Chapter 7: Echoes in the Smoke

Part 2 – Ghost in the Circuit

(Sometimes the past is a chain. Sometimes, it’s a sword. And sometimes, it hijacks your entire world just to whisper: “I remember you.”)

Interior – The Bunker Lab, 10:17 AM

Manners hadn’t slept.

Wires trailed like veins across the room. The AI core hummed in deep pulses, its synthetic neural threads spooling into silent anticipation. Code danced across the display, a glowing storm of logic and ambition.

Ø  MANNERS (rubbing his face): “Almost… there…”

He adjusted the primary visual node, cross-linked the memory buffering, and rerouted the simulation delay clock.

Ø  LAYLA (walking in, yawning): “You still alive?”

Ø  MANNERS: “Barely. But I think I cracked it.”

She looked at the screen. A wireframe model of Tom fought three AI enemies at once — ducking, countering, improving with each sequence.

Ø  LAYLA: “It’s learning?”

Ø  MANNERS (grinning): “Not just learning. It’s remembering. I finally got it to record enemy patterns. Soon Tom can train against any opponent—real or virtual.”

Ø  LAYLA: “That’s... incredible.”

Ø  MANNERS: “Don’t tell him. Let him be surprised. Like a birthday gift. With violence.”

Interior – Training Room, Later

Tom stood in the center of the mat, dressed in a sleeveless compression shirt. Scarred, solid, focused.

Across from him—Layla, in training gear.

Ø  TOM: “Ready?”

Ø  LAYLA (tightens gloves): “Born ready.”

They circled.

Tom came in low, feinted, then grabbed her wrist and gently flipped her onto her back.

Ø  TOM (holding out a hand): “Never trust the first move.”

Ø  LAYLA (grinning up at him): “Says the man who took a knife to the ribs.”

He smirked.

They went again. And again.

Layla was quick. Tom had to work harder than he expected. She learned fast. Used her speed. Her unpredictability.

Ø  TOM (breathing hard): “You fight different than anyone I’ve seen.”

Ø  LAYLA: “Because I’m not trying to win. I’m trying to make you think.”

They clashed again.

And this time—she threw him.

Interior – Command Center, Afternoon

The three of them stood together. Tom had a towel around his neck. Layla sipped from a water bottle. Manners typed at his station.

Ø  MANNERS: “Okay, moment of truth. I’m loading the first live AI integration—enemy pattern from your last rooftop fight.”

He hit Enter.

The screen flickered.

Then went black.

Ø  TOM: “That’s not right.”

Ø  MANNERS: “No, it’s not. That’s—”

The screen came back—but not as a simulation.

A masked face filled the display.

The voice that came through was calm, deliberate—muffled by a voice modulator that carried venom in every syllable.

Ø  MASKED MAN: “Hello, Tom. Or should I say… ghost?”

The room froze.

Ø  LAYLA (whispers): “What the hell is this?”

Ø  MASKED MAN (cont’d): “You left us. But I didn’t die. I remember every second you forgot.”

Manners slammed at the controls.

Ø  MANNERS: “It’s not connected to anything local—I can’t kill the feed.”

Ø  MASKED MAN: “I wanted to see your eyes again. Just to make sure you were still breathing.”

The screen glitched—and was suddenly filled with footage.

Of Tom.

Bound. Bloodied. Screaming.

His voice echoed from hidden cameras. Guards circled him like vultures. Torture. Humiliation. Weeks of it.

Ø  LAYLA (quiet, horrified): “Tom…”

Tom’s face didn’t move. But his fists clenched.

Ø  MASKED MAN (voice overlay): “Look at what made you. Look at what you forgot.”

The footage looped. Again. Again.

Ø  TOM (through teeth): “Stop it.”

Ø  MASKED MAN: “I am your shadow. I am the one you left behind. And I will correct you.”

The feed cut to static.

Ø  LAYLA (furious): “I’m going to kill him.”

Ø  MANNERS (shaken): “I don’t know how he accessed us. This wasn’t just a broadcast—it was surgical. He knew our channels.”

Ø  TOM (cold): “He wanted me to see that.”

Ø  LAYLA: “He wants to break you.”

Ø  TOM: “No. He wants me to become him.”

Tom stepped away from the console and walked to the far side of the room. Alone.

He touched his mask.

Ø  TOM (whispers): “Not yet.”

Chapter 7: Echoes in the Smoke

Part 3 – Remnant vs. Himself

(The city goes quiet. But inside the mask… a war rages. Not fists. Not blades. Just truth. And the kind of pain you can’t punch through.)

Interior – Bunker, 3:10 AM

The lights were dim.

The footage was gone from the monitors. The signal wiped.

But the echoes—they stayed.

Tom sat alone in the training room. On the floor. Cross-legged. His armor off, only a compression shirt and sweatpants. A ghost in waiting.

Ø  TOM (softly): “You were there longer. You suffered more. But I escaped.”

He clenched his jaw.

His mask sat beside him on the ground, still glowing faintly. Watching.

Across the room, Layla and Manners whispered at the main terminal—hunting digital trails, cross-checking frequencies, re-routing comms.

Ø  LAYLA (frustrated): “Every lead just vanishes. Like he wants us to chase nothing.”

Ø  MANNERS: “It’s surgical. Whoever sent that feed—he didn’t just hack us. He understood us.”

Interior – Simulation Room – Active Neural Dive Mode

Tom had loaded something else now. A deeper protocol Manners once warned him about.

AI-Pulse Simulation: Self-Reconstruction Mode

Ø  AI VOICE: “Caution: Entering psychological simulation without moderator support.”

Ø  TOM: “Do it.”

The room darkened.

Then the world… shifted.

Simulated Interior – The Cage

Tom was back.

The metal walls. The stench. The flickering light. That same damn chair—bloodied and bolted to the ground.

Chains rattled.

He stood in the center of it now—watching himself.

Bound. Broken. Screaming.

Ø  PAST-TOM (screaming): “Please… stop… please—”

Ø  CURRENT-TOM (staring): “I remember now.”

Ø  VOICE (O.S.): “Do you?”

Tom turned.

Another version of himself stepped out from the dark. Same face. Same eyes. But colder. The suit darker. The mask twisted, almost skull-like.

Ø  DARK-TOM: “You survived. But you didn’t escape.”

Ø  TOM: “I moved on.”

Ø  DARK-TOM: “You buried it. Under anger. Under vengeance. Under Layla. You wear the mask to hide from this.”

Ø  TOM: “I wear it so I don’t forget.”

The darker version walked around him, slow.

Ø  DARK-TOM: “You hesitate. You still hope. That’s your flaw.”

Tom clenched his fists.

Ø  TOM: “And you… you’re what happens if I stop hoping.”

Ø  DARK-TOM (grins): “Exactly. And you know what? If you ever let go... I win.”

Ø  TOM (quietly): “Not tonight.”

They fought.

It wasn’t fists—it was willpower. Every memory hit him like a fist: screams, bones breaking, friends dying, the silence when he was left alone.

But in the middle of it all… he stood up.

And the other version… began to fade.

Ø  TOM: “I don’t forget what happened. But I’m not just this. I’m more than the pain. I have to be.”

Ø  DARK-TOM (fading): “We’ll see.”

Interior – Bunker, Morning

Tom emerged from the simulation chamber, soaked in sweat.

Layla was asleep at her desk. Manners still scrolling through data streams.

Tom walked over to the screen.

Ø  TOM (soft): “Find him?”

Manners didn’t look up.

Ø  MANNERS: “One possible trace. A silent apartment hub, rerouted through six proxies. Might be a trap.”

Ø  TOM: “Good.”

Layla stirred.

Ø  LAYLA: “Where’d you go?”

Ø  TOM: “Inside.”

Ø  LAYLA: “What did you find?”

Tom picked up his mask and stared at it.

Ø  TOM: “I’m still me.”

Chapter 7: Echoes in the Smoke

Part 4 – The Broken One

(What happens when you survive the fire… but never leave it? Caleb didn’t escape the nightmare. He became it.)

Interior – Flashback: The Facility, Years Ago

Cold walls. White lights. Screams behind soundproof doors.

Caleb was chained to the floor.

Blood pooled beneath him. Not all of it his.

The guards had grown bolder after Tom escaped. Less cautious. More cruel.

Ø  GUARD 1 (laughing): “Looks like your friend left you behind.”

Ø  GUARD 2: “Maybe we should leave something on him. A reminder.”

The whip cracked across Caleb’s back again.

And again.

He didn’t scream anymore. He didn’t cry. He just stared—eyes glazed over, face hollow.

Interior – Cellblock, One Week Later

He’d gone three days without food.

Then they gave him a choice.

Ø  DOCTOR: “We’ll give you strength. But you’ll do as we say.”

Ø  CALEB: “Who do I have to kill?”

They brought them in—other captives. People who knew too much. People no one would miss.

Caleb obeyed.

The first was an old man who whispered prayers even as Caleb strangled him.

The second was a woman who begged.

By the fifth, he’d stopped remembering their names.

Interior – Isolation Cell, Two Months Later

He carved marks into the wall. Notches for every kill.

There were thirty-seven.

But it was the twentieth that haunted him.

He knew the man. A fellow soldier. One of the few who used to smile at him. They’d trained together. Laughed.

And Caleb had stabbed him in the throat with a jagged spoon.

Ø  CALEB (to himself): “He got out. He left. Why didn’t I?”

He looked in the cracked mirror.

His face was gaunt. Beard patchy. Scarred eye half-blind.

But worse was what lived behind his stare.

Interior – Present Day – Hidden Training Hall

A dark, cold warehouse, deep under the city. A private gym of brutality.

Caleb stood shirtless, muscles coiled, sweat gleaming on his skin. Scars trailed down his back like a story no one wanted to hear.

In front of him—dummies. Reinforced. Armored. Lifelike.

He gripped a metal staff.

And swung.

CRACK.

The dummy’s chest split open.

He spun, flipped it in the air, brought it down like a thunderbolt on another.

Ø  CALEB (snarling): “Faster.”

He moved through them like a storm—striking with precision, rage, and silence.

Each hit followed by a breath. A memory. A name.

Tom.

Tom.

Tom.

He stopped.

Knees trembling. Breathing ragged.

He looked down at the cracked dummy torso he’d just shattered.

Ø  Masked man (quietly): “You left me. And now they’ll see what that made me.”

Interior – Control Room, Above the Gym

Tammy leaned against the glass, watching.

Red lights flickered along the walls. Surveillance. Command systems. All feeding Vance.

Tammy smirked as she saw Caleb wipe blood from his palms.

Ø  TAMMY (to herself): “My father should hear about him.”

She tapped her comm bead and walked away, hips swaying, vanishing into shadow.

Ø  TAMMY: “Goodbye, Caleb. Keep bleeding.”