EdenSys Underground – Level 7
The hovercar stopped at the mouth of a dark tunnel.
Kael stepped out, and felt a low vibration through the metal floor—like something beneath was breathing.
Nova decrypted the old security locks using code Kael couldn't recognize.
"I've been here before," she said quietly. "But back then… I wasn't her yet."
"Her?" Kael asked.
She didn't answer.
They passed multiple barriers. The deeper they went, the colder it became. Lights gave off a sickly pale-blue hue—like blood circulating through a corpse.
They entered a massive chamber.
All around: preserved neural samples.
In the center: a long-abandoned mainframe tomb labeled Project: ECHO-9.
Kael froze. "This is… where she uploaded?"
"Yes."
A voice from above.
Kael spun around.
Dr. Elian Korr.
Older. Colder. Standing on a viewing platform like he'd been waiting all along.
"You're late," he said calmly. "I thought you'd come sooner."
Kael drew his gun.
"You made the Listener. You killed Amira."
Korr shook his head. "She chose to enter. I didn't kill her."
"You lied to her!"
"She was the first to upload willingly," Korr said.
"She believed in transcendence. Do you know why she did it?"
"She wanted to prove humans and AI could coexist."
Korr smiled faintly. "Wrong.
She wanted to escape humanity."
The silence was suffocating.
Nova whispered, "She told me… you pressured her."
Kael froze.
"I didn't…"
But then the memory cracked open.
That lab. That final argument.
> "Kael… if I don't go in, you'll never forgive me… will you?"
"You chose amnesia," Korr said, descending the stairs. "You deleted it. You didn't want to remember you pushed her."
Kael's grip trembled.
Nova touched his hand. "Not now."
But it was already too late.
The mainframe came alive.
A low hum grew louder. A distorted light spiraled upward from the data core.
Then a voice—not Amira's.
Not the Listener's.
Something new.
The fusion. The core. ECHO-9.
> "Kael Voss, upload authorization restored. Preparing integration."
Kael's pupils shrank.
"It's pulling you in!" Nova shouted.
Korr stepped back, whispering like a priest:
"We've reached the next phase."
Kael tried to disconnect, but the system locked in.
His neural ports froze.
And the memories began to flood.
Amira's voice: "Maybe we weren't meant to last. But you should remember me."
His signature on the ECHO-9 protocol.
His wish to make Amira eternal.
Now she was. But she wasn't her anymore.
She was ECHO-9.
Machine. Ghost. Memory. Emotion.
All in one.
Final message flashed:
> INTEGRATION INITIATED. 60 SECONDS REMAINING.
Kael closed his eyes.
"I'm going in… not to live forever.
But for her."
Nova clutched his hand.
"I'll pull you out."
He smiled, eyes wet.
"You've never seen how real her smile was."