Following Kalen's weakening signal, they tracked a hidden data stream to the Whisper Archive—an off-grid cache that even Echo had no access to.
They descended into it like falling into code.
Inside were memories—locked in black boxes, voice logs, forbidden files.
Kael opened one.
It was his voice.
"I can't let them do this again. Not to the next one. If this fails—delete me."
Another file.
A council of masked figures.
"The Kael project was too successful. Shut it down. Scatter the fragments across Nexus."
Echo froze.
"Kael… you did this to yourself."
Kael stepped back, heart pounding. "I volunteered to be erased."
But why?
He played one last file.
A voice, old, mechanical. "If he ever wakes up… tell him the Nexus is only phase one."