Chapter 11: Directive Trace

The silence was shattered by static.

Eros flinched as the sound crackled inside his skull—not outside, not from the broken comms unit—but deep, internal. Like a whispered scream etched beneath bone.

He staggered back, hand flying to his temple.

Across the room, Prion turned sharply. His expression shifted—not fear. Calculation.

"It's starting earlier than I expected," Prion said.

Eros gritted his teeth. "What the hell did you do?"

"I didn't touch your systems."

"Liar!"

"No. But I am interfering." Prion's eyes gleamed in the half-light. "You wouldn't be glitching if your conditioning was intact."

Eros opened his mouth—but the next spike hit harder.

Suddenly—

A memory not his own.

A hallway drenched in red light.

Footsteps.

"Code Echo-7-4 online. Proceed with fracture reset—"

"Not him," Eros's voice—his voice—said. "He's stabilizing. He's mine to contain."

Then a scream.

A flash of white.

And silence.

He snapped back to the present, knees hitting the floor. Gasping.

"I told them to stop," Eros whispered. "Didn't I?"

Prion didn't answer.

Because he didn't have to.

"Thirty-seven times," Prion said instead. "You came back. Each time they made you forget. But now…" He stepped forward slowly. "You're remembering your own resistance."

Eros raised his head, eyes hollow.

"Or maybe… you just planted that memory."

Prion froze.

"That's what they warned me," Eros whispered. "That you rewrite people. That you're trying to overwrite me."

A pause.

Then Prion walked closer—slow, deliberate. His hoodie damp, black hair sticking to his forehead. Pale. Worn. Unshakable.

"If I wanted to rewrite you," he said quietly, "you'd already be kneeling."

He passed Eros and knelt by the wall instead, fingers brushing a loose panel. A small, black device was embedded behind it. Transmitting. Old New Era tech. Still blinking.

"Looks like someone else already is."

He yanked it free, crushed it with one foot.

Eros stared.

They weren't alone in the room.

They never had been.

The walls had ears. But someone else has been pulling Eros's strings—and it wasn't Prion.

The crushed transmitter still sparked faintly under Prion's boot.

Eros stared at it, his breath shallow, pulse out of sync.

"You knew we were being watched," he said.

"I suspected," Prion answered without looking up. "I wasn't sure if it was through you or the walls. Now I am."

Eros tensed. "You're saying I'm compromised?"

"I'm saying you're still connected," Prion murmured. "But the feed's failing."

Eros looked away, jaw clenched.

He couldn't stop shaking.

Not because of the signal.

Because of the doubt crawling under his skin—who was he really hearing in his own mind?

He looked up sharply. "Why didn't you destroy it before?"

Prion finally looked at him.

"Because I wanted to see if you would notice it first."

There was no malice in the tone. Just that cold, rational cruelty that always made Eros want to strike him—and never manage to.

"Everything's a test with you," Eros muttered.

"And everything's a trap with them."

Prion crossed the room, crouching near the old crate again. He pulled out a damaged datapad and tapped a few commands. A flickering 3D scan bloomed above it—Eros's neural map.

Eros stiffened.

"You scanned me?"

"You asked for the truth. This is your spine—today. Compared to yesterday." Prion enlarged the field, highlighting a shadowed cluster near the base. "They injected a new protocol. Directive Thread 5. It's designed to interfere whenever you're close to me."

"And yet I haven't killed you," Eros whispered.

"Because something in you is resisting it."

A beat passed.

Eros stepped closer to the projection. The scan shimmered between frames—today's impulses overlapped with yesterday's. But what chilled him was not the code.

It was the flicker of his own emotion signature—a ghost imprint across both scans.

"You felt something," Prion said quietly. "Even before the last reset."

Eros didn't answer.

But he remembered… a hand on glass. A voice through static. A name etched into skin.

"I can't trust what I feel," he said hoarsely.

"Then trust what they fear."

Eros turned to him.

"They fear me," Prion said simply. "Because I remembered you when no one else was allowed to."

And for a moment, everything else—fractured memory, orders, confusion—was quiet.

Directive Thread 5 wasn't just for control. It was designed to trigger on intimacy.

Eros barely heard the hum of the datapad anymore.

His breathing was shallow, too tight for calm—but too controlled for panic.

Across from him, Prion stood still, eyes on the map between them. Neither of them moved. Yet something unspoken pulled the space taut. Like air thickening. Like heat coiling in stillness.

Directive Thread 5.

It was supposed to trigger at proximity. That's what Prion said.

But it didn't feel like a command being pulled.

It felt like something already there.

Something trying to surface.

"I don't feel… different," Eros muttered.

"You wouldn't. It's layered under familiarity—tied to what your body remembers, not your mind."

"And you think that's safe?"

"No," Prion said. "I think that's why it's dangerous."

The silence bent. Then Prion stepped forward.

Not fast. Not sudden.

Just… closer.

Eros didn't retreat. But his shoulder tensed.

Another step.

The memory spike was sharp this time.

A breath—his own—shaking. A hand on cold skin. A voice:

"Don't break. If you break, they'll wipe us both."

Then hands pulling someone out of restraints. His own. His hands.

Eros flinched and looked up, wide-eyed.

Prion was inches from him now.

Still. Calm. Almost too still.

"You're remembering again," he said.

"I don't want to."

"I know."

Another beat.

"I'm not manipulating you," Prion added softly. "You're just standing too close to the truth."

"Why should I believe that?"

Prion's voice dropped to a murmur.

"Because if I wanted control, I'd touch you."

The words slipped like a wire drawn across exposed nerve. And Eros didn't move. Couldn't.

They stood like that—close enough to feel heat, but not contact. And it was worse somehow, because the system inside him twitched in response to the nearness.

Override patterns. Pulse misalignments. Signals skipping like broken film.

Prion finally stepped back.

Eros's heart kicked against his ribs.

"I'm trying to help you remember," Prion said. "Not because it saves me. But because when you remember… you stop trying to kill me."

A pause.

Then, with clinical detachment:

"And because when you forget, I die."

The closer they stand, the more fractured the system becomes—and something underneath is starting to break.

The cold hum of the room had changed.

It wasn't the silence between them. It was the silence inside Eros—cracking.

Something flickered behind his eyes. Not a memory. Not yet. Just sensation—pressure and pull. As though pieces of him no longer belonged to him.

He clenched his jaw and turned away from Prion.

But he felt him. Still too close.

Prion didn't move. But Eros sensed every millimetre of space between them, like static tracing skin. That was new. Wrong.

"You're glitching," Prion said softly.

"I'm fine."

"You're not."

His voice wasn't cutting. It was quiet. Like he knew it wouldn't help to push.

A sharp pulse behind Eros's ear made him flinch.

System lag.

The override thread was failing.

He stepped back. "They're going to patch me again, aren't they."

"They'll try," Prion murmured. "But they'll have to do more than patchwork this time."

The air grew still.

Then the signal came.

A soft whine, buried under the surface hum. Eros blinked. Looked at Prion. Then at the wall.

The old terminal sparked. Not from damage—from activation.

Prion moved instantly, yanking open the cover, exposing a hidden interface.

"No…" he whispered.

"What is it?" Eros stepped closer.

"Live override attempt. They're not waiting for you to come back this time. They're sending it through the trace you left earlier."

"I didn't—"

"You triggered a passive trace the moment you interfaced with the panel. And that was enough"

Suddenly, Prion grabbed Eros's wrist and yanked him forward.

The movement was fast. Controlled. Too close.

The next thing Eros knew, his back was against the wall, Prion's hand braced beside his head as the light overhead flickered red.

"Hold still."

"What are you—"

"Shielding you."

The scan swept over them. A clean arc of light moved down Eros's body, then Prion's.

But something in the interface hiccupped—and the red light glitched white.

"Why isn't it scanning you?" Eros whispered.

Prion's eyes were cold. "Because I broke the signature filter when I left."

"You rewrote it."

"I had to."

The silence returned. But not calm. It was sharp, edged, waiting.

Eros looked up.

Prion hadn't stepped back.

Neither had he.

"What happens now?"

"They can't find me," Prion murmured. "But they found you. Which means they'll send someone."

"Another assassin?"

"Maybe. Or something worse."

A pause.

Then:

"I'm not going to leave you here," Prion said.

"You don't get to decide that," Eros shot back.

But it was weaker. The protest.

And he didn't move away.

Prion didn't either.

The red light blinked out.

But neither of them moved.

Not yet.

They're no longer just being watched. New Era has begun to interfere—live.

When control starts to fail, what do you reach for—orders or memory?

Sometimes protection isn't about distance. It's about choosing who you'll stand beside when the override comes.