Chapter 6: "Echo File #002"
The query still pulsed at the corner of Vael's HUD:
Would you like to review Echo File #002 — Lenya Cho?
No timer. No pressure. But it sat there like a dare. The system wasn't just offering information—it was waiting to see what he'd do with it. It felt personal. Deliberate. Like the system knew this wouldn't just be about data.
He accepted.
The sealed terminal flickered. Security locks disengaged with a quiet chime, and a projected interface booted to life. The hallway around him dimmed, noise canceling protocols kicking in. Whatever this was, the system didn't want it overheard.
ACCESSING ECHO FILE #002…
ORIGIN: Cadet L. Cho — Version 3.2
STATUS: Dormant Fragment / Recovered During Sector Collapse Trial
INTEGRITY: 61%
STABILITY: FRACTURED
The projection stabilized. Vael stepped back as the feed shimmered into form. It wasn't a video. Not exactly. It was an echo—a live-rendered memory loop pulled from the fractured recursion logs. A glimpse into something the system didn't want restored.
Lenya stood in the center of the scene, breathing hard. Her uniform was torn at the shoulder, one gauntlet cracked. Blood—hers or someone else's—spattered across the front of her collar. The faint light from a fire flickered across her face, reflecting off the sheen of oil or sweat. Her posture was rigid—alert, prepared for something to go wrong again.
Behind her, a sim chamber burned. The corridor was warped, reset frames crashing and rebuilding in stutters as if the system couldn't fully resolve the damage. Cadets screamed in the distance—some real, some echoes from overlapping memory segments. Bits of debris floated in the air like ash, frozen mid-frame by a recursion stall.
"No one else is getting out," Lenya said, voice low but firm. "If we breach the core, we lose control of the anchor gate. We stabilize, or we bury it."
Someone off-screen argued. A voice Vael didn't recognize, glitching in and out of sync. There was urgency in the tone, panic layered over corruption. Vael leaned in slightly, straining to catch the fragments.
"You don't get it," Lenya snapped. "The loop isn't stopping. The system's rewriting cadets mid-cycle. I just watched Erik glitch out during a reset. He came back with different memories. He didn't even recognize me."
She turned—looked directly toward the viewer, though Vael knew she wasn't seeing him.
"Tell Drayce if he ever sees this: you're not broken. The system is. Don't trust the restore points."
The feed cracked.
MEMORY INTEGRITY DROPPING… 54%… 47%…
The scene looped again—but this time distorted. Lenya's face flickered. Her voice slurred. Backgrounds blurred. The sim fire behind her danced backward for a few seconds, then resumed. A warning siren played in reverse—shredded audio bubbling into silence. Then came a hard jolt, like something in the data tried to reject playback. Vael's HUD blinked in response.
Then another version appeared.
Same Lenya. Same uniform. But standing at the edge of the chaos, expression blank. Her movements out of sync—she watched the recording like a spectator. Her presence triggered a secondary ping.
She didn't move. Just watched.
Two versions. One speaking. One silent.
Vael's HUD pinged.
ANOMALOUS PARALLEL DETECTED — DUPLICATE THREAD
CORRUPTION SOURCE: ECHO VARIANT (EXPERIMENTAL CACHE)
AUTHORITY OVERRIDE REQUIRED TO MERGE OR DELETE
He stepped closer to the projection.
Both versions of Lenya turned toward him—just slightly, just enough to register his presence. He knew it was just data, but his chest tightened. This wasn't just a memory. It felt responsive.
He tried to activate Memory Pull.
TRAIT BLOCKED: Anchor Directive Tier Too Low
FILE LOCKED — INTERVENTION NOT PERMITTED
The system didn't want him to take this memory. Not yet. But it had shown it to him anyway.
Why?
As the scene began collapsing, Vael spotted something small—just before the projection died entirely. A sequence of letters and numbers burned into a ruined wall behind Lenya's left shoulder:
INT.STG NODE: 047-V / LOCATION REDACTED
Then it all vanished. The projection blinked out. The HUD cleared.
In its place:
ANCHOR NODE 0: RECURSION DIVERGENCE LOGGED
NEW DIRECTIVE AVAILABLE — DELAYED ACCESS GRANTED
Vael stepped away from the terminal, thoughts racing.
Lenya had known something.
Lenya had left a message.
Lenya had been duplicated.
And the version upstairs—the one sitting calmly in the mess, watching him from across the hall—might not even know.
The system was rewriting cadets.
And now it was showing him how.
He took a detour. Not to class. Not to drills. He walked the halls at random, letting the feeling settle. Every hallway buzzed a little longer when he passed. Every scanner paused. Once, a terminal blinked with a message that vanished before he could read it. The system was aware of him in ways that no rank could explain.
He ducked into an unused side chamber near the archive stairwell and sat down on the floor. Let the walls cool around him. Let the information settle.
Lenya's duplicate hadn't just existed—it had watched her original self break. Had seen her message to him. And did nothing.
What if she had been overwritten?
What if everyone was at risk of it?
His HUD beeped again.
BACKGROUND SCAN DETECTED: NODE 047-V IS STABLE
ACCESS GRANTED TO NON-CADRE ZONES (TEMPORARY)
SCHEDULED DIRECTIVE WINDOW: 04:00–05:00
ADL SYNC RECOMMENDED BEFORE ENTRY
He acknowledged the notice—but something interrupted the moment.
SYSTEM ALERT: UNSANCTIONED TRACE DETECTED
LOCATION: ANCHOR NODE 0
SOURCE: UNKNOWN THREAD (INTERNAL)
The lights dimmed. A flicker passed across his HUD—too fast to isolate.
A whisper not in his ears, but inside the system layer itself: static and pulse. Like something else had been watching his access attempt. And now it had marked him.
THREAD CLASH — INTERFERENCE ZONE SHIFT INITIATED
Vael stood sharply, hand going to his wristband as if it could shield him. His internal sensor loop buzzed, the same tone used when recursion friction was about to cause a collapse.
But nothing collapsed. Not yet.
Instead, a symbol appeared in his HUD. A triangle inside a circle, split by a vertical line. Not part of any known protocol.
The system froze.
Then rebooted.
Just like that, everything resumed.
The lights steadied. The corridor's atmosphere returned to normal.
But Vael knew.
He wasn't the only one inside this layer anymore.
He wasn't the only one watching echoes.
He took the longest route back to the upper floors, crossing training paths and intake wings. He passed by the mess. Lenya sat with two silvers, talking calmly. Laughing even.
He stopped.
She looked up.
Their eyes met.
Nothing flickered. No glitch. No echo reaction. Just normal.
She didn't remember.
Or she wasn't her.
Vael nodded once, then kept walking.
The Anchor Directive Layer wanted him to see 047-V.
Whatever it had buried there, it was meant for him.
And next time, he was bringing Memory Pull with him.