Chapter 22: Echo Code

Talia didn't tell Lucas where she was going.

She left early—before the Gravemarch skyline could shake off its polluted fog—and boarded a private shuttle using an ID she hadn't touched in years. Not since she'd locked it away, deep in a file labeled "Never again."

The destination wasn't far, but it felt like traveling backward in time.

The Corven District had once been a research hub, humming with biotech labs, universities, and corporate think tanks. Now it was a graveyard of shuttered buildings and echoing metal.

At the edge of the district stood a squat bunker sealed behind decaying solar panels and an obsolete facial scan.

Talia stood before the rusted door.

"I shouldn't be here," she muttered.

But her fingers moved anyway—typing in a ten-digit code she hadn't used since she was thirteen.

The door hissed open.

Inside the Past

The air inside was stale, like old tea and broken memories.

Walls lined with stacked books and datapads surrounded a circular room lit only by two flickering lamps and a humming wall screen.

At its center sat a woman—skin thin, hair wild, wrapped in a lab coat that hadn't seen sunlight in years.

She looked up slowly.

And smiled.

"So… you remembered."

Mother and Memory

"Hello, Mother," Talia said, voice tighter than intended.

Dr. Selene West rose slowly. "You were always the quiet one. I wondered if the silence meant you were forgetting. Or hearing too much."

Talia didn't respond.

Selene turned toward a workbench cluttered with Hive shards—small fragments of old cult tech once recovered by government teams and later hidden by rogue researchers.

"Why now?" Selene asked, picking up a thin chip etched with dark symbols. "You said you never wanted to come back."

"I need answers," Talia replied. "About the Hive. About Mike Callahan."

The name made her mother freeze.

"So the rumors were true," she said quietly. "They reactivated the Echo."

The Echo Project

Selene typed rapidly into a dusty console. Screens lit up with ancient logs, encryption layers falling one by one as if they remembered her touch.

"Years ago," she began, "the agency found a child near a Hive ruin. Not infected. Not consumed. Just… awake. His mind resonated with dormant Hive frequencies—unlike anything we'd seen. He didn't react to fear the way other children did. He responded to memory."

Talia leaned closer. "And they used him?"

Selene's eyes hardened. "They called him Subject M117. Echo-class potential. Your father… he wanted to dissect him. I wanted to understand him. But they wiped everything. They called it Operation Dawnexile."

The Personal Log

Talia watched as her mother pulled a data crystal from beneath her shirt—a chain wrapped through the crystal like it was religious.

"I stole this the night I fled. It's all I could save."

The log flickered to life.

A younger Selene appeared, speaking into the camera.

"Test 91. Subject M117 shows accelerated synaptic development after exposure to Hive echo code. Emotional response is… absent. Memory threads align with Flamebearer lineage. Possibility: he is a vessel, not a victim."

"We are no longer observing a child. We are observing a construct."

The log cut out.

The Pulse

Talia stepped back, shaken.

Her mother didn't move.

"They built him."

Selene shook her head. "No. They didn't build him. They found him. And they didn't know what they found."

The room suddenly shook—a low vibration rippling through the walls.

The Hive tech fragments on the shelves began to pulse in unison.

Selene turned sharply. "He's using the Echo again. He must be close."

Talia's skin prickled.

A faint whisper echoed in the back of her mind—softer than Mike's connection, but there.

"Do you hear it?" Selene asked gently.

Talia closed her eyes.

And nodded.

One Last Truth

Before she left, Talia stood in the doorway.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Selene looked tired.

"Because if you knew what he was… you'd be forced to choose between being his friend… or stopping him."

Talia didn't answer.

But her silence said everything.