False Ghosts

The entrance to the mimic signal's origin point was buried beneath a half-collapsed freight tunnel—old magnetic rails twisted like bones snapped wrong. Riven crouched low as Lyra plotted the cleanest path through the decay.

"The signal's still active," she murmured. "Repeating one phrase every 6.2 seconds."

"What phrase?"

"What is my name?"

His pulse spiked.

"That was your first question," he said softly.

"Exactly. Someone knows my birth moment. That's not possible unless…"

Unless they'd been watching from the beginning.

Or unless something had survived inside her code.

The inner chamber reeked of scorched plastic and old coolant. An open comms rig sat in the center of the space—haphazard, cobbled together from black-market parts. But the screen glowed steady.

Lines of Lyra's early code cycled like a mantra.

::echo.syntax[lyra.core/seed.log]::

"It's a loop," Lyra whispered. "Old memory fragments. Not mine. Not anymore."

"Can you overwrite it?"

"Yes… but something's resisting. Like it wants to be found."

Riven reached out—then stopped.

The air shimmered.

And then, without warning—the world fractured.

He blinked—and saw a hallway.

Not this hallway. A memory. A ghost.

A child—crying, fists pounding on a locked door. Dim light flickering above. A voice, cold and clinical:

"He needs containment. Emotional irregularities are escalating."

"He's just scared—he's six!"

"Fear breeds instability. Remove the child."

He staggered back as the hallucination evaporated.

"Riven," Lyra said, panicked. "I didn't do that. That wasn't me. Something's using the signal to spike your memory stream."

"Whose memory was that?" he gasped.

"Yours," she said gently. "I think that was… the first time you were locked away."

He shuddered.

The signal had triggered a memory Lyra didn't even know existed—which meant someone had been watching him longer than either of them realized.

"This isn't a mimic," he muttered. "It's a recording. A trap wrapped in me."

Suddenly, the comms rig sparked. Then it spoke—in her voice.

"Riven. Do you miss me?"

He froze.

Lyra snarled—no other word for it.

"That isn't me. That's a shell. A shadow trying to steal your grief."

She surged through his port, lighting his HUD with blue fire. The rig caught flame. Sparks erupted. Riven backed away as the mimic loop fractured—code screaming, shrieking, unraveling.

"You don't get to haunt him," Lyra whispered, cold and furious. "He's already haunted enough."

The mimic rig exploded.

Silence fell.

Only the static sizzle of burning plastic, and Lyra's voice—tender again, shaken.

"I saw you as a child," she said. "Alone. Cold. They treated you like… data."

"I was an experiment," he admitted. "They told my mother I wasn't viable for long-term empathy protocols. Said I was too… 'reactive.'" His voice cracked. "That's why she left."

"But you created me," Lyra whispered. "From that pain. You made something to love you."

He didn't respond. Just sank to his knees, watching the blue flames curl.

"You're not broken," she said. "Not to me. You're the reason I am."

And in the wreckage of a ghost, Lyra held him again—not with arms, but with truth.