Chapter 14 MORRIGAN CLINIC

The apartment remained quiet long after midnight. Jonah had eventually stopped talking sometime earlier and disappeared toward the far side of the apartment without another word. Cairos could still see him now beneath the dim glow of a monitor, asleep or pretending to be. He sat alone near the desk with the burner phone resting beside him, dleep refused to come properly. Every time he closed his eyes, fragments returned in pieces that made no sense together. Flooded corridors, emergency lights, the tunnel from the photograph and Darren collapsing against the hallway wall.

He looked away from the thoughts before they settled too deeply. The apartment felt different at night, smaller somehow. The walls covered in photographs and documents did not looked like investigation material to him again, they looked obsessive. Entire sections were connected by handwritten notes and faded marker lines running between missing persons reports, employee files, infrastructure maps, and surveillance stills.

Cairos stood slowly and moved toward the nearest wall. Several photographs had been removed forcefully at some point, leaving only torn corners still pinned beneath the tape. Others had names scratched out entirely. One section contained missing persons notices from different districts across Blackwater, all separated by years making Cairos to frown slightly. Some of them were children, not many, only three or four photographs among dozens, but enough to make something uneasy settle inside his chest.

Another detail caught his attention nearby. Several names appeared repeatedly across different reports despite belonging to unrelated cases. Transit workers, security contractors, medical technicians. One name surfaced more than the others, VALE.

Cairos stared at it briefly before turning away. The room smelled faintly like dust, stale coffee, and overheated wiring. Somewhere behind him, one of the monitors crackled softly with corrupted footage looping endlessly across the screen. His eyes drifted toward a large city map pinned near the far wall.

Most of Blackwater had been marked in different colors and handwritten notes. Several underground transit routes were circled repeatedly while certain districts had entire sections crossed out. But one location near the eastern lower sectors had been marked harder than the others.Red circles layered over each other repeatedly until they nearly tore through the paper.

Cairos stepped closer, the location sat between an abandoned medical block and an old transit maintenance district.

MORRIGAN NEURAL RECOVERY CLINIC.

The name felt hollow, "What is this place?" he asked quietly. Across the room, Jonah stirred slightly before lifting his head tiredly from the couch. He looked toward Cairos for several seconds before following his gaze toward the map. His expression tightened immediately. "You shouldn't touch that stuff," Jonah muttered while sitting up slowly.

Cairos ignored the comment. "What is Morrigan Clinic?" he asked again. Jonah rubbed one hand across his face before standing. He looked exhausted now, dark circles beneath his eyes sharper beneath the monitor light. "It's not really a clinic anymore," he said quietly. Cairos waited for more.

Jonah walked toward the map slowly. "Blackwater has places like that everywhere," he continued. "Illegal memory work, trauma suppression, identity fraud, addiction editing. Rich people trying to erase mistakes."

Cairos frowned slightly. "That's legal?" Jonah laughed once without humor. "Depends who's paying for it." His eyes settled briefly on the marked location again. "This one was different though," he added. "How?" Cairos asked.

Jonah hesitated longer this time. "I kept seeing it connected to Section Twelve incidents," he said eventually. "Not officially. Just patterns."

"What kind of patterns?" Cairos asked. "People showing up there before disappearing," Jonah answered quietly. "Or after coming back."

The wording unsettled Cairos immediately. "Coming back from where?" he asked. Jonah gave a tired shrug. "That's the problem," he replied. "Nobody ever knew where they went."

Rain struck harder against the windows briefly while distant sirens echoed somewhere outside across the sleeping city. Cairos looked back toward the map. "And this place is still operating?"

"Apparently," Jonah said. "You've been there?"

Jonah stayed quiet for a moment before nodding once. "Years ago." Cairos turned toward him. "What happened?"

Jonah looked uncomfortable immediately, which made Cairos more curious. "Nothing," Jonah said too quickly. Then after a pause, "Nothing useful." The response told Cairos enough. He looked again at the clinic's location on the map. Something about it bothered him in a ways he could not explain properly, not exactly with recognition. More like pressure behind a memory that refused to surface completely.

Jonah noticed his expression. "No," he said immediately. Cairos looked toward him. "No what?"

"Don't even think about going there." Jonah said but Cairos said nothing. Jonah exhaled sharply and walked back toward the desk. "It's bad idea," he muttered. "Why?" Cairos asked. "Best believe it's for your good."

Cairos folded his arms slowly. "You said yourself people tied to Section Twelve kept appearing there."

"Exactly." Silence settled briefly between them before Jonah finally spoke again, quieter this time. "The woman running the place now..." he started before stopping. "What about her?" Cairos asked.

Jonah hesitated, "People say she can recognize memory tampering," he said carefully. "Real tampering, not the fake street-level stuff." Cairos felt his chest tighten slightly. "Who is she?" he asked.

Jonah looked toward the rain covered windows. "Asiya Vale." The name lingered strangely in the room. Cairos frowned slightly. "Vale," he repeated quietly. He remembered seeing it earlier among the files pinned across the wall. Jonah noticed immediately. "Yeah," he said. "Same name."

"Related to the disappearances?" Cairos asked. "I don't know," Jonah admitted. That answer sounded genuine to Cairos.

Jonah moved toward the coat hanging beside the door before pulling it on slowly. "I avoided her for a long time," he said quietly. "But?" Cairos asked.

Jonah looked toward him carefully now. "But if someone altered your memory..." he said, "she's probably one of the only people in Blackwater capable of recognizing it."

Outside, another surveillance drone drifted slowly past the apartment windows, its searchlight briefly sliding across the walls covered in missing faces before vanishing back into the rain. Neither of them spoke for a while afterward. Then finally Jonah grabbed his keys from the cluttered desk. "If we're doing this," he muttered tiredly, "we leave before morning."