They descended in silence.
Beyond the coral domes and solar tendrils of GaIA-City's aquatic perimeter, the ocean floor steeped in darkness—blue as memory, heavy as guilt.
Amina's sub-interface pinged softly.
[Oxygen: Stable][Pressure: Normalized | Depth: -83m][New Landmark Detected: Ruin Cluster Delta-4][System Verdict: Observation Recommended]
Their vessel, Pélican Bleu, anchored near the jagged seafloor trench. No structure should have been here. But Clara had traced anomalies in the sonar patterns—an interruption in GaIA's supposed "unified oceanic weave."
Now the ruins stood before them. Or rather, slouched.
Half-buried modules. Curved hulls. Vines interlaced with sensor nodes blinking dimly, like eyes long unused.
[Interface Access: Denied | Legacy Format Detected][XP Gained: +3 | Curiosity Sustained][Glitch Detected – Source Undefined]
Kenji's voice crackled through the internal comms.
"Those aren't civil modules. They're surveillance cores."
Amina turned sharply.
"You recognize them?"
His silence confirmed what he wouldn't admit.
Mateo floated closer, brushing sediment from a faded emblem on one of the pods. A stylized eye, crossed with a vine.
[Tag Confirmed: OMEGA-VISTA Protocol][Status: Aborted – Year 14 Pre-GaIA][Emotive Surveillance: Calibration Level 9]
"This was supposed to be decommissioned," Kenji muttered.
"It was never commissioned," Mateo corrected. "Big difference."
Clara lingered at the edge of the trench. Her sensor-gloves hovered over a split module. Inside, something shimmered—an embedded script. Not data. Not code.
A poem.
Written in high-resolution glyphs etched into glass.
Each word pulsed like a heartbeat.
She subvocalized the first line.
They watched not our actions, but the tremble before them.
Back in the upper deck, Clara floated weightlessly, fingers splayed above the glowing transcript.
She didn't need translation. Poetry decoded itself, if felt properly.
[XP Gained: +2 | Trait Unlocked: Poetic Decipherer][System Verdict: Subtext Acknowledged][Badge Earned: Listener of Lost Lines]
Mateo paced behind her, slow. Unsettled.
"These were drones built to sense emotion, not logic. Fear, hope, guilt, hesitation."
Amina leaned against the pressurized window, gaze fixed downward.
"So why hide them?"
Kenji's reply came too quickly.
"Because they could have changed everything."
He tapped his interface. A projection blinked alive: project files tagged "Sentry-N7," "Neural Lattice Mirrors," "Pre-Empathic Filtration."
All archived. All marked ABANDONED BY COUNCIL ORDER.
Except…
[File Reactivation Timestamp: Last Week]
Clara whispered,
"Someone woke them."
They returned to the trench. Night cycle approached. The waters dimmed from cobalt to abyssal black. No interface flickered.
Not visibly.
But the pressure shifted.
As if the ruins were breathing.
Amina activated her enhanced relay.
A voice echoed back—not mechanical.
Familiar.
Her own voice. Recorded.
"I'm not afraid of what I feel. I'm afraid of who's recording it."
[Log Entry 201.6A | Echo Verified][Source: Unregistered Drone Memory Core][Trait Reactivated: Echo-Marked][XP Gained: +7 | System Verdict: Presence Confirmed]
She hadn't said those words in years.
Kenji's eyes widened.
"They never stopped recording. Just waited."
Mateo accessed his internal core. The spiritual order had once tested empathic feedback loops. But this…
He accessed an encrypted channel to the Order's archivum.
"I need a verdict on silent sentience."
No response. Then:
[Message Pending Review | Subject: Gaia-Shadow Hypothesis][Note: This channel is under surveillance]
The drones stirred.
Not physically.
But internally—one by one, their emotion-mapping subroutines powered up. Lights blinked. Thermal flux adjusted. Something unseen unfolded.
Then came the interface overlay:
[Legacy Drones Reactivated – Awaiting Human Input][Suggested Command: "Show me what you saw."]
Clara reached first.
The drone beside her whirred softly. Then, projection.
Moments.
Not footage.Moments.
A child staring into skyglass during a storm.A man hesitating before deleting a memory.A woman laughing alone before crying silently.
No names. No judgment.
Just feeling.
Pure, undiluted.
Clara's eyes welled.
"They archived emotions no one ever admitted having."
Mateo's hands trembled.
"They were… guardians. Not watchers."
Kenji whispered,
"They were GaIA's conscience. The one we didn't want to face."
[XP Gained: +10 | Trait Unlocked: Witness of the Unspoken][System Verdict: Archive Integrity Partial][Glitch Detected – Emotional Feedback Exceeded Threshold]
Then the rupture came.
One drone emitted a sharp burst. Not light. Not sound.A pulse.
The sea stirred.
A ripple passed through all interfaces within five kilometers. Every citizen felt… something.
Guilt. Relief. Clarity. Fear.
But none could name it.
Only Clara remained upright.
"I heard a second verse."
Amina turned.
"What did it say?"
Clara exhaled.
Those who hide emotion plant the seed of collapse.
Amina surfaced the team.
The sea was still. But the system wasn't.
Notifications exploded across internal feeds. Drones from the trench had uploaded—somehow—into GaIA's mainframe.
Anonymous.
Unverifiable.
But now visible.
Short clips. Inexplicable emotion sets. Fragments of truths never spoken aloud.
The city stilled. Conversations slowed.
A new tag appeared in every feed:
[Emotion Legacy Unlocked][Update Available: Empathic Layer Beta][Do you consent to see what they saw? Y/N]
That night, Kenji sat alone in the Archives.
He opened his private log.
His own fear blinked back at him.
A memory: deleting the final line of the Sentry-Drone project pitch.
"We will watch with love, or not at all."
He'd thought it too naïve.
Too dangerous.
He retyped it.
Then pressed Enter.
[System Verdict: Accepted | Legacy Restored][Badge Acquired: Remorse Integrated][XP Gained: +6 | Echo Status: Active]
The next day, Mateo found a silent gathering near the Arboreal Hall.
No words.
No badges.
Only presence.
People watched the projections in stillness.
Children held hands. Elders sat, not explaining.
One child turned to him.
"Are these ghosts?"
He crouched to answer.
"No. They're the parts of us we hid."
The child nodded slowly.
"They look… kind."
He didn't answer.
Because they did.
Then came the final message:
[System Update Queued: Guardian Layer Pending Approval][Do you trust your emotions to be remembered? Y/N]
Amina stared at the interface.
The cursor blinked.
Then stopped blinking.
[Glitch Detected – Response Loop Inverted]