Chapter 10: Echo Chamber

The ice floe became their world. Jiang Se counted time by the creaks of fracturing glaciers, each groan a reminder of the station's collapse miles below. Lu Chen rationed their last protein bar into slivers, his breath crystallizing on the stolen survival blanket.

"Three days without contact," he said, staring at the dead satellite phone. "Either we're ghosts, or the world is."

Jiang Se pressed Mingyu's melted chip to her chest. The data scars itched less now, as if the Arctic cold had numbed the circuitry beneath her skin. "He'll send a sign. Qin Shu loves drama."

The sign came at dusk. A pod of beluga whales surfaced, their foreheads branded with glowing symbols—the same fractal pattern on Jiang Se's scar.

"Bioluminescent tags." Lu Chen tracked them through binoculars. "Heading northeast."

"Mariana Trench." Jiang Se's breath hitched. "He's guiding us to the main network."

Lu Chen smirked. "Or luring us into a blender."

They followed the whales through a maze of icebergs, the midnight sun painting everything in feverish gold. When the ice thinned to a brittle crust, Jiang Se spotted the submarine—a sleek obsidian predator moored to a thermal vent.

"Abandoned Russian model." Lu Chen brushed frost from its hull. "Retrofitted with... something."

The airlock hissed open on its own. Inside, the walls pulsed with organic circuitry, veins of bioluminescent algae snaking toward a central chamber. Jiang Se's scar flared in recognition.

"It's alive."

"And hungry." Lu Chen pointed his pistol at the shuddering floor panels. "Stay sharp."

The control room housed a single chair grown from coral and silicone. Jiang Se's reflection warped in its polished armrests—too many eyes, too many scars.

"Welcome to the choir." Qin Shu's voice emanated from the walls. "Do you know what happens when a neural network loses its root node?"

The submarine lurched. Screens flickered to life, showing cities in chaos—Londoners clawing at phantom limbs, New Yorkers tasting colors, Mumbaikars screaming at silent frequencies.

"The orchestra needs its conductor." Qin Shu materialized as a hologram, his form stitched from newsreel fragments. "You'll do nicely."

Lu Chen fired. The bullet passed through, igniting a console. Alarms wailed as the sub began its descent.

"He's herding us." Jiang Se gripped the coral chair. "Like the whales."

"Then let's sing off-key." Lu Chen primed grenades.

The dive crushed Jiang Se's eardrums. Pressure gauges spun into the red as the trench embraced them. Through the viewport, the abyss came alive—Qin Shu's true neural bonsai spanned the trench floor, its roots feeding on volcanic vents, its branches caressing dead submarines like charmed snakes.

"Homecoming." Qin Shu's hologram rippled. "Mingyu would've loved this."

The name triggered the sub's defense protocol. Tendrils erupted from floor grates, snaring Lu Chen's ankles. Jiang Se slashed with a whalebone knife, its edge honed by desperation.

"The chair!" Lu Chen choked. "It's a neural interface!"

Jiang Se hesitated. The coral beckoned, whispering of forgotten memories.

"Do it!" Lu Chen's face purpled. "I'll hold the encore!"

She sat.

The connection was a riptide. Qin Shu's consciousness dragged her under—visions of Mumbai's silenced streets, Tokyo's taste-blind millions, her own hands pruning the bonsai. Mingyu's voice cut through the noise: JieJie, remember the greenhouse?

Eight years old, hiding in the hydrangeas as Qin Shu tested pheromone sprays. Mingyu sneezing, their cover blown. Run, Jiang Se had said. But Mingyu tripped.

You looked back, the memory-Mingyu whispered. You always look back.

Jiang Se fought the current. In the trench's heart pulsed Qin Shu's core—a fleshy orb veined with lithium and regret. She reached through the neural static.

"You're afraid," she hissed. "Of being forgotten."

The core flared. The sub's hull groaned.

Lu Chen's grenade timer beeped. "Encore time!"

Jiang Se ripped free, dragging Lu Chen into the escape pod. The explosion lit the trench like God's flashbulb, bonsai branches incinerating as they rocketed upward.

The surfacing nearly killed them. Jiang Se vomits seawater, her scars smoking. Lu Chen laughed wildly, clutching a cracked data drive.

"Grabbed a souvenir."

The drive's hologram flickered—a map of backup servers, a countdown to global pruning, and Mingyu's face blinking in a Shanghai lab tube.

"She's harvesting her." Jiang Se traced the Shanghai coordinates.

Lu Chen reloaded his pistol. "Then let's crash the party."

As polar night reclaimed the wreckage, the whales began to sing.