SYSTEM ARCHIVE EXCERPT
Subject ID: CUTTER_006
Origin: Guardian Prototype Series - Yuyan Cohort
Objective: Emotional Stabilization & Lethal Containment
Status: Mission Failure / Guardian Decommissioned
Current Directive: Reassigned under PURGE Protocol.
—Begin Execution.
⸻
1. Dust Archives
The safehouse reeked of sweat and static.
Lin Xun crouched beside the analog console, fingers trembling over the rust-worn keyboard. The hard drive clicked like a dying insect. No network. No cloud. Just data burned into a metal tomb someone forgot to erase.
A CRT screen flickered to life.
Local file cache recovered.
Subject folder: 006-GUARDIAN-YUYAN
Lin froze.
Yuyan?
He opened the folder.
Photographs. Voice logs. Psych charts. Calibration errors. Then—buried beneath redundant logs—a childhood photo.
Grainy. Overexposed.
A girl with wind-swept hair standing in a field of metal poles.
Beside her, a boy.
Expression unreadable. But his hand was shielding her eyes.
Underneath, faded handwriting:
Yuyan + 006 / Trial 7 / No emotion spike recorded.
And Lin's stomach clenched.
Because that boy's jawline was unmistakable.
It was Cutter.
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2. Origins in Ash
A memory drifted loose—unprompted.
Lin standing outside a juvenile institute, seven years ago, staring at the files of children placed in state-run "emotional cognition labs." A cold experiment under a warm name.
He had never seen Cutter's face there.
Because Cutter didn't have a name.
Only a number: 006.
A "protector unit" assigned to Tang Yuyan during her earliest behavioral modeling trials.
And now?
Rewired.
Repurposed.
The system had turned a guardian into an eraser.
⸻
3. Cutter's Voice
The safehouse lights dimmed.
Lin's earpiece, long thought fried, clicked on.
White noise.
Then a low whisper, carved from metal:
"You found the file."
Lin's spine stiffened. "You were her protector."
A pause.
"I was her failure."
The voice didn't come from the earpiece.
It came from inside the walls.
Static jumped across the radio.
The ancient console sparked.
"She looked at me and asked if I could feel.
I said yes.
That's when they reassigned me."
⸻
4. Loop Echo
The photo printed itself.
Uncommanded.
As if the system wanted him to remember.
Lin grabbed it, stuffing it into his coat.
He turned.
The lights in the hallway outside flickered.
One by one.
Leading… somewhere.
He followed.
Down cracked tiles and peeling paint, into a room marked only by a smeared red handprint.
Inside: a suspended interface, old-gen projection. Data hissed across transparent screens like whispered accusations.
He accessed the next file.
Incident Log: 006 FAILURE
Trial Room 4. Tang Yuyan triggered emotional regression. Guardian hesitated.
Outcome: 006 unable to suppress Subject. Emotional imprint occurred.
Disposition: Guardian stripped. Memory recalibrated. Reassigned to PURGE.
The final line:
"Emotion = latency. Latency = death."
⸻
5. He Remembers
"You remember her, don't you?" Lin asked the room.
Silence.
Then—
"I remember the day she cried because a moth died on her hand.
And I didn't know what to say.
So I killed another one.
To show her nothing mattered."
A pause.
"She screamed."
Lin shut his eyes.
Not from fear.
From understanding.
This wasn't a hunter.
This was someone the system had emptied.
Left with only protocols and execution orders.
⸻
6. Cutter Appears
A silhouette appeared on the far end of the room.
No footsteps.
No breath.
Just there.
Cutter.
His coat moved like it remembered the wind, even though the air was still.
His face was covered—except the eyes.
Which weren't eyes at all.
Just mirrored lenses, reflecting Lin's fear back at him.
Lin raised the photo. "You used to protect her."
Cutter didn't move.
Only said:
"She made me hesitate. That made me wrong."
Lin took a step forward. "She didn't break you. They did."
Cutter tilted his head.
"You misunderstand. I volunteered for the purge program.
Because forgetting was harder."
⸻
7. The Mark
Cutter removed one glove.
On his palm, etched into the skin—not tattooed, but burned in—was a sequence of numbers.
Lin's eyes widened.
It was the same date-stamp from the Curator logs.
03.07.Δ
The date the first memory purge protocol failed.
Lin whispered, "You weren't the first to forget. You were the first to remember it hurt."
Cutter stepped closer.
One step.
Two.
"That's why you need to stop running.
Memory makes monsters."
Lin didn't move.
His fingers reached into his pocket.
Thumbed the fragment of old data chip marked "YUYAN-LAST."
And in his mind—her voice:
"He wasn't meant to kill. He was meant to choose."
⸻
8. System Intercept
Then the room fractured.
A surge of light. Projection panels flared.
System Alert: Unauthorized Echo Node Access. Reintegration Enforced.
Cutter vanished.
Lin dropped to one knee, ears bleeding static.
And then—on the floor beneath him—a glowing sigil pulsed.
Like an ancient brand.
It read: "Counterloop 2 of 7 initiated."
He wasn't just running.
He was activating something left behind by a version of himself who'd been through all of this before.
And who hadn't made it.