Chapter 13: Echoes in the Quiet

The room was dark, save for the low amber glow of the standby sensors.

Fenrir slept beside her—if it could be called sleep. His systems powered down just enough for rest-mode to kick in, his frame heavy and still, breath measured in synthetic rhythm.

But Elira lay awake.

Her optic lenses were dimmed, her face turned toward the ceiling, but her mind pulsed with… something.

A flash.Metal walls. Voices arguing.A whisper behind her optic lens.Something about recalibration.

Then another.

Pain in her spine.Heat.Words from a voice she couldn't name—calm, cold, terrifying.

She blinked hard.

They were just… nightmares.

That was the human term, wasn't it?

Her chestplate throbbed again, a low pulsing in her upper casing. Elira touched it gently, confused. The rhythm was light. Insistent. Almost like…

A heartbeat.

But not her power core. It was localized, higher up, where the resonance coils met her memory array.

The humans called it fluttering.Emotion-induced turbulence.

Impossible.

She slid out of the bed silently, leaving Fenrir undisturbed, and walked to her console.

Diagnostic Silence

Initiating self-diagnostic.Neural integrity: 100%Emotion buffer: StableMemory Archive: No corruptionBiochemical Interface: Nominal

Nothing.

No glitches. No anomalies. Not even stray command packets.

She stared at the screen, her fingers flexing against the edge of the desk.

"Must be… cross-linked feedback," she whispered aloud, though she wasn't convinced.

A side effect of shared rest cycles with another Servitor, perhaps. Or maybe an afterimage from combat field tests.

Or maybe—something else.

She shut the diagnostic down.

"It's nothing."

But just as she turned back toward the bed—

Ping.

A new message lit up on her private channel.

It bypassed standard command routing.No sender listed.No signature.

"Come to Sublevel -4. Immediately. Use west shaft. No logs. Do not bring anyone."

Elira stared at it. The glow of the message illuminated her unreadable expression.

Fenrir's breath continued in the background, slow and unaware.

She hesitated.

Should she wake him?

Tell him?

He wouldn't let her go alone. He never did.He would insist. He would protect.

She stepped back from the console, torn between protocol and trust, between logic and this thing fluttering under her chestplate like trapped current.

Her fingers hovered near the bedside screen.One word from her, and he would be beside her.

But then—Another flash.

Sudden. Violent.

Dark room. Two figures."You're blocking a valuable asset, Dray.""We don't have enough control yet—"

Her knees buckled.

She dropped to the floor, gasping silently, motor tension seizing across her limbs. Her vision stuttered. She clutched at her head, eyes wide but unfocused.

It wasn't a nightmare.It was real.

And it had happened to her.

As the episode passed, her systems slowly stabilized. The memory vanished behind a firewall again—but the fear remained.

Not fear of the unknown.

Fear of what she already knew, and had been made to forget.

She stood.

Her decision was made.

No logs. No escort. No Fenrir.

Just her.And the truth waiting in Sublevel -4.