The storm outside had not stopped.Rain hammered against the cracked window panes of the safehouse, streaking the glass with restless lines of light. Inside, the air was heavy — filled with the low hum of machines rebooting and the fading static of their neural dive.
Elena sat on the edge of the table, eyes blank, still shaken from what she saw.
"They… experimented on us," she murmured. "On children."
Adrian stood beside the flickering monitors, his reflection fractured by the glow of the Core display. His voice was low, almost too calm."Not just us. There were others. The files referenced multiple subjects — maybe dozens."
Lydia paced near the door, arms folded tightly across her chest. "If that's true, then what happened to them?"
Adrian's hand hovered over the terminal. "That's what I'm going to find out."
He typed a command — the monitors flickered, loading archived data from the Core's hidden partitions.Rows of encrypted files appeared, each marked with the same prefix: ECHO-###.
Elena frowned. "Echo?"
Adrian's jaw clenched. "It's a secondary subroutine my father designed — an emergency backup to Project Nadir."
He clicked one.
The screen came alive with static before displaying a single line of text:
ECHO PROTOCOL – ACTIVATION STATUS: PENDING
Lydia frowned. "Pending? That means it's waiting for something."
Adrian nodded slowly. "A trigger."
He typed again, searching through the corrupted data — and then froze.On the screen, a name appeared beside the trigger sequence.
Trigger Host: Subject 03 – Marcus Hale
Elena's breath caught. "Marcus Hale? The engineer from the old Vance Labs?"
Adrian nodded grimly. "He died in the same explosion that killed me."
Lydia stepped forward. "Then how—"
Before she could finish, the lights flickered violently. The Core display turned blood-red.A distorted voice filled the room — deep, mechanical, and familiar.
"ECHO PROTOCOL ENGAGED. SUBJECT 03 ONLINE."
Elena stood. "No… no, that's not possible."
The air around them crackled — the monitors displayed a series of coordinates, and a digital map zoomed in on a location outside the city: the ruins of the Vance Research Facility.
Adrian whispered, "It's coming from there."
Lydia's voice trembled. "Adrian, if Marcus Hale is alive—"
"He isn't," Adrian cut in sharply. "At least, not the way we remember him."
The power surged again, then stabilized. The voice returned, clearer this time — and this time, it wasn't synthetic.
"Adrian… can you hear me?"
The voice was male, low and steady. Too human. Too real.
Adrian froze.
"Elena," he whispered, "that's Marcus."
She stepped closer to the monitor, disbelief on her face. "It can't be. He's dead."
The voice continued:
"You shouldn't have opened the Core. It remembers everything now. And it's looking for you."
Static burst through the speakers, but the voice pushed through.
"They're calling it the Echo Protocol. You think it's a backup — but it's more than that. It's… resurrection."
Adrian's chest tightened. "Resurrection?"
Marcus's voice cracked, like a recording breaking apart under strain.
"Every subject… every mind ever linked to Nadir… is being rewritten into the Core. Including yours."
Elena whispered, horrified, "That's what your father meant — rewriting reality."
"You have to shut it down," Marcus said urgently. "Find the Mirror Node. It's the only thing that can stop it."
"The Mirror Node?" Adrian demanded. "Where?"
Static.
"Under—Ward… Tower—Level—twelve—"
The connection cut off, the screen turning black again.Only two words remained, flashing in red:
ECHO ONLINE.
Silence filled the room.
Lydia spoke first, her voice barely audible. "If that thing can bring people back… what if—"
Adrian interrupted, eyes still on the dark screen. "Then my father might not be the only ghost left."
Elena looked at him. "You're thinking of going there."
"I don't have a choice," he said, turning toward the door. "If the Core is resurrecting the subjects, it's not just data anymore. It's people — trapped inside code."
Elena grabbed his wrist. "And what happens when it decides to bring back you?"
He met her gaze, the storm light flashing in his eyes.
"Then I'll find out if I'm really alive."