Zero moved carefully beneath the collapsed hallway of the abandoned satellite complex outside Echelon. This place wasn't on any map. The static on Mira's scanner was all the proof they needed: it didn't want to be found.
The relic signature burned faint but steady.
"This place was built over," Mira said through the comms, eyes darting across multiple windows of artifact decay and subharmonic pulses. "Layers of architecture. The older one underneath is where Harrow's files were stored."
Enzo crouched beside a disabled console. Wires hung like veins. Cain hummed at his side, occasionally twitching, reacting to unseen triggers.
"Let's get those files," he whispered.
Kael's voice crackled in. "I'm intercepting two drone patrols circling from the northwest quadrant. You have ten minutes before they breach the external grid."
"Copy," Enzo replied. "Mira?"
"On it."
She moved toward the server core. The room responded to her presence—low vibrations pulsing from the cables as if the building itself recognized her.
She paused.
"This place knows me," she said under her breath.
They reached the lower archive within five minutes. Black walls reflected nothing. The center of the room held a single relic-tier console, shaped like a monolith cut from obsidian.
Mira stepped forward. Her eyes widened.
"No encryption key required. It's… linked to me."
She placed her hand on the surface. Instantly, the monolith flared to life, and the room dimmed. A projection lit the air—blue static forming the figure of a woman in her late thirties with short-cropped hair and a voice that vibrated with both calm and terror.
LOG ENTRY 47A – "Subject Mira continues to stabilize. Despite early bleed episodes, her mind adapts to cognitive resonance at 91% efficiency. A new anomaly has emerged: predictive micro-response to external stimuli. I believe she is starting to remember things that haven't happened yet."
The projection shifted to footage—Mira, younger, strapped to a chair. Tubes and sensors crisscrossed her temple. She was screaming silently.
"She's seeing futures not assigned to her. This wasn't in the design."
Mira turned away.
Zero stepped forward. "Do you remember this?"
Her hands trembled. "I remember feeling it. Not seeing it."
LOG ENTRY 48C – "Director Descovinio insists on accelerated integration. He believes Mira can be used as a 'battlefield oracle.' He doesn't understand—time isn't a weapon. It's a wound. And he keeps trying to slice it open."
"They'll shut us down soon. I'll send her away."
The file ended.
Silence returned.
Zero stood motionless. "Director Descovinio. My uncle. He was in charge of this project."
Mira whispered, "She… she tried to protect me."
Kael's voice interrupted. "Two minutes. Time to vanish."
Zero placed a data drive against the monolith. It synced instantly. "We take everything."
They moved fast through the crumbling infrastructure, slipping back through the hollow walls just as the first drone breach echoed through the outer complex.
By the time they returned to their hidden tram outside the city, dawn was breaking.
At AGILA's safehouse, Mira sat alone in the relic vault, replaying the logs in silence. Enzo stood nearby, letting her have space.
"I need to know who I was," she finally said. "And why she sent me into the world half-finished."
"She didn't abandon you," Enzo replied. "She gave you a second chance."
Mira looked up. "Then we find her. Solace is alive. I know it."
Elsewhere, deep within the upper echelons of Echelon Tower, Drago Descovinio observed a silent feed projected before him.
He rewound the footage of Mira's presence at the archive. Her face, distorted in relic static, flickered.
He turned to the man beside him—face hidden beneath a silver mask.
"Tell the Director," Drago said. "Project Harrow is waking up."
The masked figure bowed.
"And what of Zero?" he asked.
Drago smiled coldly. "We let him keep digging. There's more under that graveyard than he understands."
Later that night, Enzo walked into the comms bay and replayed the final audio message from Solace—unlocked from the monolith.
"To the one who finds this: the girl is not a mistake. She is the prototype of truth. Memory cannot be controlled. Only rewritten. If I'm gone, follow the trail. They'll call it madness. I call it freedom."
The message ended with static. But even in the silence, Enzo felt it:
A door had opened.
Not one to step through—but one that would swallow them whole.