Kael arrived without announcement.
No security drone. No appointment request. Just the soft sound of the airlock engaging and his silhouette emerging from the haze of light outside her lab.
She didn't stand to greet him.
Just watched.
His face was the same as before—clear eyes, uncreased skin, posture like a man who'd never suffered. But now that she remembered even a fragment of what had been done to him… he looked wrong.
Too still.
Too intact.
> "You didn't schedule a visit," she said, voice even.
> "I thought we could speak off-record," he replied, smiling gently. "Privacy is rare these days."
He stepped inside. The doors sealed behind him.
> "You're experiencing instability," she said, tapping her interface. "Your vitals triggered two warnings this cycle. You should be in a med chamber, not walking around without clearance."
> "You're worried about the data," he said. "Not me."
She didn't respond.
He looked around the lab.
His eyes lingered on the reboot terminal. On the backup systems.
Too long.
> "You're remembering," he said softly. "Aren't you?"
Her spine stiffened.
> "I don't know what you mean."
> "You do," he replied, eyes narrowing slightly. "You ran the Echo Protocol. You wrote most of the architecture. You buried it. I'm just… what's left."
A sudden pain shot through her skull.
She staggered back, clutching the side of her head. A sharp pulse, behind the eyes. Static in her vision. Images flickered—machines, wires, her own hand covered in blood—then gone.
> "Don't," she whispered. "Don't make me remember."
> "You have to," he said, stepping closer.
She backed away, hitting a lock screen. The cat hissed again.
> "Kael, what are you?" she asked, voice cracking.
> "Not just Kael," he said.
And then—he smiled in a way she had never seen before.
---
Her internal screen blinked. A private message slipped past security—untraceable.
Sender: [unknown_ID //
> "You're not safe. He's not alone. I'll contact you again. Trust nothing."
Then it vanished.
Her hands trembled. Ghost clearance hadn't existed since Project Termination. Whoever sent it had the kind of access no one should have anymore—not without being inside the very bones of the Grid.
She looked up. Kael was watching her.
Too calm. Too aware.
> "I should go," he said, tone unreadable. "You've got a lot to process. I'll be seeing you soon."
He left without another word.
The city was too quiet.
Not because of sound—there were plenty. Drones, tram-whispers, the murmur of the Grid through glass facades.
But it was too quiet in her. She didn't trust her thoughts anymore.
She hadn't left her lab complex in nearly two cycles. Not since the cat arrived. Not since the world became… clean enough to ignore history.
But now, walking through the pale-lit corridors of Sector 6, surrounded by people who had no idea Project Echo ever existed, she felt like a ghost inside her own life.
She kept her biometric signature masked. Her ID registered her as a neutral technician, mid-clearance. Nothing special. No flags.
Still, her skin itched.
Like she was being watched by something old.
---
She moved quickly, toward the Lower Archives, where old medical research divisions used to run before they were digitized and wiped. A place no one bothered to patrol anymore. That's where her memories had dragged her. That's where Echo had once been hidden—in the real world, not the code.
She found the stair access panel and slid her palm over it.
Denied.
She tried a secondary string—one her hands remembered, even if her mind didn't.
Access Granted.
That made her stomach twist.
---
The stairwell lights buzzed, dim and gritty. Real bulbs.
Smelled of ozone and age.
She walked down.
And then, in the lower hall—she saw him.
Leaning casually against a steel door, like time hadn't passed.
Older, tired-looking, but unmistakable.
Dr. Lenn Aves.
Her former colleague. Biogeneticist. One of the minds behind Echo.
He looked up. His eyes widened slightly.
> "Rehn...?" he said, almost a whisper. "Is it really you?"
Her body went rigid. Her breath caught.
She opened her mouth to respond—but didn't get the chance.
---
Flashback:
The light in the lab was red.
Emergency red.
She was strapped to the table.
Wires in her scalp.
Lenn's voice—calm, clinical, cold.
> "We need her awake during it. Memory has to bond to pain, or it won't hold."
Her scream echoed.
Then her own voice, distant, crying:
> "You said I'd forget."
Lenn, over her:
> "You asked to forget."
Something sharp pushed into her skull.
> "Begin transfer," he said.
"Erase everything."
---
Back to Present
She staggered back.
> "You—" she gasped, one hand on the wall. "You strapped me down."
Lenn's face froze.
> "You weren't supposed to remember."
> "You did this to me—you erased me."
The cold ran through her like a pulse. Her hands shook.
> "You begged me to," he said quietly. "You wanted it."
She stared at him, skin crawling, stomach turning.
He stepped forward, cautiously.
> "Rehn, listen—there's more. They're waking up. Not just Kael. You weren't the only backup."
She backed away.
> "Stay away from me."
> "You don't have time," he said, louder. "They'll find you soon. You need to remember before they do."
Then he stepped aside, the archive door hissing open.
> "Inside is your part of the project. What you did to yourself. You left it there in case this day came."
She hesitated—frozen in the doorway of memory and fear.
Inside the archive, dim lights flickered on.
Dust. Silence.
A single chair. A glass box.
And inside it: a memory core pulsing faint blue. Labeled with her name.
> "Dr. Rehn – Sequence Locked. Bio-Key Required."
She didn't know if she could survive remembering what was in there.
But she knew—if she didn't…
She'd never know who she really was.
Or what she'd unleashed.
The archive was freezing.
The lights flickered. The air smelled faintly of oxidized metal and disinfectant—like the memory of a hospital.
She stood in front of the glass box for a long time.
> "Bio-key required," the voice repeated, softly.
She hesitated… then pressed her thumb to the console.
A quick hiss.
A tiny prick of blood.
The seal released.
Inside, the memory core pulsed once—then opened.
---
A holographic interface unfurled in the air above it.
Words scrolled. Some in standard code, some in her shorthand—a mix of anatomical references, emotional state logs, and fragments of thought like private diary entries.
"Core problem: memory death = identity death."
"If we survive bodies, why not minds?"
"Memory should be transferable. Sharable. Storeable."
"But memory also… corrupts."
She scrolled faster.
SUBJECT LIST: REHN. SELF. VOLUNTEER.
Primary test: Long-term memory suspension / preservation / trauma erase / identity regeneration.
Her hand began to shake.
> "I used myself?"
More files unlocked.
Research Thread: NEUROGRAFT GHOSTING
—"Can consciousness be split across vessels, carried over cycles?"
—"If personality is data, can trauma be extracted like a virus?"
—"If pain is removed, does the person remain?"
And then:
Echo Thread 34-B / Non-authorized split trial: Kael Viren
She froze.
> "Non-authorized?" she whispered. "That wasn't in the public logs."
She kept reading. Her voice shaking as she did.
"Split trial successful. Neural imprint copied and stored in subloop. Physical death recorded. Resurrection of memory-state incomplete."
Then one sentence, written in her own hand:
> "Kael's echo is unstable. He's becoming something else. Termination required. I won't do it again."
"Lock my memories. If I try to remember, trigger pain response."
She staggered back.
> "I… tried to stop myself."
She looked down at her shaking hands.
> "But I didn't stop the project. I just stopped me."
---
Behind her, the archive door hissed.
She spun—expecting Lenn. But it wasn't him.
A woman stepped in, dressed in soft techwear, hood shadowing her face. Her voice was low and steady.
> "You weren't supposed to find this."
Rehn's heart jumped.
> "Who are you?"
> "Your failsafe," the woman said. "Built in case you ever unlocked yourself again."
Rehn backed toward the console, one hand glowing over the emergency lock command.
> "What happens if I don't forget this time?"
The woman tilted her head.
> "Then Project Echo continues. With or without you."
Alarms rang in Rehn's internal monitor.
An external access attempt.
Someone—likely Kael—was trying to force-connect with her neuro-link.
She looked between the woman, the core, and the exit.
Three choices:
Run.
Fight.
Remember everything, and face the truth she once swore never to survive.