating?"

Lilac hunched her shoulders at Maria's unnerving cheer. Bones replaced? New skin? Something about the whole modification process felt very wrong.

Maria paused after seeing Lilac's horrified expression. She waved to the air and conjured a chair. "I'm sorry, I keep forgetting that you were Trash. Poor you, never being able to understand the brilliance of modifications."

Lilac's mind returned to the terrifying room where pain and surprise seemed to be the only constant. She nodded hesitantly.

Maria smiled. "I suppose you have questions." She motioned to the air, watching calmly as the walls rippled.

Lilac blinked, watching, staring at the bed that slowly morphed into a cushioned white chair. She looked back at Maria's smug expression.

"If there's one thing you should always adhere to, ignorance is salvation."

Lilac scrunched her brows.

Maria's smile dropped. "Don't ask any questions. It's safer sometimes if you don't know anything."

There was a moment of silence.

Maria sighed. "That said, you do need to know a few basic things. Just because you are ignorant doesn't mean you're stupid. Keep in mind that you are never to act stupid. That's the fastest way to disappear."

The woman waited, smiling as Lilac slowly nodded.

"The first thing you have to know is The Histories. You need a basic idea of the aim of your job. I'm sure you've been told by Manager Mestiire about the technological importance of securing cracks and old word technology; however, that's not the aim."

Lilac frowned. "What do you mean?"

Maria smiled. "On paper, it's all about minimising risks."

"I don't quite understand."

The woman clasped her hands on her lap. "What do you know about the Great Madness?"

Lilac blinked. "Only the basics. I only know that the world was once a place close to utopia. Almost everyone had access to some sort of technology. Some people even lived for nearly two hundred years, but something happened. One by one, people started getting mad. In their madness, the human population destroyed their technology and each other in an endless cycle which lasted a year. When people came to their senses, the world was bathed in blood, and civilization became a smoking ruin. Though this happened a few hundred years ago, some believe there are remnants of Old-World technology lying around. Some believe some individuals with Old-World knowledge are still waiting for the day to save us all."

Maria laughed. "I'm sorry. You are mostly correct, but that last section..."

Lilac tilted her head. "What about the last section?"

Maria shook her head. "Don't mind it. The most important thing to know is that The Great Madness did happen."

Lilac nodded. "That's what Mestiire told me."

"Manager Mestiire. You should treat hierarchy of the utmost importance." The woman smiled. "That is if you want to blend in."

Lilac nodded once more.

Maria waved her hand. "Anyways, the aim of Old-World excavations and R-Crack explorations is to prevent another bout of the Great Madness." She paused and took a deep breath.

Lilac watched as the wall behind her smoothed over.

"Our history during that one missing year and the subsequent aftermath is broken. One event can have at least three different versions. However, there are some consistencies, enough to confidently say that the consistencies are true."

The woman looked up. "We think it was caused by the Strange Residue. Strange Residue in the Old-World was a miracle fuel and catalyst. We could do so many things with it. One small gram of it could power an entire city for twenty-five years. If we refined it, we could use it to create things that have never been created before. A couple hundred years ago, we had everything."

Lilac gasped as the wall changed to an image of a dead, emaciated person whose limbs were twisted at an unnatural angle.

"There is always a price for miracles, though. The Strange Residue is just that – strange. It scrambles the mind like no other. People have been observed eating their flesh or breaking limbs before jumping off a tall building." Maria turned around to face the wall. "What you see here is one of the more intact victims of the madness."

Lilac shivered and rubbed her hands over her arms. "If I'm supposed to look for Old-World Technology and cracks in reality, does that mean I might become mad from the Strange Residue? Old-World technology runs off Strange Residue-"

"Strange Residue comes from the cracks in reality."

Lilac opened her mouth and closed it again. Her mind buzzed with the sudden revelation.

"You can see the cracks in reality because you can see Strange Residue much more clearly. What we see as bent space, you can see the Strange Residue interacting with space."

There was a moment of silence.

Maria shrugged. “You are lucky, in a way. You can see the residue, so you can avoid it. Most will just wander near warped space and suddenly become mad."

Lilac shook her head. "What if I get touched by the Strange Residue."

"Then you become mad yourself. But, in most situations, you will be protected as you are officially tasked with categorising Old-World technology and identifying the fuel capacity. You only need to give directions; others will scout ahead for you. However, your other job, securing the cracks and relaying the information to us, is on you and you only. Your position as an analyst will be leveraged to find more undiscovered sources of Strange Residue."

Lilac looked down. Like before, the situation seemed more and more impossible. At any one moment, she could become mad, and Chickadee will be all alone, at the complete mercy of the Sekravos family.

"This is what you agreed to do in exchange for the Trash's life. Do you regret it?"

Lilac shook her head. She did not expect anything to come easily. No one should when dealing with the people who willingly plunged millions of lives into deeper despair and turned people into animals with a single announcement. She took a deep breath.

"What now?"

Maria smirked. "We can't possibly teach you how to categorise Old-World technology or identify fuel sources. I'll leave that up to your neural interface. That means you will have to learn how to use it quickly and with more mastery than most."