Ren waited until lights-out before moving.

Most trainees were already asleep, lulled into system-induced dream cycles. The dorm monitors dimmed, and the AI security protocols entered low-alert scan mode—predictable, programmable. He moved like smoke between camera arcs, barely brushing the floor.

He reached the storage bay at the edge of the dome’s perimeter wall. An old gear closet, forgotten after a systems update, now repurposed as Ren’s personal dead zone. No signal. No taps.

He unrolled the pouch and withdrew Kairo’s chip.

This time, he had a plan.

A scavenged terminal—analog, shielded, disconnected from the dome’s spine—sat on an overturned crate. He powered it manually and slid the chip into its port.

The screen stuttered.

[ECHO SEED INTERFACE: DECRYPTION SUCCESSFUL]
[ACCESSING FRAGMENTED ARCHIVE…]

Four red nodes blinked into existence on a grainy satellite map of Neo-Tokyo. Each hovered over a zone labeled in ancient defense code:

• Epsilon Ghostline (Sector 5)
• Black Lung Passage (Sector 3 Lower)
• Signal Scar Crater (Outer Zone 7)
• Sky Bridge Grave (Decommissioned Vertical Hub)

Each node pulsed, overlaid with flickering static and a warning tag:

[STABILITY: COMPROMISED]

Ren scanned the names, a chill crawling down his spine. Signal Scar—he remembered rumors. Whispers of echo fragments that wouldn’t shut up. Survivors who glitched into walls, screaming about corridors that looped on themselves until their minds cracked. Once, in a past loop, he'd heard of a cadet who vanished mid-simulation—only to reappear in medbay, comatose and muttering fractured system code.

He focused on the closest: Epsilon Ghostline.

He tapped it. A burst of video filled the screen—corrupted, shaky, audio warped by time. But he saw the shape of it:

An old data hall. Twisted servers and bloodstained walls. Symbols drawn in ash. A mural burned into the far wall:

A man’s face. His own. Older. Scarred. Dead.

[LABEL: SUBJECT-021 / PRIOR ITERATION / STATUS: OBSOLETE]

He stared at the screen, throat dry.

Below the image were words etched by hand:

“You already lost. This is your second chance to fail.”

He swallowed hard. Time wasn't linear in these places—it folded. Echoed. Failed memories colliding with future regret.

[SYSTEM NOTICE: NODE INTERFERENCE – WARNING – TIMELOCK BREACH POSSIBLE]
[RECOMMENDED ACTION: ABORT]

He ignored it.

A knock echoed behind him.

He spun, blade halfway drawn.

Juno stood at the threshold, arms folded, her face unreadable in the low light.

“I figured you'd be here.”

Ren didn’t move. “How?”

“I followed the noise in the code. You’ve been screaming in the quiet lately.”

He lowered the blade. “You remember something else.”

Juno hesitated, then stepped closer. “I saw your face. Burned into a wall. Like a warning. Same image. Same ash.”

[FRAGMENT ECHO VERIFIED – JUNO KAZURA / SYNC RATE: 31.2%]

She looked down at the map. “What are these?”

“Points where the loop breaks down. Or opens. Or maybe both.”

Juno stared at the Epsilon marker. “You’re going there.”

“I have to.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”

He opened his mouth—but the system pinged before he could answer.

[ECHO THRESHOLD REACHED – MULTI-NODE ACTIVATION TRIGGERED]
[WARNING: FOREIGN SIGNATURE DETECTED – CLASS: ECHO ABERRANT]
[UNNAMED SIGNATURE – STITCHED PROTOCOL FOUND]

They both froze.

A soft scraping sound echoed from beyond the hall.

Ren’s gaze snapped toward the metal vents on the far wall. The scraping repeated. Slow. Dragging. Not mechanical. Organic.

The chip’s screen flickered again, now pulsing with static-red interference.

“Go,” Ren hissed.

Juno moved, fast and quiet.

Ren sheathed the chip and followed her into the dark passage beyond the storage bay. They moved in practiced tandem—silent, efficient, trained.

But the feeling that they were being followed never left.

Behind them, the terminal blinked once more:

[SIGNAL TRACK ENABLED – GHOSTLINE DESTINATION LOGGED]
[PATTERN LOCK INITIATED – PREDICTIVE TRACE ENGAGED]

Far beneath the dome, past rusted maintenance shafts and code-sealed corridors, something moved. It slid through coolant mist and crawled through decaying cable veins. It had no skin. No eyes.

But it had memory. Not its own.

It spoke in borrowed code. It wore the ghosts of failed loops like armor.

It had no name.

Only a purpose.

Follow. Consume. Rewrite.