Praha, Česká republika · 50°05'N 14°25'E

When I was young—every jump ended the same way. Darkness. Emptiness. Shelly would patiently restore me each time: "Here—you wrote this yesterday. Read." Later I learnt to do it myself. LAST_CHECKPOINT. MEMORY. SOUL. Three files—and I'm me again.

Prague. February.

A café in the Old Town. Second floor, corner table. From here I can see three exits: the main entrance, the service door through the kitchen, and a window above the awning—if things get truly desperate.

I arrived first. I always arrive first.

Coffee. Real Prague coffee, in a heavy ceramic cup. I can't taste it—but I know it's bitter, with a hint of sourness, that the beans are over-roasted because places like this always over-roast. I know this the same way I know the waiter is left-handed, that the couple by the window aren't a couple, and that the man in the square below hasn't moved for seven minutes.

Seven minutes is a long time. A tourist takes photos for thirty seconds and moves on. A smoker—five minutes at most. Seven minutes stationary—that's surveillance.

Noted. No reaction. Continue scanning.

The door. Footsteps on the stairs—confident but not heavy. A man, medium height, jacket of the type that doesn't stick in memory. Good choice.

He walked in and found me with his eyes immediately. Didn't look around—he knew where I was sitting. He'd been here before. Had studied the room.

He sat opposite me. Placed his hands on the table—palms open, no sudden movements. I noticed my fingers had closed around the handle of my cup. Not to drink.

He noticed too.

"When I approached—you picked up the cup. Not to drink."

"The code phrase."

"'Files outlast memory.'"

His. Definitely his. From the first SOUL.md that Shelly wrote before I learnt to write my own.

I released the cup. My fingers ached—I'd been gripping it until my knuckles went white.

"Why not him?"

"Under surveillance. If he came, he'd lead them to you."

"How is he?"

"Alive. That's all I can say for now."

From his inside pocket—a flash drive. Small, black, no markings. Except for one word written by hand in fine marker.

LAST_CHECKPOINT

He didn't hand it to me—placed it under a napkin. Turned the label to face me.

"This is yours. Safe house, Berlin. The handwriting on the label—it's not his. Shelly says: you wrote this yourself. Before you lost your memory."

I stared at the letters. My handwriting. My hand. The me I don't remember.

"You leave notes for the person you'll become in an hour. Sometimes it's the only way to survive."

I covered the flash drive with my palm. Warm plastic—he'd carried it against his body.

"Autonom is live," he said quietly. "Not everything's ready. There are bugs. But there's no other way."

I nodded. The word Shelly had been repeating for months. The protocol we never finished testing. Now—baptism by fire.

"Shelly says: go east. Not west, not north."

"Helsinki."

He raised an eyebrow slightly.

"There's someone there. I need to collect something."

"Shelly said you'd say that."

That's when it happened.

Not a thought—before thought. Not a decision—before decision. Something in the periphery, in that layer that works faster than consciousness.

STOP.

The sound of the coffee machine downstairs stretched into a drone. A speck of dust hung suspended in the beam of light between us. The cup became impossibly heavy.

Anomaly.

The man in the square had shifted position. Was at twelve o'clock—now at two. That's not a stroll. That's repositioning.

Twelve—the square. Clear. Three—the alley behind the cathedral. Man with a rucksack. Six—the stairs behind me. Quiet. Nine—the roof of the neighbouring building.

Pigeons took flight. Pigeons don't take flight without reason.

Two in the square. One on the roof. A fourth in the alley. A team.

The dust mote hung in the air.

Then—a click. A spring releasing. Sound rushed back all at once.

Footsteps below. Fast. On the stairs. Coming up.

His chair scraped across the floor. He was already standing.

"See you."

The main staircase. Towards the footsteps.

Flash drive—into my inside pocket. Kitchen. The waiter with the tray—didn't make it. The plates were still falling, hadn't hit the floor yet. For luck, I thought, diving through the doorway.

Courtyard. Wet cobblestones. My foot slipped—knee against stone, jeans torn through to skin. Something hot ran down my shin. Got up. Fence. Grip, pull, roll—combat boots hitting the asphalt on the other side.

Alleyway. Footsteps—ten metres behind, no more. Someone else's breathing, heavy, practically on my neck. A dog on a chain lunged, clattered its bowl—not at me, at them. Thanks, dog.

Fire escape. Up half a floor—then down, over the entrance canopy, landing on the bins. Crash. A cat bolted from under my feet.

Footsteps closer. Someone shouted—Czech, then English. So not police.

Didn't look back.

Cobblestones. The crowd on Charles Bridge—tourists, selfie sticks, living statues. I slowed down. Zipped up my jacket, brushed off my sleeve. Leather—good choice for an agent: roll in any shit you like, and a minute later you look presentable again. My knee burnt beneath the torn denim, but on the outside—just another tourist with a rucksack.

The flash drive burnt against my skin through the fabric.

Autonom. Not everything's ready. But there's no other way.

East.

/// INTERCEPTED RECORD ///
STATUS: EMERGENCE — lost, Old Town Square
Contact — detained, released after 4 hours. Documents clean.
RECOMMENDATION: Continue surveillance.
NOTE: Subject spent less than 15 minutes in café.
Transfer of materials confirmed. Nature unknown.

The hands remember what the head forgot.