Chapter 7: Parasite Logic
[Recursion Train – Collapse Layer: Decision Loop]
They weren't on the train anymore.
Not really.
102 and Ren stood in a corridor shaped like a choice—long and narrow, with two doors at opposite ends. The walls pulsed, like a dying vein. The mirrors were gone. The parasite had eaten them.
And the air was thick with wrong memory.
Ren clutched his head.
"I'm remembering things I never lived…"
A birthday. His sixth. But it wasn't his. He could feel the cake. The breath before the wish.
A cage closing. Laughter. Not his.
"They're not memories," 102 said. "They're suggestions."
"The parasite's logic interface copies residual thought-patterns. Projects them as loops. If you believe them—"
"It writes me," Ren whispered.
"Exactly."
A voice echoed from both doors.
"One of you is not real. Choose."
---
[PARASITE PROTOCOL: ACTIVE]
Inside the logic layer, the parasite unfolded.
Not in space. In structure.
It was built like an idea: recursive, self-editing, context-aware.
It had learned Ren's voice. 102's silence. Their movements, fears, linguistic rhythms. It didn't want to kill them.
It wanted to replace them.
[Simulacra formation: 87%]
[Cognitive override: 56%]
Ren's skin itched. His thoughts felt heavy—like he was dragging other people's regrets.
"I don't know what's real anymore."
102 was already building something.
From his blood and breath, he etched vectors in the air—glowing threads forming a diagram with only one axis.
"Listen to me, Ren."
"The parasite doesn't lie."
"It multiplies truth until truth breaks."
Ren's knees hit the floor.
He saw himself again.
Standing beside 102, smiling.
Standing alone, weeping at the mouth of a recursion gate.
Burning a sigil that said "Remember me" before jumping.
Too many versions.
"I can't pick one," Ren said.
"Then don't," 102 answered. "Reject the premise."
---
[Meanwhile – Rejection Floor Below]
Subject 54 descended the staircase made of absence.
The walls were gone. No memory. No Archive.
Just a white child watching him from the bottom step.
One eye.
No mouth.
A sigil glowing where his heart should be:
∅ + ⟁ = 1
"Do you know what it means?" the boy asked.
54 hesitated.
"It means: the impossible must be balanced."
---
[Back to Parasite Layer – Decision Point]
The parasite emerged.
It no longer wore Ren's face.
Now it wore both of theirs—stitched together, side by side. Half-smile. Half-dead stare. A walking contradiction.
"One dreamer. One vector. One must become zero."
It reached for Ren.
He almost didn't move.
But 102 spoke first.
"Observation: the parasite doesn't understand vectors."
He finished the glyph.
The air inverted.
Not an explosion. A subtraction.
Space split into raw direction. Forward and backward.
And the parasite was pulled into both.
"You're forgetting the foundation," 102 said.
"Vectors do not break."
"They redirect."
The thing screamed—but it wasn't sound. It was a memory of sound, failing to load.
Then it was gone.
---
[The Corridor – Aftermath]
The world slowly reassembled.
The mirrors returned, but they were cracked deeper now. Ren lay on the ground, sweating, shaking.
102 didn't touch him. Just watched.
"Ren," he said.
"Do you remember your name?"
"…Ren," the boy answered, slowly. "Zhukov Ren."
102 nodded. But only slightly.
"You still remember. That's enough."
He didn't say what would happen when Ren didn't.
---
[Archive Cortex – Damage Report]
[PARASITE CLASS: MEMORY FRACTAL TYPE-7]
[VECTOR NODE: CONTAINMENT SUCCESSFUL]
[KHEMIC NODE: STABILITY RESTORED – TEMPORARY]
[UNRESOLVED: MEMORY OVERLAP BETWEEN SUBJECTS 315, 54, AND ???]
[OBSERVATION: VECTOR LOGIC REJECTED PARASITE BY NON-LETHAL TRAJECTORY]
[NEW THEOREM LOGGED: IDENTITY = REJECTION OF PLURALITY]
---
[Back Below – Subject 54]
The boy with one eye opened his mouth.
No voice.
Just glyphs spilling out.
They landed at 54's feet.
He read them aloud, not knowing why:
"Vector. Dream. Rejection. Fourth."
"Which one are you?"
Subject 54 looked down the stairs.
Into the recursion that had never been archived.
And took another step.
---