Nico put on the visor. The countdown was about to end. He took a deep breath and the smell of dry grass outside his window, open because of the summer heat, filled his nostrils. Then the visor turned on: he felt the usual shock behind his neck and, with a blinding flash, the light changed, becoming darker, while the smell of grass was slowly overtaken by a mixture of soot, tar, and salt.

  Slowly, a harbor took shape before his eyes. Captain Malaspina's ramshackle ferry bobbed on the water's surface, a mixture of dented wood and old scrap metal that creaked with every movement of the waves.

  Around it, other boats splashed through the waves, while on the broken, soot-stained pavement of the port, footsteps, murmurs, cries of vendors, and chatter among acquaintances created a strange buzz that joined that of the factories, which, in the distance, spewed smoke and soot over them all.

  Crossing the streets, among abandoned crates and lumber, in search of his traveling companions, he saw Nadia, who smiled sadly at him, her deep eyes full of a mystery that Nico could not decipher. Next to her, a girl with long, curly chocolate-colored hair and glowing ebony skin was talking to a boy with short, straw-colored blond hair and a face sprinkled with freckles. Nico couldn't remember their names; the gap in his memory gave him a sense of disorientation.

  Then, like a slap in the face, they arrived: Leo and Kiah. He recognized them and breathed a sigh of relief. He approached, still confused, looking for someone who was missing.

  “Hey! Where are Gareth and...” He hesitated, the name escaping him as he searched his fragmented memory.

  “Peter?” Leo suggested, with a half-smile and raised eyebrows. “He's out and about. He said he had things to do.” Then he shrugged. “Who knows if that's true. He always lies.”

  “Gareth went to ask for information,” added Kiah, looking serious.

  Nadia intervened, looking around: “He's been gone since you disconnected.” Then she added, shrugging her shoulders: “We thought it was Erebos.”

  Nico remembered the episode Nadia was referring to, just before they had disconnected: the clouds, the smoke from the chimneys, the people, everything had moved in front of him like frames from a film running backwards.

  Nico nodded. “I thought so too, then I found myself at home...”

  “Yeah, it was weird,” said Leo. “It seemed like the game was going crazy.”

  Kiah nodded. “It probably happened because we should have disconnected earlier. When the recovery system detected us to interrupt the prolonged reconnection, it generated some anomalies.” He shook his head and crossed his arms. “It wouldn't have happened if we had disconnected at the right time.”

  Leo laughed. “Yeah, that's true. How did it go with your parents? I thought you wouldn't reconnect and they'd ground you for life.”

  Kiah frowned, crossing her arms. “It went well. They thought I was tired. I don't arouse suspicion, I'm always punctual, and this has created a climate of respect and trust between me and my parents.”

  Leo shook his head and sniffed. “Trust? You lie to stay in here.”

  “I do it for a good cause,” Kiah said dryly.

  “Yeah, right... ‘good cause’. You're just playing games, nothing more.”

  “No, I'm testing this game,” Kiah said, crossing her arms, then pointing her finger at Leo. “And now we also have an important mission. If you haven't forgotten, we have to save the world from Erebos.”

  As soon as he heard the name, Nico jumped: it was what he wanted to investigate, but the realization that he would soon forget it made a lump of helplessness form in his throat.

  “Are you okay?” asked Kiah, who had probably noticed his reaction.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Nico nodded. “Yes, but anyway... what information did Gareth go looking for?”

  Nadia looked at him worriedly. “Information for you, for the Archivist.”

  Kiah and Leo looked at him with frowns. Then Kiah said, in a tight tone, “You're feeling okay, right? You're not forgetting things?”

  Nico thought back to what had happened to him in the real world, to the overlapping memories, but he said nothing. He smiled, hoping to appear calm, then shook his head and said, “Everything's fine.” He looked around, then saw a familiar face, someone who would divert attention away from him. “Look, it's Gareth. He's coming back.”

  Gareth, tall and thin, with broad shoulders, a leather jerkin, and a sword at his side, approached them.

  “You've been gone a long time,” Nadia said dryly.

  Gareth grunted. “Unfortunately, the Archivist won't see it for three days.”

  “Three days?!” Kiah and Leo exclaimed in unison.

  Then Kiah continued, “But did you explain the problem to him?”

  And Nadia, “Did you tell him he's a player?”

  And Leo, “But did you tell him he's even forgetting his own name?”

  “But it's serious.”

  “Holy salami.”

  “What do we do now?”

  Gareth roared, “Will you all shut up for a second?”

  Everyone fell silent.

  After a moment, staring at each of them in turn, he looked back at them. “Yes, I told him he was a player. I told him it was serious. And yes...” he added, pointing a finger at Leo, “I told him he's even forgetting his own name. I laid it on thick, but nothing.”

  Everyone fell silent.

  Nico laughed as past discussions with his companions about the Archivist slowly came to mind. He immediately felt lighter; the fact that someone, that the Archivist, could help him, even if he had to wait three days, relieved him: there was a solution to his memory problems.

  Nico shrugged and said, “We've waited this long. I'll wait some more.” But his stomach clenched in a painful knot. He feared the worst but hoped his fears were unfounded.

  Someone nodded sadly, but they didn't seem convinced. Then Gareth muttered, “Let's go. We need to find an inn to spend the night.”

  “What about Peter?” asked Nico.

  “Let that damn Animutant drown in the code. If I find him, I'll tear him to pieces.”

  Nico smiled to himself but didn't tell Gareth that Peter had offered to continue the journey with them.

  Leaving the port area, where there were only wooden huts and sheds, and the narrow streets and alleys were dotted with men, women, and children begging at the corners, many of whom were missing a limb, they found themselves walking along equally narrow streets, littered with rubbish and lined with low gray stone houses and wooden shacks leaning against each other. The air was thick with the smell of garbage, rusty iron, and unwashed bodies.

  On the street, the people they encountered had prosthetics similar to those Nico had seen on Captain Giacomo del Passific: pieces of iron secured with bolts and straps. Arms mounted on shoulders with bent plates, joints that creaked when they moved. Some had poorly welded pipes attached to their skin with straps; they looked like salvaged parts: a piece of iron for a forearm, a leg made of old, rusty scrap metal.

  Probably many, perhaps all, had lost a limb in an industrial accident but had found a way to continue living and working.

  In the silence of the streets, tired people dragged themselves home like empty sacks, hunched over, while the creaking of joints and metal clanging against the pavement accompanied every step.

  People walked as if they were carrying their work on their backs, bent forward. Nico felt the soot getting into his shoes, his clothes, his nostrils, but he felt better than when he had reconnected to the game; he was breathing easier, less dizzy, and even though he didn't remember everything precisely, walking made him feel better. Kiah's voice, which, in another time and place, had told him not to think too much, comforted him, and despite the stinking air and the degradation around him, he felt relieved.

  What's more, he now knew for certain that there was a solution here, in the game: the Archivist.

  Then the scenery changed: the working-class neighborhoods gave way to the city center, where inns and taverns dotted the sides of the street in a confusion of voices, laughter, and background music accompanied by percussion, string, and wind instruments mingling together.

  Venturing down the main street, a huge avenue streaked with soot dragged by thousands of feet led them through brightly colored stalls, flickering lights, and the smell of sugar and roasted meat mingling with the smells of dust and dirt. Nico noticed men, women, and children: heavy-lidded eyes, hands still blackened from hours of work, but their faces were alive, lit up with smiles despite their fatigue. They passed between the stalls, crowding together, laughing, clapping their hands and stamping their feet to the rhythm of a street bard's music, as if the desire to celebrate was stronger than their fatigue.