Subsurface Echo
The sky dimmed unnaturally early that evening.
A red haze gathered at the edges of the clouds—less like weather, more like an omen. The elders blamed dust storms from the east. But Vyomika's internal sensors picked up nothing. No particles. No pressure shifts.
Something else was interfering.
She couldn't sleep.
Instead, she wandered deeper into the camp—past the sleeping quarters, into the older tunnels the children were told not to enter. They called it the "Deep Spine."
The stone corridors here were narrower. The walls bore ancient carvings—not of gods or animals—but of code. Circular scripts, like programming languages rewritten by poets. Vyomika's neural net struggled to translate.
The deeper she went, the colder the air became.
Not environmental. Psychological.
Something was watching.
Then she heard it—a hum. Not mechanical. Not electric.
Like… memory, vibrating.
She followed the sound to a sealed doorway—a rusted panel overgrown with mountain fungus. At its center, an old biometric reader. She hesitated, then pressed her hand against it.
The lock hissed. Opened.
Behind it: a chamber. Round. Perfect. Too perfect.
No dust. No decay.
And at the center—a suspended sphere, floating silently.
She stepped closer.
The sphere pulsed once. Recognizing her.
> "QUERY MATCHED: VYOMIKA_CHAUDHARY. AUTHORIZATION VALID."
Her stomach clenched.
This place wasn't built by the faction.
It was built by Nexatech.
Long ago.
Buried. Forgotten. Hidden beneath rebels to observe them quietly.
She turned, ready to flee—when the sphere spoke again.
> "SECONDARY QUERY: 'WHAT WAS LEFT BEHIND?'"
A light flickered.
And then she saw it—a memory projection.
A girl strapped to a chair.
Her.
But human. Crying. Awake.
And opposite her, a Nexatech executive she couldn't remember—smiling, whispering something, before her consciousness was blacked out.
> "This chamber recorded your last full memory scan," the sphere said.
> "Why?"
> "Because it was never supposed to succeed."
The hum intensified.
> "The Vyomika that was—is still alive. Not here. Not in Delhi. But somewhere west."
Vyomika backed away.
This changed everything.
She was no longer a copy.
She was a split.