The darkness settled slowly—thick, heavy, and absolute.For a moment, Nero thought the chamber had collapsed entirely. But then he heard Helia breathe beside him, quiet and controlled, the steady anchor in the pitch black.
A faint metallic groan rolled through the chamber as the last of the shattered panels cooled. The once-glowing walls were now silent steel, stripped of their ghostly images. The echoes were gone. All of them.
Nero reached out blindly. His hands brushed cold air, then the rough fabric of Helia's sleeve.
"I'm here," she whispered, as if sensing his instinctive panic.
Nero exhaled slowly. "Did the power just—"
"Cut. Completely." Helia clicked her small handlight on. The narrow beam cut a trembling path through the dust, revealing the scattered shards on the floor—glass splinters, flickering ciphers, dead holo-circuits.
It looked like a graveyard.
No… Nero corrected himself.
It felt like one.
Helia moved the beam across the room, checking corners, any motion, any threat waiting in the shadows. But nothing moved. Nothing breathed.
This forgotten sector was still.
Almost… respectful.
She crouched, brushing her fingers over a fallen panel. The screen sputtered once—one final pulse—and went dark.
"That figure," she whispered, more to herself than Nero. "It wasn't an echo. Not like the others."
Nero stayed silent.
Helia straightened, her expression unreadable. "Nero… whoever that was—he wasn't part of the Archive's stored data. He broke through it. Forced himself in."
Nero swallowed. "He told me to find him."
"He said the Architect is looking for him," she corrected sharply. "That alone makes him dangerous."
"Dangerous to who?" Nero asked quietly. "To us—or to the Architect?"
Helia didn't answer immediately. She holstered her weapon and stepped toward the center of the chamber. Nero followed, dust swirling around them.
The floor was scorched where the pillar of light had appeared, leaving blackened cracks spiderwebbing out. Nero knelt, touching one of the fractures. It felt warm—as if whatever appeared here only left a moment ago.
The warmth seeped into his fingertips, then pulsed.
A subtle rhythm.Familiar.Like the faint echo of a heartbeat.
Nero flinched. "Helia. Feel this."
Helia touched the scorched fracture hesitantly. Her eyes widened.
"…Veyra."
Nero nodded once.
"But amplified," she said softly. "Older. Stronger. Controlled."
Nero felt his pulse race—not in fear, but something else. Something that tugged at the edge of his memory, like a whisper he couldn't make out.
"Helia," he murmured, "I think he was—"
"Don't." Her voice cut through him—not harsh, but pained. "Don't claim anything until we know."
She stepped back, rubbing her forehead, suddenly looking years older.
"Nero… whoever that was, he wasn't a prototype. He wasn't an echo. He wasn't a stored program. That kind of presence can only mean one thing."
Nero looked at her, heart pounding.
"What does it mean?"
Helia lowered her hand slowly… and met his eyes.
"It means the Archive missed someone."
Nero's breath stilled.
A survivor.
A person the Architect tried to erase—and failed.
Someone who remembered Nero from before the wipe. Someone who knew Prototype Twelve not as a label, but as a person.
Nero felt dizzy. "But if he's alive—"
"He's not alive in the normal sense." Helia paced, running a hand through her hair. "He forced a projection into a collapsed sector… which means he's somewhere between a stable timeline and a fractured one."
Nero's chest tightened.A person trapped between worlds.
"But why contact me?" he whispered.
Helia stopped pacing.
Her silence was answer enough.
"Because you're the only one who can reach him," Nero said quietly. "Right?"
Helia didn't speak.
Instead, she walked toward the far wall—one of the few that hadn't shattered. Strange symbols glowed faintly across its surface, flickering like forgotten code.
She touched the metal.
"This isn't the main system," she murmured. "This sector predates the Architect's redesigns."
Nero blinked. "Meaning?"
"Meaning someone else created it." Helia turned. "Someone with access the Architect didn't erase."
The realization struck Nero with the force of a falling tower.
"This place," he breathed, "is older than the Archive."
Helia nodded once.
"And if he appeared here… it means he had permission. Or ownership. Or—"
She hesitated.
Nero whispered, "…or he built it."
Helia didn't confirm, but she didn't deny.
Nero's hands trembled.
A face blurred by distortion.A voice filled with longing.You survived.Find me before the Architect does.
His chest tightened.
Whoever the figure was…he mattered.Deeply.
And Nero had no memory of him.
Helia walked back toward Nero, her gaze softening for just a moment.
"We can't stay here," she said quietly. "The Reconstruction Unit won't stop. And now that the Sector L-0 has collapsed, the Archive will mark it for sealing. That means drones. Lots of them."
Nero nodded numbly.
He followed Helia toward the hatch they'd come from. She checked her scanner—an old rebel tool with half-fried circuits—but it still showed faint ripples of movement outside the chamber.
Machines. Lots of them.
Helia's expression hardened. "We need to move fast."
Nero hovered near the crater in the center of the room.
Helia noticed.
"Nero."
He didn't move.
"He knew me," Nero whispered.
"Yes," she said softly.
"He remembered me."
"I know."
"But I don't remember him."
Helia's jaw tightened. She stepped closer, placing a gentle hand on Nero's shoulder—not out of comfort, but out of urgency.
"Nero… listen." Her eyes held his, steady and painfully honest. "Memory wipes don't take away the truth. They just bury it. Whatever he was to you—you'll find out. But right now, we need to survive to get those answers."
Nero nodded slowly.
Because she was right.
Finding answers meant nothing if he didn't survive long enough to hear them.
Helia squeezed his shoulder once—quickly, instinctively—before stepping back and raising her weapon.
"Stay close. And if anything moves that isn't me, shoot it or run."
Nero managed a weak smile. "Sounds simple enough."
"It won't be," Helia muttered. "Nothing ever is in this place."
They climbed back into the crawlspace just as the far side of the chamber flickered with red warning lights—fresh ones.
The Archive was waking up again.
And it had noticed the collapse.
Helia pushed Nero ahead of her. The crawlspace was narrow, hot with recycled air, vibrating faintly as machines activated below.
She whispered, "Nero… when we get out of here, promise me something."
Nero glanced back. "Promise what?"
Her breath hitched almost imperceptibly.
"Don't chase ghosts alone."
Nero swallowed. "You think he's a ghost?"
"No," she said. "I think he's dangerous."
They crawled forward as the temperature rose.
"And I think," Helia whispered, "the Archivist isn't the one you should fear the most."
Nero froze.
"Then who?" he asked.
Helia's answer came like a quiet, devastating truth.
"…The one who remembers you."
The corridor shook—warning alarms echoing through the metal.
The Archive was coming alive again.
And somewhere in the collapsing chamber behind them, a faint echo still pulsed in the cracks—
a heartbeatwaitingto be found.