Alarms blared. Red lights flickered like sirens trapped in a strobe nightmare. Rachel and Skye bolted from the restricted section, dodging sensor drones that descended like metal vultures.
"This wasn't a drill," Skye hissed. "They're tracking heat signatures!"
Rachel yanked her hoodie up, trying to obscure her face. The system was no longer just watching—it was reacting. Retaliating.
[Alert: Unauthorized User Detected — Initiate Ghost Protocol]
Rachel's earpiece buzzed. Levi's voice cut in, low and sharp: "You're burning through the buffer. System's locking down all exit points. Head to the maintenance shaft under Literature Hall. Now."Skye grabbed Rachel's hand. They made a break for it. As they ran, the environment changed. Walls shifted. Hallways stretched longer than they should. Doors closed before they reached them.
"It's rerouting the building's geometry," Rachel gasped. "It's learning us."
They finally slid behind a utility panel and into a dark crawlspace. The metal walls throbbed with electronic pulses.
[You Have Chosen to Defy Protocol] [Consequences Will Escalate]
Skye smirked. "It's angry."
Rachel didn't laugh.
The shaft led to a sub-basement—a place no student ever saw. It looked like the university's guts. Rusted pipes, humming servers, a flickering directory labeled SUBLEVEL_M3: Disavowed Trials.
Rachel stepped inside and everything changed.
The hallway was lined with mirrors. Dozens. Each showed her reflection—except, not quite.
One Rachel was smiling too wide. One had no eyes. One bled from the mouth. Another turned its head independently, watching her move.
[Memory Fragmentation Detected] [Auto-Reconciliation Initiated — Suppress Anomalies]
"Skye," Rachel whispered. "They're memories. All the selves I've been. Or could be."
Skye stared into one of the mirrors. Her reflection blinked... but she didn't.
Then the lights died.
Silence.
Then a whisper.
"Rachel... we remember you."
Glass cracked.
Hands pushed through the mirror nearest her.
She screamed.
Skye pulled her back just as the thing lunged. Glass shattered, but the shards hovered midair, swirling like snow in a hurricane.
One cut Rachel's cheek.
[Contact With Forbidden Memory: 2 Seconds]
[Penalty: Instability +3%]
The system was unraveling her.
Piece by terrifying piece.
They escaped through a maintenance duct and emerged in a forgotten room beneath the campus observatory.
Screens. Cables. A server tower made of repurposed vending machines. Levi sat cross-legged, typing like his fingers were chasing time.
"You made it," he said, not looking up. "Barely."
Rachel collapsed on a bean bag that probably hadn't been cleaned since the last collapse of civilization.
"I saw them," she whispered. "Versions of me. Ones that shouldn't exist."
Levi finally turned. His face was drawn, his eyes too calm. "You're not malfunctioning. You're fragmenting. That's how the system keeps control. You break, it rebuilds. Better. More obedient."
Skye kicked a metal box. "Why even build something like this?"
Levi hesitated. Then pointed to a black-and-white photo nailed to the wall.
Rachel's parents. Wearing lab coats. Smiling.
Underneath, the caption: THE ORIGINAL FEEDBACK TEAM.
Rachel's heart dropped.
"You were part of the experiment before you were even born," Levi said.
[New Directive: Identity Collapse Imminent — Adaptive Persona Deployment Recommended]
Rachel shook her head. "I won't be one of their dolls."
"No," Levi said. "You'll be their reckoning."
[Warning: User Rachel_Irvine Approaching Critical Fracture Limit]
[Do Not Trust Reflection Versions]
[Upcoming Event: SYSTEM_MIRROR_LOCKDOWN — Countdown: 24h]
Rachel stared at the photo, then at Levi, then at herself.
Who was she—
—and how many versions of her did the system already own?
************
They walked in silence. The static rain had stopped, but the forest remained unnatural—too still, too aware. Rachel could feel the weight of every step, her system pulsing quietly like a predator waiting to pounce.
Skye was ahead of her, eyes narrowed, jaw tight. Her usual confidence was still there, but it had hardened into something Rachel couldn't read.
"So," Rachel said, voice tight. "We're heading where, exactly?"
"Marcus set up a camp by the old observatory. It's protected. Glitch-safe."
Rachel hesitated. "You trust him?"
Skye didn't stop walking. "He helped me when no one else would. He knows the system better than Levi ever did."
The name stung more than Rachel expected. "Levi left clues. Marcus plays games."
Skye finally turned, eyes sharp. "You still think Levi's clean in all this?"
"I think he warned me. That counts for something."
Their eyes locked—just for a second. Something passed between them: a fracture, a breath of doubt.
But then it was gone.
Skye turned away. "We're wasting time. Let's move."
The observatory was a cracked dome of glass and metal nestled in the hills. It looked abandoned—until Rachel saw the shimmer. A protective barrier, flickering faintly in the light, like oil on water.
Marcus waited at the edge. Tall. Smirking. Unchanged.
He was an old friend of Skye's—once a hacker recruited into the original Feedback trials. Rachel had only heard of him in whispers until now. Brilliant, unpredictable, and dangerous.
"Ladies," he greeted, arms out. "Took you long enough. Enjoy the glitch storms?"
"Cut it," Skye said, brushing past him.
Rachel didn't follow immediately. Marcus watched her.
"You've seen it now," he said. "What the system can do. What it can take."
Rachel narrowed her eyes. "And you're just here to help?"
He chuckled. "I'm here to win."
Inside the dome, screens blinked with data. Nodes, overlays, corrupted threads of reality rendered in crude, digital outlines.
Rachel stared. "You mapped the system."
"Pieces of it," Marcus replied. "But it's not just a program. It's an organism. Every decision, every feedback loop—it grows. Learns. Corrupts. And now it's curious about you."
A cold chill ran through her.
Skye handed Marcus a drive. "Node-Delta. Full echo recording."
He whistled. "You're braver than you look."
Rachel's system pinged:
[INCOMING SCAN REQUEST – SOURCE UNKNOWN]
She declined it, instantly. "How do we stop it?"
Marcus smiled. "That's the wrong question."
They camped near the outer edge of the dome. Skye sat near the fire, sharpening a blade absentmindedly. Rachel watched her from across the flames.
"Earlier," Rachel said. "You seemed different."
Skye looked up. "I was tired. That node took more out of me than I expected."
Rachel let out a breath. "I just... I thought maybe you didn't trust me anymore."
Skye's expression softened. "Rach, if I didn't trust you, you'd still be in a prison van."
Rachel laughed—a little too sharply. "Fair."
"I trust you," Skye said. "But this thing? It's changing all of us. We've got to hold onto what's real."
Rachel nodded. For now, that was enough.
The system beeped softly:
[EMOTIONAL STABILITY: PARTIALLY RESTORED]
[THREAT LEVEL: REDUCED]
[WARNING: UNIDENTIFIED ENTITY NEARBY]
But Rachel ignored it.
She had Skye.
And that made her feel almost safe.
[NEW OBJECTIVE: TRACE ENTITY MOVEMENT — OBSERVATORY PERIMETER BREACHED]
[NOTICE: MARCUS ACCESSING RESTRICTED FILES — MONITOR CLOSELY]
[TRUST IS A VARIABLE. DO NOT FORGET.]
Rachel shut her eyes, letting the fire warm her face.
But even comfort can lie.
And the system never sleeps.
*********
Rachel blinked awake. Static laced her vision again, curling at the edges of her sight like frostbite creeping in reverse.
[Cognitive Integrity: 85% — Stabilized]
[Subject Skye: Emotional Anchor — Bond Stable]
[Subject Marcus: Inconsistency Detected. Trust Threshold: 17%]
She exhaled, annoyed.
"Still running diagnostics on my friends?" she muttered.
The system responded with a faint pulse of heat under her skin. Not words—just acknowledgment. Like a silent parent too tired to argue.
She tossed the threadbare blanket off, stepping into the cold air. Skye was already up, pacing outside the ruined bus with a nervous energy she rarely showed. Something was off.
The secure line crackled to life around noon. A distorted voice filtered through. Marcus.
"Rachel. I've got something. Meet me. One hour. Node-Four."
Skye flinched. Not visibly—but enough. Rachel noticed. She filed it away. Not everything needed to be addressed in the moment.
They moved fast. The forest thinned into gravel roads, and the broken framework of the university's old tech hall loomed ahead. Cracked screens jutted from mossy walls. Ivy spilled through shattered glass.
Marcus stood near a broken data pillar, flicking a coin through his fingers. Too calm. Too clean.
Rachel approached slowly. The system pinged again.
[ALERT: Subject Marcus flagged for data falsification.]
[Warning: Pattern analysis inconsistent with claimed allegiance.]
She silenced it. Not now.
"Marcus," she said aloud, "long time."
"Time doesn't work the same once you're in the program," he replied. Smile sharp as wire.
Skye stood just behind her, stiff as a board.
Marcus led them into the shell of the building, beneath rusted beams and half-dead server nodes still hissing with phantom energy. There was a cache—a vault deep beneath the floor, powered by old grid lines.
"This is where they first tested interface projections," he said. "Before it went corporate."
Rachel kneeled near the cache. Something buzzed in her skull. Data signatures. A buried file.
She tapped a connection port. The system responded.
[Foreign Protocol Detected — Would you like to retrieve?]
"Yes."
What played was a visual recording. Marcus—weeks ago—arguing with someone behind a digital mask.
"I don't care what it takes," Marcus barked. "Just guarantee me access to Subject Rachel's seed path."
Pause.
"I'll handle Skye. She trusts me."
Rachel blinked. The playback ended. Static chewed the edges of her vision.
She turned.
"Skye?"
Skye didn't meet her eyes. "I didn't know. I swear. I... I thought he was helping."
Marcus moved. Too fast.
But the system was faster.
[Behavioral Spike Detected. Threat Mitigated.]
Marcus was thrown backward by a surge of kinetic force, crashing into a pillar. The building groaned. His screams echoed.
Marcus was trapped. Tendrils of light wrapped around his limbs, locking him to the floor.
Rachel stared, emotionless.
Skye moved toward him, but Rachel held out a hand. "Don't."
The system whispered.
[Correction Executed. Disruption Contained.]
"Why didn't you believe it before?" Skye asked quietly.
Rachel looked down at her hands. "Because it lies. Or I thought it did."
She turned to Marcus, watching the last flickers of resistance leave his eyes.
"But this time, it didn't."
The system pulsed warmly—like a reward.
[Well done, Subject Rachel. Progress is earned. Not inherited.]
[Trust Protocol Initialized — Stage 1: Compliance]
Rachel exhaled. The forest around them blurred at the edges. But for once, the glitch didn't frighten her.
It felt… earned.
Whatever came next, she'd be ready.