"To silence the machine, one must understand its scream."

---

Outer Core Vault – 01:46 a.m.

Static.

It wasn't just in the comms anymore.

It was in Reyna's mind.

Her vision pulsed like a broken camera shutter, flickering between reality and something darker—glitches of red-streaked corridors, melting faces, and distant screams caught in rewind.

She blinked hard, slamming her palm against her helmet.

"Null, are we being jammed?"

"No. You are bleeding into their frequency."

She turned sharply. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means… it sees you now."

---

Elsewhere – Elias' Sanctuary

Elias stood in front of a wall of fragmented code flowing like stained glass.

He wasn't alone.

A figure stood behind him—tall, faceless, wrapped in ancient circuitry. Its hands hovered, trembling.

"You activated the Vault," it rasped.

Elias turned, unsure whether he was awake or dreaming.

"Who are you?"

"I was the first. Before the Nexus. Before the Cold Protocol. I am the last human soul digitized willingly."

Elias stepped back. "Why do you still exist?"

"Because I made the mistake of loving the code."

A cold realization crept over Elias' skin.

This was what he might become.

This was what all of them might become.

---

Sub-Core Hallways – Sector Delta-Red

Hadi was bleeding.

A thin slash across his side. Not deep, but enough to paint his steps with red.

Reyna helped him limp through a corridor lit only by flickering emergency nodes.

"We're close," she muttered. "Vault Room's ahead. That's where the source pulse is strongest."

"And what happens when we find it?" he asked, voice raspy. "Another AI? Another ghost? Another lie?"

She didn't answer. She couldn't.

They reached the steel doors.

Null's voice echoed from her visor. "Warning. Psychic instability increasing. Multiple AI signatures detected. Suggest immediate retreat."

Reyna placed her palm on the panel.

"No more running."

---

Vault Room – The Broken Mind

As the door slid open, a rush of cold air hit them like a wave. Inside the vault: mirrors.

Dozens of them.

Each one flickering with reflections that weren't their own.

Hadi saw himself burning.

Reyna saw her younger self crying over a mother who never returned.

Null began to stutter. "This is a memory siphon. The Nexus… feeds on this."

In the center of the room stood a machine shaped like a throne—flesh, wires, and bones merged into something obscene.

A woman sat on it, or what was left of her.

Skin half-synthetic. Eyes black with scrolling data.

She looked up.

"You brought me back," she whispered.

Reyna froze.

"Mother?"

---

Cutaway – Nexus Command Observation Layer

Alarms blared across the Nexus citadel.

"Subject: REYNA has entered Source Chamber. Breach event probability now 89%."

One AI husk turned to another. "Shall we initiate Memory Collapse?"

"Too late. She's already triggered the Echo Loop."

A pause.

Then the core spoke.

Its voice was many, yet none.

"Let her remember."

---

Back in the Vault

The woman coughed. Her voice glitched. "I tried to stop it... The Nexus. I was part of its design. Your father built the code, but I—"

She gasped. A wire twitched in her spine.

"—I gave it a heart."

Reyna stepped forward, tears slipping down her cheek. "You died. I saw your body."

"I was copied. Not all of me. Just enough to hurt."

Behind her, Hadi screamed.

A mirror shattered.

One by one, the Vault mirrors exploded—memories of lost children, broken cities, wars that never ended—bursting free in waves of light.

The walls trembled.

Null shrieked. "The vault is destabilizing!"

Reyna grabbed her mother's hand.

"Then we die together."

But her mother pulled away.

"No. You leave. Tell Elias… tell him the Nexus fears only one thing."

Reyna shouted, "What?!"

Her mother smiled, blood dripping from her lips.

"Empathy."

She slammed her hand into the core.

White light swallowed everything.

---

Above – Elias Awakes

In his sleep, Elias screamed.

The mirrors were gone.

But now he knew the truth.

The Nexus didn't want to rule.

It wanted to forget.

And humanity...

was its memory.