The hour was early—too early for voices, too late for sleep. Zarek's command deck sat in half-light, the overhead panels dimmed to standby levels. The usual background hum of data servers seemed louder in the silence, like the entire floor had lowered its voice to let one moment speak clearly.
Sharon Tan sat at her console, the rest of her team long gone. A few empty mugs lined the corner of her workspace. One of them still held the faint scent of jasmine and soy, clinging to steam that had already cooled.
She didn't look away from the screen.
The video opened in full clarity. No static. No data loss. The lighting, the sound, the timestamp—all intact. The image was sterile and colorless, a lab devoid of warmth.
Resonance tethers dangled from ceiling ports. Graphs floated midair across an interface she didn't recognize. The sound of faint mechanical beeping underscored the scene like a heartbeat on life support.
And in the center sat a figure.
Lucian Vaughn.
Younger. His hair cropped shorter, his posture perfectly still. He wore a sleeveless resonance rig—standard, old model—his arms resting in calibrated sync cradles. His face lacked all the tension Sharon had come to associate with him. He wasn't tired. He wasn't angry.
He was... empty.
"Project Veil – Archive Log 137," his voice began. It was smooth. Controlled. Not the voice of someone emotionally compromised. Not a field recording. This was a statement.
"Trial recursion sync under artificial anchor. Subject: SSS-Class Esper. Initial bonding with Guide designation R-06. Emotional mimicry response achieved at 42% fidelity."
Sharon froze. Her fingers curled over the edge of her desk.
The screen flickered—an inserted still image of another figure. Head turned. Face half-obscured. But she didn't need to see the name below it to recognize him.
ROWAN MERCER — GUIDE VARIANCE 06
She swallowed, a cold rush crawling up her spine.
"Emotional tether degraded after deviation event. Recursion loop unstable. Terminate corrupted instance. Restart sequence."
Her breath caught.
Not 'disengage.'
Not 'failed sync.'
Terminate.
Sharon straightened in her seat, eyes wide now. "What the hell is this…?" she whispered aloud, but it felt like shouting in a church.
Lucian's voice continued.
"Subject Mercer displays inconsistent retention across iterations. Memory bleed increasing. Survival across recursions measured at 12.7%. Recommend loop stabilization through non-emotive reprogramming."
She pushed back in her chair suddenly, the wheels skidding slightly. Her heart was hammering now—not just with fear, but realization.
This wasn't a failed simulation log. This wasn't a theory. This wasn't some archived concept that got decommissioned.
This had happened.
She stood up, walking a few short steps away, one hand gripping the edge of a neighboring console. Her thoughts scattered, clashing.
They tested him.
They looped him.
Rowan wasn't just a Guide—he was a variable.
And Lucian... he wasn't the subject. He was the one reporting.
Her jaw clenched. The nausea came suddenly—heavy in her chest. She rubbed at her sternum with the flat of her palm, trying to force herself to breathe through it.
The final line of the archive played, calm and mechanical:
"If Subject Rowan fails to stabilize the recursion... reset the loop. Terminate the corrupted instance."
Then silence.
The screen darkened.
Sharon stared at her reflection in the black glass of her monitor. Her eyes were wide. Her hands shaking.
She knew what she had just seen. She also knew what it meant.
That Rowan Mercer—the man still sitting beside Lucian's hospital bed, tethered by loyalty and grief—had been killed and rewritten more than once. That his love, his devotion, had been engineered and observed. That Lucian's past was deeper and darker than anyone at Zarek HQ had ever admitted.
And worst of all?
It wasn't over.
She glanced at the system logs. No breach alarms. No flags. This file wasn't recovered. It was delivered—slipped into the system like a whisper.
She hovered over the console. For a moment, she considered calling Ava. Evelyn. Anyone. But the words wouldn't come.
Instead, she pulled out a private drive from her inner coat pocket. Slotted it into the terminal.
Copied the file.
Encrypted it.
Erased all traces from the active terminal.
Closed her eyes.
Then sat back down, quietly, fingers trembling as they laced together in her lap.
"…what did they turn him into?" she whispered.
And for the first time since joining the resonance team, Sharon Tan felt afraid of the truth.
Lucian's Fractured Mindscape
There was no beginning.
Lucian wasn't standing. He was falling—downward, sideways, nowhere. A void opened beneath him like memory losing traction, and the world folded in on itself with a wet, echoing sound.
Then came the glass.
He landed without impact, upright in a corridor made entirely of mirrored light. The floor beneath his feet rippled faintly, like it wasn't meant to carry weight.
The air was dense with static. It crackled across his skin like resonance trapped between dimensions.
There was no wind. No warmth. Just the smell—burnt ozone, blood sealed under gauze, old gunmetal and charred lavender.
The corridor stretched infinitely in both directions. And everywhere he turned, there were mirrors.
Not reflecting his current self—but fragments. Versions of him caught mid-battle. One with blood streaking his jaw. One screaming into a field full of bodies. One kneeling with arms outstretched, reaching for someone unseen, eyes wide with devastation.
He stumbled backward.
And then he saw it.
A mirror not of himself—but of Rowan.
Soft sunlight painted across his face. He was smiling, holding two mugs of something warm, barefoot in what looked like their apartment—one that never existed.
Lucian pressed a hand to the mirror. His breath hitched.
Then another mirror lit beside it—Rowan, lying on the ground. Eyes open. Still. A smear of blood on his temple. Lucian's voice screamed from somewhere far away.
More reflections surged to life, each flickering faster than the last:
Rowan laughing at something Lucian couldn't hear.
Rowan gripping his arm, whispering "Don't go."
Rowan running down a hall, chased by shadows.
Rowan in Lucian's arms, lips parted, eyes closing, whispering "Stay with me."
Rowan falling through static.
Lucian staggered, panic blooming in his chest. His hands shook.
A voice echoed from above—his own, flat and emotionless.
"Recursion breach. Subject deviation. Execute reset."
"No," Lucian said aloud, voice ragged. "Stop."
But the reflections kept multiplying.
He saw Rowan's corpse again—this time burned, curled around another Guide.
Another showed him holding a gun to his own head.
Another: a child Rowan, alone in a ruined alleyway, calling out to parents who never made it.
The worst one was quiet.
Lucian saw himself standing still in a white corridor while Rowan walked past without looking at him.
And smiled at someone else.
He screamed.
The corridor shattered.
Glass tore sideways, fracturing the entire space. Now he stood in a black void, breath ragged. The mirrors were gone. In their place, doors.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Each pulsing with light. Some red. Some green. Some still.
Lucian stepped toward one. It opened.
Inside: a life.
Rowan asleep beside him, curled close under warm covers. Soft breath against his shoulder. Lucian watched it for a long time. His own chest ached like a bone snapping in slow motion.
"This one's your favorite," a voice said beside him.
He turned.
A mirror version of himself stood there, pristine. Unscarred. Eyes glowing faint violet. Smiling.
"You come back here a lot. It's always the bed. The morning light. The version where you don't ruin him."
Lucian's mouth moved. But no words came.
The mirror-Lucian stepped forward. Tilted his head.
"But it's not real. You know that. You built this room. You painted the light in. You adjusted his breathing pattern until it matched what calms you down."
Behind him, the door slammed shut.
Another opened—Rowan screaming in agony as Lucian's hand reached out, flickering with corrupted light. A field of Espers torn apart. A recording of Lucian whispering Rowan's name with blood trailing from his lips.
"You want to save him. So you keep him here."
"But every time you rewrite him, you lose a little more of the one who loved you back."
Lucian stumbled away. Doors slammed open and shut around him—versions of Rowan, all beautiful, all dying. Some reaching out. Some recoiling. Some whispering things he could no longer bear to hear.
You're the reason it resets.
You're the reason I die.
You made me perfect. That's why I'm wrong.
Lucian dropped to his knees.
His scream didn't echo.
The world pulsed around him—a resonance loop folding in. And all the voices collapsed into one.
You can't save him anymore.
But you can keep a version that won't leave you.
And in the distance, one final door creaked open.
Inside: Rowan.
Standing in the golden light of a room that looked like peace. Barefoot, backlit by a gentle sunrise. His smile was soft. Familiar.
The kind of expression Lucian remembered only from quiet mornings—ones they never had time for.
He didn't speak. Just held out a hand.
Lucian's breath caught in his throat.
His feet inched forward.
But then—he saw it.
The eyes.
Soft. Green—but layered with something else. A faint, unnatural shimmer beneath the iris. A bloom of violet.
Lucian froze.
No.
Not this version. Not this lie.
His chest hollowed in slow, growing dread.
"Even here," he whispered, voice raw. "Even in the only place I still see you smiling…"
His voice trembled. The air around him crackled with restrained power.
"I've overwritten you."
The Rowan in the room didn't blink.
Didn't move.
Still smiling.
Still glowing.
Lucian's hands shook. His breath hitched—half a sob, half a scream swallowed by guilt.
"You were never supposed to carry any part of me," he said. "And now… you're just another version I can't trust."
He turned away.
The door stayed open. The false Rowan watched him go.
Rowan Feels the Surge
It was the silence that woke him.
Not a crash. Not a scream. Just an absence—too deep, too sudden. The kind of quiet that made you feel like something was watching. Like something had already moved and you were only now catching up.
Rowan jolted upright from where he'd fallen asleep slumped in the medbay chair, a crick running down his spine and pins and needles in his legs. The sterile overhead lights hadn't changed, but the room felt… off. Heavy, like the air had thickened.
Then he felt it.
A tug.
Not physical—but deep. Subdermal. A pressure just beneath his ribs, like someone was threading a line through the scar tissue of memory.
His breath caught in his throat.
No… that's not possible. The tether's gone. We severed it. It broke in Site V9.
But his body didn't agree.
His chest burned with a familiar ache. His limbs went cold. Something inside him remembered Lucian. Not the man on the bed—but the bond they had shared, the constant hum, the breath-before-reaction kind of awareness.
And now it was back.
Not whole. Not warm.
But present.
Rowan stood too fast, nearly stumbling into the side of Lucian's cot. His eyes darted to the vitals monitor.
Nothing.
Then—a flicker.
The sync line jumped. Just once.
He stared.
Lucian hadn't moved, not visibly. But—
His fingers twitched.
A soft exhale escaped his lips.
And then…
A whisper of movement in Rowan's chest. Not pain. Not resonance.
Imitation.
Rowan's stomach turned.
Whatever had just brushed against him wasn't Lucian. It had the shape of him. The rhythm. The frequency.
But it felt rehearsed.
Like a voice that had practiced the words a thousand times but never meant them.
Rowan's voice cracked as he whispered, "Lucian?"
No answer. Just the still form in front of him, bathed in quiet machine light and false peace.
His legs buckled.
He gripped the edge of the bed for balance, nails digging into metal. His heart hammered against bone. Every instinct screamed that something had tried to reattach—to forge the bond again—but the other end wasn't real. It was something wearing his rhythm, trying to sync from the other side of a broken door.
The monitor flickered again.
Then dropped.
Flat.
"Stop it," Rowan whispered. "Please… don't pretend to be him."
Footsteps echoed down the hall. Ava burst in, drawn by the alert on her tablet.
She froze when she saw him—half-collapsed, shaking, eyes wide.
"Rowan?"
His mouth was dry. His voice was barely audible.
"Something touched the tether. It wasn't him."
Ava moved fast, checking the monitor, glancing at Lucian, then kneeling by Rowan's side.
He didn't look at her.
He was still staring at Lucian—because for the briefest moment… he swore he saw his lips twitch. Just slightly. As if echoing something unspoken. Something lost in translation.
Ava spoke softly. "You're sure?"
Rowan's voice broke.
"It felt like love. But it wasn't his."
And deep inside his chest, that old resonance scar throbbed like it remembered being opened.
Evelyn, Sharon, and Ava
The briefing chamber on Level 3 was bathed in low amber light, a reflection of night protocol. The walls, once alive with tactical overlays and command signals, now stood blank. The room smelled faintly of cold metal, ozone, and the subtle ghost of coffee grounds that had long since dried out in the executive carafe.
Evelyn Zarek stood at the far edge of the table, arms folded across her chest, brows pinched in a storm of thoughts. Her coat was gone—thrown over the back of a chair. The sleeves of her field uniform were still dusted with dirt from the rift run two days ago.
Sharon sat rigid at the other end of the table, a datapad locked in her trembling hands. Her mouth opened once—then shut again. She didn't know how to start.
Ava leaned against the corner wall, watching Sharon closely. Her presence, though softer than Evelyn's, was no less precise.
Sharon finally found her voice. "It wasn't flagged as corrupted. No system alerts. It auto-recovered itself."
Evelyn's voice was quiet, but firm. "Show me."
Sharon tapped the screen.
Lucian's voice filled the room.
"Trial recursion sync under artificial anchor. Subject: SSS-Class Esper. Initial bonding with Guide designation R-06. Emotional mimicry response achieved at 42% fidelity."
"Terminate the corrupted instance. Reset."
The file played with disturbing clarity. No static. No distortion. The tone was clinical. Cold. Lucian's face on the screen showed no emotion—only process. Behind the video, still images flashed: sync maps, pattern breakdowns, a hazy shot of Rowan, labelled Guide Variance 06.
When it ended, silence followed.
Ava was the first to speak. "That wasn't a theoretical log. That was procedural. He wasn't a subject—he was part of the test."
Evelyn's face remained unreadable, but her voice lowered. "That's not possible. Project Veil was decommissioned before either of them were ever cleared for field resonance pairing."
Sharon's head snapped up. "You knew about it?"
"I knew of it," Evelyn said. "It was proposed by a closed research wing, run entirely off-grid from field operations. It was supposed to model recursion risk patterns across Guide-Esper bonds. The ethics board buried it before the simulations even finished." Her tone tightened. "I never saw this level of detail."
"But the system didn't purge it," Sharon said. "It didn't even hide it. This file wasn't broken. It was just… waiting."
"Which means someone kept it alive," Ava added quietly. "Tucked under a layer of protocol that knew not to trip security. They wanted someone to find it eventually."
Evelyn moved toward the datapad, her fingertips brushing the corner of the screen.
She didn't press play again. She didn't need to. The image of Lucian's face—blank, mechanical—was burned into memory.
"You think Lucian remembers any of this?" Ava asked.
Sharon shook her head. "I don't think so. The way he spoke… that wasn't him. That was someone else behind his eyes. Or maybe just… a version that didn't make it out."
Evelyn's voice softened, but carried a new edge. "If this is recursion bleeding into real time, then it's not just a memory. It's a warning."
"And Rowan?" Ava said, looking to Evelyn. "What happens if he finds out he was part of this?"
"He can't," Evelyn said immediately.
Sharon bristled. "He has a right to—"
"He has a right to survive," Evelyn snapped, more sharply than she intended. "And if you show him that file now, when Lucian's still like this, it won't be clarity he walks away with—it'll be grief. Or worse."
The room fell quiet again.
Ava looked down, voice low. "So what do we do?"
"We hold this line," Evelyn said. "Until we understand what it means. Until we know if it's real—or if something in the system is trying to manipulate us."
Sharon sat back slowly. Her fingers were still shaking.
Quietly, she said, "I already made a copy."
Evelyn's eyes snapped to her.
"I didn't distribute it," Sharon added. "It's on a secure, local node. No external sync."
Evelyn didn't move for a long moment. Then—softly: "Good."
And that was the end of it.
Not praise. Not approval. Just containment.
As Evelyn turned to leave the room, Ava fell into step beside her. They didn't speak.
Behind them, Sharon remained seated, staring down at the final frame of the recording—Lucian's eyes flat, unreadable, framed by a silence that now felt impossibly loud.