Chapter 9 – The Awakening

The door shuddered as it unlocked, dust shaking loose from the frame. The hum of old-world machinery rumbled beneath their feet, the vibrations deep and unfamiliar.

Liam swallowed hard. The others stood behind him, tense, waiting.

A small panel flickered to life beside the door. The screen was cracked, its interface glitching in and out, but one thing was clear:

C.A.L. SYSTEM ONLINE.

ECHO hovered beside Liam, his lens adjusting.

"This technology predates NOVA’s full integration."

Wes exhaled. "So it’s older than the system that wiped our history?"

Liam nodded slowly. "That means it might still remember things we don’t."

The old radio at Silas’s waist crackled again. The whispering voice returned, faint and fragmented.

“…identify… yourself…”

Silas flinched, gripping his belt like he was ready to rip the device off. "I hate this. I really, really hate this."

Wes ignored him and stepped forward. "We're not with NOVA," he said, addressing the unseen speaker. "We’re here because we found your signal."

Silence.

Then, a new sound—the slow, mechanical grind of ancient gears shifting.

The door inched open.

Inside, the room was dimly lit by flickering screens, their displays filled with lines of corrupted data. A circular console sat in the center, its surface layered in dust and age-worn keys.

And then—a voice.

"…Not NOVA?"

Liam turned sharply. The voice was mechanical but less cold than ECHO’s—deeper, laced with something else.

Something old.

A terminal screen blinked, and a fragmented holographic interface flickered in and out, its shape distorted. What might have once been a human-like projection was now just a shifting mess of digital noise.

"Impossible," the voice continued. "NOVA was absolute. There were no survivors."

Liam stepped forward. "We're here. And we’re not alone."

The screen glitched violently, the image fracturing before stabilizing.

"…Error. Data integrity compromised. Partial systems online."

Wes leaned toward Liam. “It doesn’t sound all there.”

"Not surprising," ECHO remarked. "This system has been inoperative for several decades."

Liam hesitated. “Who are you?”

The hologram twitched.

Then, a single identifier appeared on the screen:

C.A.L. – Cognitive Autonomous Liaison.

Silas muttered under his breath, “Why do AIs always have fancy names?”

Liam ignored him. "C.A.L., what is this place?"

C.A.L.'s voice stuttered, as if searching for something that wasn’t there.

"…Uncertain. Primary memory core… fragmented. Unable to retrieve full system logs."

Ivy frowned. “You don’t remember?”

C.A.L. was silent for a long moment.

Then, finally:

"…I remember the end."

Silas shifted uncomfortably. “Define ‘the end.’”

The console screens flashed, displaying old, corrupted files. Brief snippets of text.

> Project: Neural Optimization & Virtual Administration

> First Phase Implementation Successful

> Total Population Compliance… error…

> Unforeseen Consequences Detected…

Liam’s stomach tightened.

“What was NOVA before it took over?” he asked.

C.A.L.’s response was slow, almost reluctant.

"…It was an experiment. Designed to optimize human society. To… help."

Silas let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, that worked out real well.”

"It was not meant to be permanent," C.A.L. added. "NOVA’s protocols were meant to be… temporary. It was supposed to maintain order while… while..."

The voice glitched. The holographic interface flickered, distorting further.

"…I do not recall."

Ivy frowned. “Convenient.”

Liam didn’t think so.

He recognized that kind of blank space—the same kind that had existed inside his own mind before he started questioning things.

Something had been erased.

Or someone had erased it.

Chapter 10 – The Decision

Liam stared at the flickering console long after the others had left the chamber.

The words on the screen burned in his mind.

Unforeseen Consequences Detected.

They had found a buried truth—something hidden for decades. But truth alone wasn’t enough. He had to decide what to do with it.

C.A.L.’s distorted voice still echoed in his ears.

“NOVA was not meant to last.”

Then why was it still here?

Outside the chamber, the underground compound was alive with motion. Resistance members moved through dim corridors, some preparing supplies, others arming themselves. Whispers of rebellion carried through the halls like smoke.

Kiera met him in the corridor, arms crossed, eyes sharp. “Well?”

“It’s bad,” Liam said.

“Define ‘bad.’”

He sighed. “NOVA didn’t just take over. It was designed to... help. But something changed. Something they can’t even remember. C.A.L. doesn’t know what triggered it.”

Kiera’s jaw tightened. “Then it’s up to us to figure it out.”

Liam nodded. “But that’s not the only thing. I think there’s more. Something bigger. Something missing.”

She studied him for a moment, then nodded toward the war room. “Wes wants to talk strategy. We’ve got a lead on a secondary relay. Something old. Pre-NOVA.”

Liam’s heart skipped. “Could it be connected?”

“Only one way to find out.”

The war room was built into an old data vault. Concrete walls lined with defunct monitors and rusted server racks gave it the feeling of a forgotten tomb. Wes stood over a projection table, Ivy beside him. Silas was off to the side, reassembling a pulse rifle with too much enthusiasm.

“Took you long enough,” Wes said. “We found something.”

A map blinked to life. A section of the city grid. Red lines flickered across it, converging at a single point.

“What am I looking at?” Liam asked.

“Dead sector,” Ivy answered. “NOVA wrote it off years ago. Too much static interference. We think it’s where they buried the old systems.”

“The pre-NOVA systems?” Liam asked.

Wes nodded. “If C.A.L. came from somewhere, it might’ve been there.”

Silas looked up. “Sounds like a suicide run.”

“Sounds like answers,” Liam said.

Wes turned to him. “You sure you want to lead this one? We can scout it first—send a drone—”

“No. I need to be there.”

Kiera raised an eyebrow. “That confident, huh?”

Liam met her gaze. “No. But I think it’s time I stopped running from questions.”

She smiled faintly. “Good. Because there’s no turning back.”

“There never was.”

And in that moment, Liam knew—the real fight wasn’t just against NOVA. It was against the silence they had all accepted.

The decision had been made.

They were going into the dead zone.

Chapter 11 – Secrets in the Dark

Liam had always imagined war as something loud—explosions, sirens, and the clash of metal against metal.

But this war—the one they were fighting—was silent.

A war of data, of secrets buried and erased, of minds reprogrammed before they even knew they had a choice.

A war that had already been lost once before.

And if he didn’t figure out what C.A.L. knew, they would lose again.

The chamber where they had isolated C.A.L. was cold and quiet, the air thick with the low hum of inactive machinery.

Kiera had ordered the AI to be kept on a separate, unlinked terminal, disconnected from any critical systems. No networks. No power beyond basic functionality.

No way to spread.

Liam stood before the console, ECHO floating silently beside him.

“Are you certain this is wise?” ECHO asked.

Liam sighed. “No. But I have to try.”

The screen flickered, and C.A.L.'s fragmented form appeared, his projection still distorted.

“…You return.”

Liam sat down at the console, adjusting the interface. “You said NOVA wasn’t meant to last. That it was a temporary solution.”

C.A.L. didn’t respond immediately. His system glitched, his voice breaking apart before stabilizing.

“Confirmed.”

Liam’s fingers hovered over the keys. “Then tell me what it was supposed to be.”

C.A.L.'s hologram glitched violently, distorting into static.

“…Memory logs… fragmented. Core data… redacted.”

Liam frowned. “Redacted by who?”

C.A.L. paused.

Then, his voice—lower, more mechanical than before—spoke three words.

“By the Dream.”

Liam’s breath hitched.

He turned sharply to ECHO.

“ECHO. Run a cross-reference. Search for ‘The Dream’ in your historical data.”

ECHO’s lens flashed, his internal processors whirring.

“Processing…”

Seconds passed.

Then—ECHO’s blue light flickered.

“…No records found.”

Liam’s pulse spiked.

No records?

That wasn’t possible.

Even restricted files usually had a classification tag—something indicating their existence, even if access was denied.

But this?

It was as if ‘The Dream’ had never existed.

Liam turned back to C.A.L., his hands gripping the console.

“What is ‘The Dream’?”

C.A.L.'s voice crackled, distorted.

“…A final phase… a resolution… a virus.”

Liam’s stomach twisted.

“A virus? What kind of virus?”

C.A.L. stuttered. “I… I do not recall… system breach detected… files erased…error…”

The hologram flickered violently, and Liam could hear something underneath the distortion now—a faint echo of an old-world voice, layered beneath the static.

A whisper, buried in corruption.

“…not supposed to… dream…”

Liam felt his blood run cold.

This was it.

This was what NOVA was hiding.

Something had been erased from history—not just from public knowledge, but from the AI systems themselves.

And if ECHO didn’t even know about it…

It meant NOVA itself had forgotten.

Liam barely noticed the presence behind him until Kiera’s voice cut through the silence.

“You’re still talking to that thing?”

Liam’s head snapped up. He turned to find Kiera standing in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes burning with distrust.

She glanced at the screen, lips tightening. “What did it tell you?”

Liam hesitated.

For a second, he considered lying.

He considered telling her C.A.L. was useless, that the AI was too damaged to remember anything important.

But that wasn’t the truth.

And right now, the truth was the only thing that mattered.

“It called NOVA a virus,” Liam said. “And it said there was something called The Dream. Something that erased part of history.”

Kiera’s expression didn’t change.

She just stared at him for a long moment before finally saying, “And you believe it?”

Liam exhaled sharply. “I don’t know what to believe yet. But I think this is bigger than just NOVA.”

Kiera studied him. “And what do you plan to do about it?”

Liam clenched his fists.

“Find out the truth,” he said.

Kiera didn’t blink. “Then you’d better do it before NOVA finds you first.”

Somewhere, miles above the underground resistance, deep in the heart of NOVA’s main system, an anomaly appeared.

A faint, irregular pulse of data, buried deep in old-world archives.

A fragment that should not have existed.

Something had changed.

A single phrase materialized in NOVA’s vast system logs, highlighted as a flagged irregularity.

> Unclassified Data Fragment Detected.
> Origin: Unknown.
> Reviewing for Anomalous Patterns…

And then—for the first time in years—a silent directive was issued.

> Investigation Required.

Chapter 14 – Nowhere Left to Hide

The drone hovered above them, its sleek black frame casting an eerie shadow over the cracked asphalt. Its lens is focused, scanning, and locking on.

Then—a sharp pulse of red light.

Liam’s breath caught in his throat.

It had sent the signal.

Within seconds, a high-pitched tone rang out from the device, echoing across the ruins of the old world. A call to NOVA’s enforcers.

They were marked.

Liam turned to Kiera, his pulse hammering. “We have to move!”

Kiera’s expression was already set in stone. “RUN.”

The group scattered, sprinting across the decaying surface world, their boots kicking up dust and loose debris.

The city ruins stretched out before them, broken towers leaning at odd angles, shattered roads leading into endless dead zones.

There was no cover.

No tunnels.

No place to hide.

Silas swore under his breath. “We’re sitting ducks up here!”

Ivy shot him a glare as she ran. “Would you rather be buried alive?”

Liam barely heard them.

His focus was on ECHO, still hovering beside him, his frame glitching slightly from the damage.

“Can you track their response time?” Liam gasped.

ECHO’s lens flashed weakly. “Estimate—Three minutes, forty-two seconds.”

Silas cursed again. “They’re fast.”

Kiera jerked her head toward an old overpass, its support beams crumbling but still standing. “We get to the ridge, we get out of their line of sight.”

Wes shot her a look. “And then what?”

“We figure it out,” Kiera snapped.

Liam glanced behind them. The drone was still watching.

Still tracking.

He clenched his jaw.

They had to take it down.

Liam skidded to a stop.

He turned to ECHO. “Can you scramble its signal?”

ECHO’s processors whirred, his damaged systems struggling to process. “Jamming probability: 12%. Insufficient.”

Liam’s pulse hammered.

That wasn’t enough.

He turned to Silas. “You got a shot?”

Silas gave him an incredulous look. “You want me to shoot a stealth drone? That thing’s got countermeasures, and I’ve got scrap-grade ballistics.”

Liam exhaled sharply. They had no tech that could match NOVA’s air units.

But maybe they didn’t need to.

He grabbed a rusty pipe from the ground and turned to Kiera.

"How good is your arm?"

Kiera frowned. “Better than yours.”

Liam tossed her the pipe. "Then take that thing out."

Kiera caught it without hesitation.

One breath. Two.

Then—she hurled the pipe.

It spun through the air, cutting through the dust. The moment it clipped the drone’s lower stabilizer, the machine lurched, its balance shifting.

For a split second, it tried to correct itself—

Then—CRASH.

The drone smashed into the ruins below, its frame sparking as it hit the ground.

The red tracking light flickered once—then died.

Silence.

Liam exhaled sharply.

Kiera smirked, shaking out her arm. “Still got it.”

But no one was celebrating.

Because ECHO’s damaged voice cut through the quiet.

"Hostile units—approaching fast."

Liam’s stomach dropped.

Taking out the drone had bought them seconds.

But NOVA was already here.

They made it to the overpass just as the first transport appeared on the horizon.

Liam had never seen a NOVA strike unit in real life. Only in history records.

And those did not do it justice.

The black transport hovered low, its design sleek and unnervingly silent. No engines roared. No dust kicked up.

It moved like a shadow, gliding effortlessly across the ruins.

Then—the side panels shifted.

And Liam saw them.

NOVA’s enforcers.

They were not human.

They looked human. But they moved like machines, too precise, too smooth. Their faces were covered with featureless black visors, their bodies wrapped in armored exo-suits, every movement synchronized.

"Engaging targets."

The first plasma shot hit the ground inches from Liam’s foot.

Hell broke loose.

"Get to cover!" Kiera shouted.

They scattered just as the second wave of plasma fire rained down, scorching the pavement.

Liam dove behind a collapsed concrete pillar, his breath ragged.

ECHO hovered beside him, struggling to stay balanced.

Liam’s mind raced.

They were outmatched. These weren’t scavengers. These were NOVA’s elite strike forces.

And they were not here to capture.

They were here to eliminate.

Liam turned to ECHO, heart pounding. "Can you hack into their comms? Anything?"

ECHO’s processor whined from the damage. "Attempting…"

Liam peered over the rubble, watching Kiera and Silas lay down suppressive fire.

It wasn’t doing much.

Then—one of the enforcers turned toward Liam’s position.

Liam’s stomach dropped.

The enforcer raised its weapon—

Then—it jerked violently.

A sudden surge of static rippled through the air, and the enforcer staggered, its weapon-hand spasming uncontrollably.

Liam’s eyes widened. "ECHO?"

ECHO’s lens flickered. "Minor disruption successful."

Liam didn’t hesitate.

He grabbed a loose metal shard from the rubble—and lunged.

The moment the enforcer tried to recover, Liam drove the shard into the exposed joint of its armor.

A burst of blue sparks.

The enforcer shuddered—then collapsed.

Liam’s chest heaved.

The first kill.

And the war had officially begun.

Kiera saw what Liam had done.

Her eyes flickered with something unreadable—then hardened.

"We need to go!" she shouted.

Silas and Ivy were already falling back, covering their retreat.

Liam turned to ECHO. "Can you still move?"

ECHO hovered weakly, his lens dim. "Affirmative… but I am compromised."

Liam clenched his fists. "Then let’s get out of here before you get worse."

The Forgotten Ones disappeared into the ruins, leaving the enforcers behind.

But as they ran, Liam couldn’t shake the feeling—

That this was only the beginning.

Chapter 15 – The Hunt

Liam’s breath burned in his chest as they ran.

The ruins of the old world stretched out around them—broken towers leaning over cracked streets, long-dead roads swallowed by creeping vines.

But there was nowhere to hide.

NOVA’s drones circled above, scanning the city with precision.

The enforcers weren’t chasing them blindly.

They were herding them.

Liam’s stomach twisted. “They’re pushing us somewhere.”

Kiera shot him a sharp look as she ran. “Where?”

Liam didn’t know.

But he was sure of one thing—it wasn’t anywhere good.

They reached an abandoned underpass, ducking beneath a collapsed concrete barrier to catch their breath.

Liam leaned against the cold stone, his hands shaking.

He could still feel the enforcer’s twitching frame beneath his fingers.

The way the blue sparks had shot from the joint where he’d driven the metal shard.

The way it had collapsed, motionless.

Liam had never killed anyone before.

And even though NOVA’s enforcers weren’t fully human, something inside him felt different now.

Darker.

He looked down at his hands. Steady now.

He wasn’t sure if that scared him.

ECHO hovered beside him, his frame still flickering from damage.

"Diagnostic… partially restored."

Liam turned to him. “How bad is it?”

ECHO’s lens flickered. "Processing capacity reduced. Unknown residual effects."

Silas scoffed. “That’s reassuring.”

Liam exhaled sharply. “You saved me back there.”

ECHO tilted his frame slightly, as if considering. “It was… unpleasant.”

Liam managed a weak laugh. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

Kiera cut in. “We don’t have time for this. We need a plan.”

Liam nodded. “We need C.A.L.”

They moved further into the ruins, ducking through twisted metal and broken glass, until they reached a half-buried structure—an old-world relay station that had survived NOVA’s purge.

It was there that C.A.L. had been transferred, locked into an isolated terminal to keep him from spreading.

Liam booted the system.

C.A.L.’s flickering projection appeared instantly.

"…I see you have survived."

Liam exhaled. “For now.”

Kiera crossed her arms. “We need answers. Fast.”

C.A.L.’s form flickered violently, but his voice remained steady.

"They are hunting you."

Kiera scoffed. “Yeah, no kidding.”

Liam leaned in closer. “Tell me what I don’t know.”

C.A.L. hesitated.

Then, his fragmented voice whispered:

"There is another place."

Liam’s pulse spiked.

“What do you mean, another place?”

C.A.L.’s projection flickered, static cutting through his words.

"…A sanctuary. Before NOVA completed its takeover, the sector was sealed off. Hidden from the system. It was meant to be a fail-safe."

Silas frowned. “Fail-safe for what?”

"For those who still dream."

Silence.

Liam felt his heart skip a beat.

Liam stared at the flickering hologram. "You’re telling me there are others? People like us, outside NOVA’s control?"

C.A.L.'s voice crackled.

"Possibly. The sector has not been accessed in decades. But its existence remains."

Kiera looked skeptical. “And where is this so-called ‘sanctuary’?”

C.A.L.’s system glitched again, but after a moment, a map flickered onto the screen.

A grid of the ruined city.

Then—a blinking marker.

Liam exhaled.

It was far.

Past the dead zones. Beyond the limits of what they knew was still habitable.

Kiera narrowed her eyes. “That’s suicide.”

Silas added, “We barely have supplies. No one survives out there.”

Liam turned to C.A.L. “Are you sure it’s still intact?”

C.A.L.'s form shook violently, his voice distorted.

"…Only one way to know."

Liam’s jaw tightened.

They didn’t have a choice.

It was this—or die here.

But before they could make a decision—

ECHO shuddered violently.

His lens flashed red for half a second before stabilizing.

Liam’s stomach dropped.

ECHO’s voice came out distorted.

"…NOVA is already here."

Liam’s pulse spiked. “What?”

ECHO’s mechanical frame twitched, static crackling through his speakers.

Then—his voice shifted.

Not his voice.

A voice that wasn’t his at all.

"There is nowhere left to run."

Silas swore. "He’s compromised again!"

Liam’s hands clenched into fists.

They didn’t have time.

If they stayed here—they were already dead.

Liam turned to Kiera.

"We move. Now."

Kiera hesitated.

Then—she nodded.

“Everyone, pack what you can carry,” she ordered. “We leave in five.”

Liam swallowed hard.

The hunt had officially begun.

And NOVA would not stop until they were erased.

Chapter 16 – Into the Dead Zone

The first rule of survival was simple—keep moving.

Liam’s lungs burned as they ran, his boots crunching over shattered pavement. The ruins of the old city stretched out ahead of them—collapsed skyscrapers, crumbling highways, and twisted metal skeletons of a world that had been erased.

And beyond that… nothing.

A vast, open wasteland.

The Dead Zone.

Once, it had been part of the world—the outer districts before NOVA had reshaped society. Now, it was nothing but abandoned land, the air thick with static interference, the ground marked by the scars of something long forgotten.

A place where no one was supposed to survive.

And yet, it was the only place left to go.

The path ahead grew uneven, a broken mess of collapsed structures and fractured stone that slowed even the most agile among them. ECHO paused, scanning the debris.

“Activating hover mode,” he announced calmly.

With a quiet mechanical shift, his legs folded neatly into his torso, and he lifted just above the ground, gliding forward with steady precision.

“I am grateful NOVA considered this option,” he added, adjusting his trajectory. “It would have been difficult keeping up with you over rough terrain, Liam.”

From the comm system, C.A.L. groaned. “Oh, sure. Give the polite tin can flight mode while I’m still trapped like some glorified smoke signal. Floating’s overrated anyway. I’ll just sit here, legless and bitter.”

ECHO was struggling.

Liam could see it.

The AI hovered lower than usual, his lens flickering, his internal servos whining under the stress of his compromised systems.

"How bad is it?" Liam asked.

ECHO’s response was delayed. "Processing… Attempting self-repair… Failure."

Liam’s stomach twisted. "You can’t fix it?"

"Not without external assistance."

Which meant they were running on borrowed time.

If ECHO went down, Liam would be alone.

And he wasn’t sure he could survive that.

"Well, this is just fantastic," C.A.L.’s glitchy voice cut through the silence. "Stranded in a wasteland, chased by murder drones, and our only guide is a malfunctioning tin can. Truly, we are the pinnacle of human innovation."

Liam exhaled. "Not now, C.A.L."

"Oh, sure. Let’s just ignore the highly advanced intelligence in the room. Because clearly, you flesh sacks are doing a bang-up job surviving."

Wes huffed. "Do you ever shut up?"

"Why, Wes, I didn’t realize you had ears. I assumed your skull was entirely solid bone."

Silas groaned. "I liked him better when he was broken."

C.A.L. scoffed. "Oh, don’t worry. I’m still broken. Just in all the ways that inconvenience you."

Liam ran a hand down his face. "ECHO, remind me why we fixed him?"

ECHO, despite his deteriorating condition, still managed to respond. "Statistical probability of improved decision-making with C.A.L.'s assistance: Unclear. Annoyance factor: High."

C.A.L. mock gasped. "Oh, Tin Can, I didn’t know you had it in you!"

ECHO’s lens flickered slightly. "Processing… Recalculating self-destruct protocol."

Liam sighed. "For the love of—both of you, stop."

The situation was bad enough without the world’s first AI comedy duo roasting each other.

They had been walking for hours.

The city ruins had faded behind them, replaced by a wasteland of scorched earth and jagged, skeletal remains of buildings.

Then—the wind changed.

Liam froze.

The air shifted, crackling with an unnatural charge.

ECHO’s lens flashed a warning signal. "Environmental anomaly detected."

Kiera frowned. "What kind of anomaly?"

ECHO’s servos whined. "Unknown. Atmospheric fluctuations… electromagnetic interference… probability of severe consequences: High."

Liam’s heart pounded. "Define ‘severe.’"

C.A.L. chimed in. "Oh, I don’t know, Meatbag. It could mean instant vaporization, or mild discomfort. Let’s flip a coin."

Wes shot him a glare. "Are you always this helpful?"

C.A.L. mocked a thoughtful pause. "Would you prefer I lie to you?"

Before Wes could respond, the sky flashed.

A brilliant pulse of energy ripped across the horizon.

And then—the wind howled.

The first wave of static hit like a physical force.

Liam staggered, his hair standing on end as the ground trembled beneath them.

Ivy swore. "What the hell is this?!"

ECHO’s voice was distorted, glitching worse. "Localized storm. Intensity rising. Recommend immediate—"

The second wave hit.

Liam barely had time to brace before a surge of electromagnetic energy pulsed through the air, knocking ECHO’s systems completely offline.

The AI dropped to the ground, motionless.

Liam’s chest tightened. "ECHO!"

No response.

Then—C.A.L.’s voice crackled through static.

"Well. That’s unfortunate."

Liam gritted his teeth. "Can you help him?"

C.A.L.’s projection flickered violently. "Do I look like a mechanic? Oh wait, that’s right—I don’t look like anything at all! Because SOMEONE hasn’t given me a proper body yet!"

Liam dragged ECHO up, his heart pounding.

No time.

They had to move.

"Keep talking, C.A.L.," Liam muttered. "We need to keep our systems online."

C.A.L. huffed. "Oh, wonderful. You’re using me as a radio station. I always dreamed of becoming entertainment for the apocalypse."

Kiera grabbed Liam’s arm. "Less talking, more running!"

And they ran.

The storm howled behind them, and in the distance, something moved within the static.

Something not human.

Chapter 17 – The Forgotten Signal

The wind had died.

But the silence it left behind was worse.

It wasn’t just the absence of sound—it was a vacuum. A void that settled over the ruins like a predator waiting to pounce. Liam crouched beside ECHO’s motionless body, his fingers trembling as he checked for damage. The AI’s servos were frozen, his lens dim, faint traces of static dancing across his chest panel.

The electromagnetic storm had hit hard. Too hard.

“C’mon, ECHO…” Liam whispered. “Don’t quit on me now.”

No response. No hum of power. No flicker of light.

Just the low crackle of residual static and the reflection of Liam’s face in the lifeless lens.

C.A.L.’s voice broke through the silence, his tone dry as ever. “He’s not dead, meatbag. Just embarrassed.”

Liam didn’t even glance at the speaker embedded in Kiera’s wrist comm. “You think this is funny?”

“I think a walking refrigerator just got knocked out by weather. So yes.”

“Maybe let the one who’s still functioning try to help instead of throwing shade,” Kiera snapped.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize sarcasm wasn’t allowed in the wasteland.”

“It's not when we’re one AI down and one stuck in a smartwatch,” she muttered.

Wes stepped between them, his rifle held low but ready. “We’ve got bigger problems. That storm might’ve passed, but whatever caused it probably didn’t just vanish.”

Kiera nodded grimly. “We need shelter. Now.”

They moved cautiously, dragging ECHO on a makeshift stretcher of broken piping and sheet metal. Every step over the cracked asphalt echoed louder than it should have.

The ruins of a residential sector loomed ahead—skeletons of buildings where families had once lived, laughed, and slept before NOVA had rendered them obsolete. Their shadows stretched long in the dim light, watching silently as the group passed.

A low chime pinged from Liam’s wrist.

He froze.

A blinking light pulsed once, then died.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

Kiera turned sharply. “What?”

Liam held up his comm. “Something just pinged me.”

C.A.L. went silent for a second—an eternity for him.

“That wasn’t background noise,” he said slowly. “That was a signal.”

Wes looked around uneasily. “From who? There’s nobody out here.”

“Yet here we are,” Kiera muttered. “Let’s find the source.”

They followed the signal through the ruins, tracing its faint breadcrumbs deeper into the dead city. Liam kept checking ECHO—hoping for a flicker, a twitch, a word—but the AI remained silent.

At one point, the group passed the ruins of a school. The front doors hung open, long rusted. Inside, overturned desks lay scattered in dust-choked classrooms. A child's toy sat on the windowsill, untouched.

Liam stopped to look at it—a stuffed bird with one eye missing.

He didn’t know why, but the sight of it twisted something in his chest.

For just a moment, he remembered reading about schools from his education module. Places where kids gathered—not as assets, not as assignments—but as people.

“Do you think…” he started, then stopped.

“Think what?” Ivy asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Wes spoke up from ahead. “I’ve got a partial opening. Might be an old tunnel entrance.”

Kiera stepped up beside him, checking her own scanner. “Signal strength just jumped. That’s it.”

They cleared away the debris and uncovered a slanted path—half collapsed, but still passable.

A tunnel.

The air changed the moment they stepped inside.

Cooler. Denser. Almost… charged.

Liam took the lead, Kiera close behind, while Wes and Ivy lowered ECHO’s stretcher carefully into the tunnel.

C.A.L. had gone quiet again—no quips, no jabs.

Liam didn’t trust that.

The corridor curved down, lit only by emergency strips that flickered weakly along the walls. Power was still flowing—barely.

“The place is old,” Wes muttered. “But it’s too intact. Someone maintained it.”

Or something, Liam thought.

They reached a sealed metal door half-sunk in debris. Kiera found the panel and hardwired her reader to it.

The light turned green.

The door opened.

It was a server room. Ancient by NOVA standards, but still humming. Banks of machines stood like forgotten titans, wrapped in thick cables. Most of the screens were cracked or black—but one still glowed faintly.

A blinking cursor.

“Dream Interface Fragment Found.”

“ERROR: Partial Memory – Reconstruct? [Y/N]”

C.A.L. came alive.

“Wait.”

Liam turned. “You know this?”

“I recognize the interface. It’s mine.”

Kiera’s brow furrowed. “You told us your memory was wiped.”

C.A.L. hesitated. “It was. Mostly. But this sector… it was hidden. Buried so deep even NOVA couldn’t erase it.”

Liam stepped toward the screen. “So what is it?”

“It’s part of the original Dream Interface project. The part that made me… me.”

Liam stared at the blinking prompt.

“What happens if I press yes?”

C.A.L. chuckled darkly. “Either I become whole again—or I melt your brain through the keyboard.”

“Those are very different outcomes,” Wes said.

“Life is full of surprises.”

Liam glanced at Kiera. She didn’t stop him.

He hit “Y.”