Chapter 11: Karnyx Logic

Zero wasn't sure what unnerved him more—the boy's words, or the look Fry gave him when she said, "That wasn't the last time."

It had weight. Like she knew something he didn't. Like she had already seen the moment he would stop trusting her—and had made peace with it.

Patch helped him up. "You okay, starshine?"

Zero nodded slowly. "Define 'okay' in recursion-compatible terms."

Patch grinned. "Functionally conscious with minimum existential leakage. That'll do."

They moved quickly, the Archive's outer sectors dimming behind them. Fry didn't speak. She kept her hand near her waist, where her toolkit was, fingers twitching like she was solving equations in her head.

"Where are we going now?" Zero asked.

Fry didn't look back. "To someone who knows Karnyx logic better than I do."

Patch's eyes widened. "Wait. You don't mean her, do you?"

Fry gave a humorless nod.

"Oh no," Patch muttered. "We're actually doing this. I need to update my will."

They exited the Archives through a hidden gate disguised as a memory loop—a narrow tunnel that forced them to re-experience the last thirty seconds three times in slightly different emotional tones.

By the end of it, Zero had lived through irritation, euphoria, and irrational guilt over a pastry he never ate.

When they emerged, the environment had changed.

They were now in what looked like a sunken courtyard built from fractured observation decks. Windows showed reflections of places that didn't match the current world—some burning, some frozen, some completely blank.

And sitting at the center of it all, like a queen in a ruined garden, was a woman with braided silver hair and a floating crown of broken circuit pieces. She wore a shawl made of defunct screen overlays and a skirt woven from strips of coded parchment.

She looked up as they approached and smiled wide.

"Well, well. The little loop-breaker. Welcome to the Cradle."

Zero hesitated.

"Who is she?"

Fry's voice was low. "Her name's Naera. She's one of the last Karnyx Linguists—before the Curators repurposed them."

Naera clapped her hands like she'd been waiting for a birthday cake.

"Oh, you brought me a Fragment! And one that leaks!"

Patch muttered, "This was a mistake."

Naera stood, skirts clicking softly with layered code. "Come closer, boy. Let me see where it touched you."

Zero didn't move.

She tilted her head.

"No? That's wise. Curiosity killed the cat, but Karnyx curiosity tends to delete the entire species."

Fry stepped forward. "He's seen the boy."

Naera's grin faded instantly. "The echo?"

"Fragment X."

Naera lowered herself slowly onto her throne of fiber optic cables.

"That means the probability fork is active."

Zero frowned. "What is a probability fork, exactly?"

Naera looked at him, serious now. "It's when recursion layers collapse into a moment so dense that the system can't predict you anymore. You become quantum noise in a deterministic machine."

Patch leaned in. "So basically, the universe gets scared of you."

"Scared," Naera said with a smile, "or curious. Depends on how loud you scream when it finally notices."

Naera pulled a prism-shaped device from a satchel at her side. It spun slowly, reflecting Zero's face in dozens of warped ways.

"You've triggered a Karnyx bleed. That much is clear."

"What does that mean?" Zero asked.

Naera pressed the prism to his chest.

He flinched.

Images bloomed in the air around them.

A woman with a stern face holding his hand in a park.

A young boy with his eyes—laughing and throwing stones at a broken drone.

Fry—older, angrier—standing over a body that looked like his.

Then they vanished.

Naera inhaled sharply.

"You're not just bonded. You're entangled. The Karnyx is growing through you."

Fry's jaw clenched. "Is there any way to sever it?"

Naera shook her head. "No. Not without unraveling him completely."

Zero swallowed. "So I'm stuck with it."

Naera looked at him gently. "No. It's stuck with you. And it doesn't know whether to fear you… or become you."

They sat for a while in the broken courtyard.

Naera told them stories of the old Karnyx, back when it wasn't fractured, before the recursive wars, before the Curators twisted its purpose. She described how it was meant to be a memory… not a god.

Patch asked if it had a favorite color. Naera said it used to like blue. Now it prefers silence.

Then she grew serious again.

"You'll be tested. The bleed will pull more and more of your past into the recursion. Some of it will be fake. Some will be worse—twisted truths. It's not trying to trick you. It's trying to see what defines you."

"Why?" Zero asked.

Naera's smile was sad.

"Because soon, it'll need to decide whether to remember you as an ally… or erase you as an infection."

Fry stood.

"We have to go. He's not safe here anymore."

Naera nodded. "No one is, not since the Architect moved."

Zero looked up. "The Architect?"

Fry shook her head. "Later."

Patch sighed. "That's becoming a theme."

As they turned to leave, Naera called out one final thing:

"Remember, Fragment 7. The Karnyx doesn't choose based on what you are. It chooses based on what you do when no one is watching."

Zero paused.

Then nodded.

And stepped back into the recursion.