"The past doesn't sleep under ruins; it hums."
I – Echo District
At the northern rim of Haven lay a forbidden zone known as Echo District—a place where the old Pulse research towers still stood, hollow and scorched, sealed since the day Less Vogue ended the war. The city called it a graveyard. Khale called it unfinished business.
A caravan of armored transports crawled through the fog that never left the valley. Static whispered across their comms; compasses spun. Even the air felt electric, charged with memories.
"Readings are unstable," the lead engineer muttered. "Residual resonance everywhere."
Khale adjusted his respirator. "Residual from what?"
The engineer glanced at the scanner. "Everything."
They reached the base of the tallest spire. Its surface was black glass fractured into veins of gold, as if the building itself had bled light and then frozen. Carved on the entry gate were faded words:
PULSE RESONANCE LAB 04 – Project V.
Shelly Vorr dismounted beside him. "You ever wonder why they never dismantled this?"
"Because something inside didn't want to be touched."
She smirked faintly. "You say that like you've been here before."
Khale looked at the doorway, memories gnawing behind his ribs. "I followed Less here once. The night before she disappeared."
The wind howled through the cracks—low, musical, almost like breathing.
II – The Red Wind
Far from the convoy, on a ridge of broken concrete, Sea watched through her scope. Her visor tinted the world in crimson and gold.
She saw Khale step through the gate. Her fingers tightened on the rifle grip, then loosened.
Khale Rinn, she whispered. Architect of Haven. Guardian of lies.
The neural implant behind her ear hissed softly, feeding her data—distance, wind, trajectory. One twitch and she could end him.
But another sound rose inside her, faint as an echo: a woman's voice, calm, patient.
Don't shoot yet.
Sea blinked, lowering the scope. "Who are you?"
Static answered.
She exhaled slowly, gaze dropping to her gloved hand. The tremor again—tiny, rhythmic, almost like a heartbeat that wasn't hers.
Remember the song, the voice whispered, fading.
She swallowed hard, shut the rifle down, and began descending toward the ruins.
III – The Vault
Inside the spire, dust glittered like frozen embers. The corridor sloped downward into darkness, walls lined with dead screens. Every step sent ripples of light crawling through old circuitry.
"Looks like the power core still breathes," Shelly murmured.
Khale ran his hand along the wall. Warm. Alive.
At the end of the hall, a massive door waited—its surface glass, its center bearing a single imprint shaped like a hand.
Shelly raised an eyebrow. "Biometric lock?"
"Not exactly."
He pressed his palm against it. For a moment nothing happened. Then the glass brightened, scanning his outline in threads of gold.
A voice—feminine, synthetic, familiar—filled the chamber.
"Identity match: Khale Rinn. Access authorized under Protocol V."
Shelly flinched. "That voice—"
He nodded slowly. "Less's AI interface. She called it Echo."
The door melted apart, revealing the Vault.
Inside, a column of light spiraled upward from the floor—a living lattice of data suspended in air. Within it, suspended like an embryo in amber, floated a core sphere humming faintly red.
The engineer whispered, "Pulse matrix. But…it's different."
Khale approached. "It's mutated."
IV – The Hollow Recording
The Vault's systems flickered on as they entered. Holographic shards burst from the core, coalescing into images—snippets of old footage, fragments of the Pulse War.
Less Vogue appeared for a heartbeat—tired, resolute, standing before the same core.
If anyone finds this, her voice said, Project V cannot be destroyed. It will seek a host. A vessel capable of carrying the Signal forward.
Static consumed the rest.
Shelly whispered, "A vessel? You think that means—"
Khale's gaze hardened. "She built a successor."
He reached toward the core. The red glow flared, reacting to his proximity. Lines of code spiraled across the air—coordinates, neural patterns, an identifier blinking on repeat:
LV-02 / SEA
Shelly stepped back. "Gods…she named it."
Khale stared at the pulsing light. "Not 'it.' Her."
V – The Watcher
Sea reached the lower entrance minutes later, ghosting through the shadows. The Vault's hum vibrated through the ground beneath her boots.
She pressed her palm to the wall. The resonance recognized her. Light traced her veins through the glove.
Welcome back, Subject LV-02.
The words echoed in her skull like a memory.
For a heartbeat she saw flashes: Less standing in a lab, hands shaking as she activated a console. A young technician arguing—Khale's voice somewhere in the background. Then darkness, then awakening in fire.
Sea staggered. "Stop showing me!"
The building didn't listen.
VI – Collision
Khale heard the outer door hiss. He raised his rifle. "Someone's here."
Shelly moved to flank him, weapon ready.
A silhouette appeared through the light—hooded, faceless, framed by the crimson core's glow.
Sea froze at the threshold. Two figures stood before her; one of them triggered an ache she didn't understand.
Khale's voice cut the silence. "Drop the weapon."
She aimed instead. "You shouldn't have come here."
Their eyes met across the spiraling light. The room felt too small for time.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Sea hesitated. "The one you forgot."
She fired—not at him, but at the ceiling sensors. The Vault plunged into darkness. Shockwaves threw them apart.
By the time emergency lights flickered back on, she was gone—only the red core's hum remained, louder now, almost joyous.
Shelly coughed through dust. "You okay?"
Khale nodded, eyes on the shattered wall where the intruder had escaped. "I saw her face. Just for a second."
"And?"
"She looked like Less."
VII – Fragments
Outside, rain began to fall—thin, metallic. Sea ran through the ruins, breathing hard. The visions chased her: faces, voices, the word Vanguard echoing like a heartbeat.
She collapsed against a wall, tearing off her mask. The reflection in the puddle was not the one she expected—silver eyes glowing faintly through tears.
Less Vogue, the wind seemed to say.
Sea slammed her fist into the wall. "No! I'm Sea! I'm not her!"
The rain hissed, washing the denial away.
VIII – Debrief
Back in Haven, Khale reviewed the recovered data. The images replayed—Less's message, the coordinates, the name LV-02.
Shelly stood behind him. "If Sea is LV-02, then she's not just a clone."
"No. She's the Pulse's continuation—its human vessel."
"Then she carries Less's mind."
"Or what's left of it."
He looked up at the skyline. Lightning flickered red across the horizon again, as if the world itself answered.
"She's our only link to what the Pulse became," he said. "And if she remembers her past, we may not have a future."
IX – The Memory That Bleeds
Sea reached her hideout—a half-buried transit station lined with relics of glass and wire. She dropped her rifle, breathing shallowly.
The implant behind her ear pulsed once, twice. Then it projected a faint hologram before her eyes—a woman's face, flickering, half code, half memory.
Less Vogue.
You were me, the image whispered. But I was never finished.
Sea stepped back. "Why show me this?"
Because Khale will come for you. And when he does, you'll remember why you loved him.
The hologram dissolved, leaving her trembling.
She whispered to the empty station, "Loved?"
The word felt foreign—and warm.
X – Coda / Ashes and Glass
At dawn, Haven's sensors detected a surge beneath the ruins—a new activation wave from the Vault. The red glow spread under the soil like veins of fire.
Khale watched from the Citadel balcony as the horizon shimmered. "She awakened it," he said.
Shelly asked quietly, "And if it's alive again?"
"Then so is she."
Below them, fragments of glass from the old towers caught the light. Each reflected a different sky—one golden, one red—until both colors merged in the dawn.
Somewhere beyond that light, Sea lifted her face to the same sunrise, whispering words she didn't yet understand:
"Khale… why do I remember you?"
The wind carried her voice through the ruins, threading it with the city's hum until both sounded like a single note—fragile, human, and waiting to break.