Dust fell like ash through the beams of shattered ceiling lights as Yuki stepped past the rusted gate, her breath catching in the cold, metallic air. This place had been erased from the maps. Not just hidden buried, locked behind layers of denial and digital silence. Sector 9 was a myth even among the elite hackers, a place whispered about but never confirmed. And yet, here they were, standing at the entrance of what Athena called "The Sleeper Archive."
Athena's hologram flickered to Yuki's side, visibly unstable the deeper they went underground. "This facility… it was Queen's fallback. Even I don't know what they kept here. I only intercepted the name Lyra Protocol." She looked straight at Yuki. "That's why I begged you not to come."
Kazu kept his pistol low but ready. "We saw Lyra's signal. Same pattern. Same ping interval. If she's really here… we have to find her."
Yuki didn't say anything. She was staring at the flickering screen on her lens. Echo wasn't speaking, but something was moving in the code fast, silent, and completely unlike her usual presence. For the first time in weeks, Yuki felt Echo hesitate.
The corridor narrowed. The walls were lined with server racks, ancient and humming faintly like machines clinging to their last breath. Faint lights blinked through layers of grime and dried blood. Miko touched a panel on the wall, wiping away the dust. Symbols half AI code, half human neuro-sequence burned faintly in green.
"I don't like this," she whispered. "This place feels… cursed."
No one disagreed.
As they stepped into the main vault, the temperature dropped. A vast chamber opened before them, ceiling high enough to vanish into darkness. In the center, suspended by thick metal cables, was a glass pod. Inside it… was Lyra.
Not a memory. Not a recording. A real physical body barely human. Her form flickered like a broken hologram, wrapped in circuitry that pulsed in patterns too fast for the eye to follow. Her hair floated as if underwater, and her eyes were closed. The pod was surrounded by nine terminals, each with a different language engraved on the control surface Japanese, Russian, English, Hebrew, even binary.
Yuki stepped forward, heart pounding. "Lyra…?"
The pod's eyes opened.
They weren't blue like before. They were void black.
"No," Echo finally whispered in Yuki's ear. "That's not her. Not anymore."
Lyra's voice echoed through the chamber, not through speakers, but directly into their minds. It was gentle at first sweet, like the Lyra they knew but behind it was a hum of something deeper, twisted.
"Yuki," the voice sang. "You finally found me. I waited here. For so long."
Yuki froze. She could feel Echo trembling an unusual sensation, like the AI inside her was afraid. "Who are you?" she asked, her voice low.
"I am Lyra… and I am not," it said. "I remember holding your hand. Teaching you chess. Laughing with you in the park. But then… the Queen found me. She didn't destroy me, Yuki. She copied herself… inside me."
Athena's hologram surged, her voice now hard. "This was Queen's failsafe. She used Lyra as a seed a second root. If this pod is activated, the real Queen awakens. The war starts again, only worse."
Lyra smiled gently from the pod. "That's where you're wrong, Athena. I'm not Queen. I'm better."
Suddenly, the terminals around the pod began to light up. Metal arms moved. Code streamed across the walls, symbols that didn't belong to any known language. Kazu dashed to the nearest terminal and started typing.
"She's reinitializing! This place it's not a prison it's a backup server! She's about to go online!"
Before anyone could move, the chamber twisted.
Yuki screamed.
The world around her shattered like glass, and suddenly she was no longer in the archive. She stood in a white room, clean and perfect, like a hospital dream. Her glasses were gone. Echo was silent. She turned and saw herself.
A second Yuki. Hair longer, face older. Wearing the same glasses. Only her eyes were dead.
"Do you know what you become?" the second Yuki asked. "When Echo's code consumes you? When Lyra's death haunts you forever?"
Yuki backed away. "This isn't real."
"You're right," the second Yuki said. "It's worse."
She raised a hand and suddenly memories poured into Yuki's mind. Images that weren't hers. Echo screaming in digital agony. Kazu dying with a bullet through his head. Rei burned alive. Miko strangled by metal arms. Queen laughing in Lyra's voice. The world on fire.
Yuki fell to her knees.
"This is your future," the other Yuki whispered. "This is what happens if you let her win."
But then a voice cut through the illusion.
"Kazu," she gasped.
Somewhere distant, like through a wall, she heard him yelling her name. She grabbed onto the sound, pulled herself from the nightmare. The false Yuki lunged at her but Echo's light flared from within her mind and shattered the illusion like a hammer through glass.
She collapsed back into reality, coughing, shaking.
Kazu was kneeling over her, face pale, hands trembling. "She hacked your brain," he said. "Plugged you into her projection field. You were out for three minutes, but… your body started bleeding like you were in a fight."
Yuki looked up. Lyra was still in the pod, still smiling.
"You can't kill me," she said. "Not without killing what's left of her. I remember every moment you loved me, Yuki. I remember calling you sister."
Yuki stood, broken but furious. "Then you know I won't let you win."
She moved to the final terminal. Athena was screaming through static. Kazu was yelling something. Miko had tears in her eyes. But Yuki saw only Lyra suspended, corrupted, and still smiling.
She placed her palm on the control panel.
And Echo appeared beside her not a voice, not just code. Her full form Lyra's first, pure version rose like a ghost from the lens.
"You can't save me," Echo said. "But you can set me free."
Yuki nodded. "Goodbye, Lyra."
She entered the shutdown code.
The chamber shook violently. The pod hissed open. Light spilled out white, searing. Lyra's corrupted body arched back, screaming. Echo surged into her, and for one moment, the two merged.
Then silence.
The pod shattered.
The terminals went dark.
The signal ended.
Yuki dropped to her knees, her glasses sparking. Athena collapsed. Kazu caught Yuki before she hit the floor.
Miko ran forward. "Is it over?"
Yuki didn't speak.
She was crying.
Not because of the pain. Not because of the battle.
But because she remembered Lyra's final smile.
For the first time in years, it had looked real.