Chapter 16: Echoes of Threat

They didn't speak again until the heavy iron door clanged shut behind them.

Eros walked first, silent, posture coiled. His blade was sheathed, but his tension was not. The air between them held a kind of residual static—like Subject Z had left behind something unspoken, something crawling beneath their skin.

Prion followed slowly.

His breath was still uneven, and his balance wavered more than he admitted. But his eyes stayed sharp. Focused.

Always calculating.

Always watching Eros.

Even now.

"You could've let it take me," Eros said suddenly, not looking back. "You knew it was overriding me. You could've let it finish."

"I could have," Prion said simply.

Eros stopped in front of a cracked, rusted-out wall panel—one of the old maintenance lines Prion had mapped from memory. The hallway buzzed faintly with failing circuitry.

He turned back to face him.

"But you didn't."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you stopped it," Prion replied, stepping closer. "You fought back. Not the override. The instinct."

Eros narrowed his eyes. "That wasn't instinct. That was pain. I didn't even know what I was doing."

Prion's lips curved faintly.

"Exactly."

The moment hung there.

Loaded.

Heavy.

Eros broke it first. "You talk like this isn't the first time it happened."

"It's not."

"Then how many?"

Prion didn't answer.

He didn't need to. The flicker in his expression—the same exhaustion layered beneath intellect—was its own confession.

Eros exhaled sharply. His fingers twitched. "And every time they tried to hijack me, you were there to stop it?"

"No," Prion said. "Only when I was still alive."

The hallway dimmed as the lights glitched again.

Eros's face darkened. "That was a joke?"

"No," Prion murmured. "That was the closest I'll come to telling you the truth without breaking the world you think you remember."

His voice was low.

Almost soft.

Almost intimate.

And that terrified Eros more than the override.

He turned away again, fists tight.

Prion stepped closer.

A beat.

Then another.

He was just behind him now—close enough that Eros could feel the faint press of his presence like gravity.

"I'm not the version of me they wanted," Prion said near his ear. "And you're not the weapon they built. So ask yourself, Eros—why are you still here?"

The hallway seemed to shrink.

And Eros didn't move.

Didn't breathe.

Not for a full second.

Because the answer was too close to the one thing he still didn't trust.

Himself.

In the dark corridors of an abandoned system, the most dangerous enemy may not be the one with a blade—but the one who speaks your name like it's a memory you shouldn't have.

The air hadn't moved.

Subject Z remained in the stairwell's blind spot, still half-shrouded in the dim blue glow Eros and Prion had activated moments earlier.

"I'm the version of you they wanted."

That voice again. Almost gentle, mockingly calm.

Prion didn't flinch. But Eros caught the way his hands trembled just slightly at his sides.

"I'm not impressed," Eros muttered. "Another failed replica."

Z tilted its head. "Not a replica. A reconstruction. You can't rebuild a soul, but you can simulate outcomes."

It took one step forward. The sound was wrong again—half-delay, like the recording lagged behind the motion.

Prion's voice dropped to a whisper, just for Eros. "Don't let it speak too long. That's how the override works."

Eros blinked. "Override?"

"Verbal resonance mapping," Prion said, just audible. "It's not speaking. It's syncing."

Z stopped at the edge of the light. Its eyes were flat, reflective—no soul, only mimicry.

"You think you escaped, Subject 7," it said. "But all you did was delay the collapse."

Eros raised his blade.

Z didn't react.

"You're glitching," Z said, turning to Eros. "And the system doesn't like anomalies."

"I'm not your system," Eros growled.

"No," Z agreed. "But you're still wired into it."

Prion didn't wait. He reached into his sleeve, pulled a small, jagged spike—barely the size of a finger—and jammed it into the stairwell's old power conduit.

The lights flared white for a half-second, then blinked out entirely.

Eros stumbled as everything turned black. Silence followed.

Then—

A soft groan. Metal bending.

"Prion?" Eros called.

No answer.

His grip tightened on his weapon.

Then a flash—just one. Emergency blue returned in bursts. Enough to show:

Z reaching toward Eros.

Prion slumped against the wall, fingers still in the conduit, his veins faintly glowing like the chip inside him was overclocking.

"Override aborted," Z said, voice twitching. "You're resisting. Why?"

Eros felt it then. Like a whisper in his own thoughts. Words that weren't his.

"Kill him."

"Kill him now."

"He's lying."

"He made you forget—"

"Shut up," Eros snarled.

He turned, launching toward Z, blade aimed straight for the chest.

Z blocked the strike—barely. Metal clanged, sparks flicked through the stairwell like fireflies.

"You always fight back when he's near," Z said. "Why?"

Eros didn't answer. He didn't need to.

Behind him, Prion collapsed fully. Not unconscious—but close. Eyes half-lidded, breath shallow.

He'd taken the override hit.

Again.

"You did it again," Eros muttered under his breath.

Z stepped back once. Then twice. Then vanished down the corridor without resistance. Retreat. Calculated. Like the program had gathered what it needed.

Eros didn't pursue. Not yet.

He turned to Prion instead. Lifted him gently, one arm around his back.

"You said you were tired of dying before I remembered you," he whispered. "But you're not allowed to die before I understand you."

Prion didn't reply. But his hand gripped Eros's wrist—weakly, but deliberately.

Still conscious.

Still here.

And the lights, slowly, flickered back.

They moved again. Slowly.

The stairwell ended in a wide maintenance tunnel, slick with condensation and shadows that didn't belong. Every echo felt like Z's steps—wrong-footed, misaligned, like something pretending to be human.

Prion leaned heavily against the wall, his breath coming in slow, uneven intervals. He hadn't said a word since they'd left the blind spot.

"Say something," Eros muttered.

Nothing.

"I swear, if you pass out again—"

"You'll what?" Prion rasped finally, voice low but sharp. "Leave me behind?"

Eros didn't answer.

He reached out instead, catching Prion by the elbow when he stumbled on an uneven patch of ground. His grip stayed longer than it should've. Not just for balance. Not just protection.

"I thought you were supposed to be smart," Eros said quietly.

"I am," Prion replied. "Smart enough to know I'm breaking."

A silence.

Then Eros pressed his hand against the side of Prion's neck, just below the jawline—checking for pulse, heat, anything.

It startled Prion. Not the touch, but the sudden softness of it. As if Eros hadn't meant to touch him at all—but couldn't help it.

"You're not dead yet," Eros muttered.

"I've felt worse," Prion lied.

"You look worse."

Another silence. But not a cold one.

Just as they reached the end of the corridor, an old panel on the wall lit up. Green, flickering. Active.

Eros stiffened.

"We're not alone."

"No," Prion agreed, already moving toward it. "This part of the facility hasn't been purged yet. That means we're close."

"To what?"

Prion placed his hand on the panel. It scanned him instantly—then beeped.

"Authorization granted," a voice announced.

Eros stared. "Why the hell do you still have access?"

Prion didn't turn. "Because part of me is still in their system. And they haven't figured out how to erase me without erasing what they need."

The door opened with a hiss. Cold air swept out.

Inside: a large observation chamber. Glassed panels. Data chairs. Monitors looping fragmented footage.

And in the centre, a still-lit cradle.

A pod.

Empty.

But it wasn't the pod that caught Eros's attention.

It was the name still flashing on the terminal.

SUBJECT 7 – ACTIVE

"What is this?" Eros asked, stepping forward.

Prion didn't answer right away. He walked toward the console, fingers shaking slightly as he hovered above the interface.

"This was my origin point," he said finally. "Not where I was made. Where I woke up. After the first rewrite."

He glanced back at Eros. His eyes were dark.

"I don't remember what came before this room. Only that I woke up screaming."

Eros looked around—saw the hooks in the wall, the cables still coated in dried synthetic neural gel.

"How many times?" Eros asked. "How many times did they do this to you?"

Prion didn't answer.

Instead, he pulled a drive from his sleeve—black, narrow, etched with something that looked like circuitry scarred by heat—and plugged it into the console.

Footage blinked onto the nearest monitor.

Subject 7.

Prion.

Unconscious. Hooked to a frame. Blood in the lines.

Then—movement.

Screaming.

And a voice from the speaker: "Stabilize him. Use the anchor if you have to. Inject Level-5 suppression."

Eros froze.

His voice. The one giving orders.

Then— "No! Don't touch him—he's syncing, not spiralling. Let it finish—"

Cut. Static. Then black.

Eros looked at Prion. The question already written in his eyes.

"You weren't just the subject," he said quietly. "You were… tethered to me."

Prion's voice cracked.

"I begged them not to use you," he said. "But they said the anchor was necessary. That you were designed to survive the feedback."

He took a breath. Slow. Broken.

"And when you didn't, when you started glitching—"

"They blamed you," Eros finished.

Prion nodded once.

"That's why I had to leave. They said if I stayed near you, you'd keep breaking. But I didn't care. I stayed anyway."

He turned to face Eros directly.

"And they wiped you. Over and over. And each time, you got colder. Less human. Until they turned you into what you are now."

The silence that followed wasn't heavy—it was hollow.

Because Eros didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't deny any of it.

And Prion… he looked tired. Bone-deep tired.

"You should've let me die back then," he whispered.

Eros stepped forward.

"No," he said. "You woke up. You adapted. And you rewrote everything."

Prion blinked.

Eros held his gaze.

"So don't break now."

The air inside the cradle room turned metallic—thick with ozone and something more subtle, like static tension left behind by memories that refused to die.

Eros stood near the terminal, still watching the looping footage. The sound had stopped, but the images kept playing—Prion restrained, screaming, breaking. Then silent. Then whole again.

Not because they healed him.

Because he learned how to put himself back together.

Prion had stepped away from the console, his fingers twitching at his side like the muscle memory of something long since stolen. He hadn't spoken since the last sentence. Hadn't needed to.

Eros broke the silence first.

"What happened the first time I failed to stabilize you?"

Prion didn't look at him. "They used pain conditioning. On both of us."

Eros flinched—just barely. "Why?"

"They thought if I associated your suffering with my disobedience, I'd stop resisting the sync loop. It worked. Until it didn't."

"And then?"

Prion finally turned. His hoodie hung off his frame like a shell too loose, too worn. "Then they used your memory instead."

Eros exhaled—slow, quiet. "You keep saying I was the anchor."

"You were." Prion's voice was steady now. "But they didn't care if the anchor broke. They just wanted the subject to stay afloat."

A beat.

Then Eros asked the question that had been building since they entered the room.

"Why didn't you kill me after you escaped?"

Prion's expression flickered. Something unreadable.

"You really think I could?"

Eros didn't answer.

"After everything they turned you into," Prion continued, "everything they burned out of you—there were still echoes. You still flinched when I flinched. You hesitated before you struck. Every time. Even when you didn't know why."

Eros looked away. "Doesn't mean it was real."

"No," Prion said. "But it means it wasn't erased."

The silence pulsed, heavy as memory.

Then, without warning—lights overhead dimmed.

Warning sirens activated silently: a red strip at the edge of the console blinked once.

INCOMING PRESENCE DETECTED

CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN | PROTOCOL LOCK UNSTABLE

Eros drew his blade immediately, stepping between Prion and the door. "They tracked us."

"No," Prion whispered. "It's not them."

The door opened again.

And standing there, silhouetted in the flickering emergency lights, was a figure Eros recognized too late.

Same build. Same stance. Same profile.

But the eyes were wrong.

Flat.

Like a recording.

"You were supposed to stay in the cradle," the copy said. "Subject 7 wasn't meant to adapt."

Eros moved before he thought.

His blade slashed forward—but the copy caught it with unnatural speed. The metal sparked, and Prion stumbled backward as the impact rippled outward.

Z.

The reconstructed fail-safe.

Echo of the perfect version New Era thought they could build.

"You were the contingency," Prion muttered.

Z tilted his head. "No. I was the correction."

Another blow—fast, precise. Z was faster than Eros remembered from the last encounter. As if something in the system had been upgraded.

"You can't beat him," Prion warned.

"I don't have to beat him," Eros gritted out, blocking another strike. "I just have to hold him."

Prion hesitated—then moved to the console, fingers flying over the cracked keyboard.

Eros kept Z occupied, dragging him away from Prion—but Z wasn't falling for it. Every movement was calculated, minimal.

But he didn't attack Prion.

That was telling.

He only wanted Eros neutralized.

Because Eros was the variable.

The last loyalty Prion hadn't let go of.

Then the lights went dark.

Only the terminal glowed now—pale green against Prion's silhouette.

He tapped the final command.

The floor beneath them shuddered.

Z froze for the first time.

"You triggered a collapse," Eros called.

"No," Prion said calmly. "I reactivated containment protocols."

The door slammed shut behind Z.

Prion's voice dropped to a whisper. "Let him fight the ghosts instead."

Eros stumbled backward, panting.

"You planned this," he said.

Prion just smiled. Faint. Dangerous.

"I adapt."

When Z breaks the containment—will the only escape be the one Prion didn't want Eros to take?

What happens when the only version of yourself left in the system… is trying to erase you?

Prion's danger doesn't lie in brute force. It's in the way he smiles after you think he's lost.