That night, Tessa can't sleep.

The room is warm. 

Too warm. 

The mattress—Andrei's old one—sags like it remembers too many bodies and too many nights like this. 

The ceiling above her is cracked, water-stained, sighing with the weight of old rain and older secrets. 

A fan spins lazily on its last leg, crooked and wheezing like it's trying to lull her into sleep it can't offer.

Downstairs, silence.

No more dishes. 

No voices. 

Just the memory of laughter still echoing faintly in the floorboards—clink of glasses, dry jokes, the kind of camaraderie that only happens after midnight, shared between people who've bled enough to recognize the same scar in someone else. 

Jet, Zeal, her. Almost like a crew.

Almost like she belonged.

But now, the warmth has turned into a weight.

And the quiet feels too loud.

She turns over.

Jet had told her she could stay. 

No pressure. 

No obligation.

You can go. But you don't have to.

It should've felt like safety. 

Instead, it coils in her gut like wire.

She remembers the chip behind her ear, still quiet now, but never truly gone.

Before she lets herself feel safe in this place, before she lets herself believe the warmth downstairs wasn't just borrowed—she has to know.

Has to know she isn't a liability.

She swings her legs over the bed, breath caught somewhere between fear and resolve.

Time to see what she's really carrying.

The bag in the corner waits. 

Innocent-looking. 

But her hands move like they already know the script. 

She unrolls the straps, snaps the catches, watches as the frame reshapes—sleek metal unfolding like mechanical origami. 

A faint click. 

Then glow.

Cold, blue light floods the room. 

She keeps it dim. 

Mutes the sound. 

She doesn't want them hearing.

Her fingers hover, then type.

Tessa Kite.

Search.

Polished headshots—each stamped with the name Tessa Kite, but none of them looked the same.
Different faces. 

Different eras. 

Different eyes.

A freckled girl with a nervous smile.
A woman with platinum hair and a scar just under her jaw.
A soft-faced boy in a lab coat, barely older than a student.
A collage of strangers wearing the same name like a borrowed coat.

She scrolls.

Blurred name tags. 

Redacted affiliations.

A technical paper she definitely didn't write—"Override Protocol Ethics in Neuromorphic Clones"—published under a name that was never hers to begin with.

And there, at the bottom of the page:

Author: Dr. Tessa Kite

The names throb behind her eyes.

Not faces. Not people.
Just placeholders trying to survive.

How many wore the name Tessa Kite like a disguise?

How many walked inside a lie they didn't choose—and couldn't escape?

She scrolls faster, but it doesn't help.

Fixers. 

Runaways. 

Ghosts.

None of them her.

Maybe all of them.

Maybe that's what the name was always meant to be —a corpse no one remembers burying.

She exhales, slow and hollow, then opens the private browser. 

Not one of them was her.

But somehow, they all were.

/initiate.anonymode
/reroute: mirror cities
/bypass: TeppenNet index

She's good at this part—digging through rot. But even she doesn't expect what she finds:

[THREAD TITLE: "Why does every corpse with this chip end up named Tessa Kite?"]
Subforum: .teppensink/theory.drain
Status: INACTIVE // Replies: 10 // Last Post: 8 years ago

⸻

u/GutterGod88
[Original Post | +196]

Alright, I know this sounds like conspiracy garbage, but hear me out:

I've tracked six death reports across different regions—Shigure, South Kazei, Oraku, even one from the floating markets off Arkbay.

Different bodies.
Different genders.
All tagged with the name "Tessa Kite."

The worst part? Half of them had other names on file. Real names. But the system overrode it. Burned through it like static.

Each death logged with a ghost-chip signature. Serial prefix: K1-T3.

⸻

u/Byte_Feral
[+89]

LMAO Tessa Kite is just a corpo alias stamp. Like a generic template. It's not a person. It's filler data.

When the system can't verify you, it defaults to whatever profile's burned deepest into the archive.

You probably just cracked the equivalent of SWARM lorem ipsum.

⸻

u/sp1llgrl
[+110]

No, I've heard of this. Not in the mainstream net, but in the street clinics.

A guy I dated used to run body scrubs for scanner bypass chips. Said there was one chip he refused to touch.

Called it "the ghost key."

Said everyone who got it started glitching in their sleep. Talking like someone else. Waking up crying without knowing why. Paranoid. Hallucinating. Some forgot their names. A few tried to rip it out themselves.

When the bodies showed up, guess what name was logged in the ID registry every time?

Tessa. Kite

⸻

A long-dead forum. Buried in the bones of the undernet. 

Some posts redacted. 

Usernames scrambled. 

Dead chatter. 

Half-conspiracy, half-confession. And one broken link.

Or maybe not broken.

u/SepsisMoth

[+180 | LINKED POST]

Found this buried in an archived thread from a few tears back. Looks like a login portal from an old SWARM relay node. Still live, somehow.
Posting for curiosity's sake:

SWARM_INDEX://undernet//log.in

If anyone here is brave—or stupid—enough to try it, let us know what happens.

[Thread marked with community flag: HIGH STRANGENESS]

[Moderator Warning: DO NOT engage with unverified SWARM links unless operating from sandboxed hardware. Past users have reported system crashes, seizure loops, and digital tagging.]

⸻

SWARM_INDEX://undernet://log.in

Her hands hover.

Then click.

The screen goes black. 

No logo. 

No prompt. 

Just a blinking cursor.

Her pulse stutters.

And then—

her fingers move.

Not entirely hers.

They glide across the keys with eerie precision, muscle memory that doesn't belong to her.

Each motion smooth, practiced.

Like someone else is reaching through her skin — someone who's done this a hundred times before.

User ID: 10412002069
Password: ***********

The second she hits enter, the chip in her neck pulses.

Not just a twinge — an electric spike through her spine.

The front cam blinks red.

Retinal scan confirmed.
ACCESS GRANTED.
Welcome back, Lyran.

That name.

It hits like ice water.

Folders bloom across the screen like infection.

//CHORUS.PROTOCOLS//
//LYRAN.OPERATIVE//
//GEN1:ASSET.DEGRADATION//
//MET_SONATA_VIOLATIONS//

Her breath hitches.

Then a new file opens.

On its own.

AUTO-RETRIEVE: VESSEL.ARCHIVE > LYRN_001A

She didn't click anything.

The chip thrums again.

Not pain.

Recognition.

The holopad brightens—white and flickering, alive like it's remembering itself. 

Her earpiece hums. 

She didn't put it in, but the voice is already there.

"Vocal alignment pending. Thoughtwave latency within acceptable range."

Her mouth goes dry.

A chime plays — sickly sweet. Like a nursery rhyme warped in a heatwave.

Then static.

And then — not memory, not dream — but collision.

A hand on her back.

"Under the bed," her father whispers.

Boots thunder down the hall.

Metal slams into wood.

Someone shouts her name.

She presses herself into the dark, chest shuddering, as the door explodes inward.
No trial. 

No mercy.

Only the last thing her father ever told her:

"Don't ever let them make you forget who you are."

The system voice mutters:
"Synchronization at 47%."

Tessa gasps, grounding herself — but the past drags her under again.

A pleated uniform.

A fake smile.

Her face printed on Youth Initiative posters.

Her mouth reciting words she didn't write.

Puppet.

Marionette.

Symbol.

The Prime Minister's stepdaughter.

Not his daughter by blood.

The real blood ran in her veins from Han Jae-Woo — the man who died for speaking out.

A screen flickers in her mind:
Project SYMPHONY.

Encrypted files opening.

Human trials.

Neural rewrites.

Override tech.

Not history. Blueprints.

And stamped at the bottom of every file?

Authorization:

Yoon Jong-Shin.

The cursor on her holopad blinks.

The countdown starts.

RE-ALIGNMENT IN: 04:59

Another memory shatters against her ribs:

The study door cracked open.

Voices leaking out:

"We'll proceed with the girl. Ideal candidate for Project SYMPHONY."

"She's useless."

"She's broken."

"She's disposable."

Tessa claws at the desk, heart hammering.

The override sequence tightening in her skull like a vice.

The voice is still whispering.

"Fix her."

She sees herself slipping down the hall that night.

Not crying.

Not afraid.

Just burning.

She dug out the hard drive.

Her father's last message sealed in encrypted code.

His final rebellion.

And she became the match.

Uploading files.

Burning everything.

Leaks exploding across Mujin's firewalls.

Riot smoke.

Glass breaking.

Sirens wailing.

Within forty-eight hours: Prime Minister Yoon Jong-Shin — dead.

The system that tried to erase her — fractured.

And Yoon Jong-Ri?

Erased herself.

Became no one.

Became Tessa Kite.

Tessa jerks back.

The screen follows.

Text spills like a wound reopening.

YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO FORGET.
INITIATING MEMORY RESTORATION SEQUENCE...

The display splits.

New window. 

Surveillance footage—grainy, green-filtered. 

A sterile hallway stretches ahead under humming lights. 

The angle shifts—first-person. 

A girl walks stiffly beneath the fluorescents, her arms held just too still, her stride mechanical.

It's not Tessa's eyes. 

Not her voice. 

Not her face.

But the movements feel familiar.

Uncannily so.

Because that isn't her.

That's Lyran.

The original "Tessa Kite".

"Override stable. Emotional resistance: suppressed. Loyalty metrics: satisfactory."

She tries to close the pad.

It doesn't respond.

"You're already home," the system whispers.

And then—bottom-right corner. 

A new line. 

Blinking red.

RE-ALIGNMENT IN: 04:59

Tessa stumbles back, chair scraping. 

The screen won't dim. 

The interface chases her gaze. 

Cold light bathing her skin like a second sun.

Inside, something is shifting.

Something not hers.

After Mujin killed her father, she bent herself into a shape they wouldn't erase. Smiled when they told her to. Stood straight in Youth Initiative posters. Recited their lies with perfect clarity.

All so she could survive.

So they wouldn't kill her.

But in the end, they tried anyway.

And she burned it all down to stop them.

She leaked every secret.

Tore her stepfather's empire apart.

Just to stay herself.

But this?

This chip doesn't erase her.

It rewrites her.

Line by line. 

Memory by memory.

And now she finally understands what the clinic tech wouldn't say out loud:

She's not the first.

The chip inside her had been somewhere else. 

In someone else. 

Maybe more than once. 

Who knows how many bodies it's burned through. 

One was a dead man in Akagane. 

Early thirties. 

No ID. 

No listed cause of death. 

Just a body bag that refused to stay cold. 

A corpse that twitched. 

Seized. 

Stirred—like something inside him still had unfinished business.

And when the sync failed—when the voice in his skull didn't match the shape of his thoughts—

He put a pulsecore revolver to his temple and pulled the trigger.

And now the chip has found her.

What seemed to be a second chance at a new life—turned out to be a second chance at a new death.

A quieter one. 

Cleaner. 

No blood. 

No fire. 

Just a slow replacement. 

A soft erasure. 

Something that smiles with her lips and walks with her legs and answers to a name that was never hers.

Lyran doesn't want a body.

She wants a second act.

And Tessa?

She was just the vessel left unlocked.

RE-ALIGNMENT IN: 02:13

She grips the edge of the desk, knuckles white.

She's not ready to disappear again.

Not like this.

Lyran's voice echoes again in her head, mechanical and certain:

"Synchronization at 48%."

She wants to scream.

But her mouth won't move.

She whispers her father's name.

Not to stop it.

Just to remember.

The timer blinks down.

RE-ALIGNMENT IN: 01:19