Chapter 32 – Kaela
The mountain caves were jagged and lightless, the echo of every footfall swallowed into cold silence. The team moved with caution through the crystalline passages, guided by Jett's scanner and Noah's new memories. The wind outside howled like a living thing, urging them deeper.
Noah walked at the front, his eyes occasionally flickering with silver—a side effect of the reawakened neural code. His recollection of the other child, Kaela, had stirred something in all of them: hope, curiosity, and dread.
"She was close to me," he said, voice low as they moved. "I don't know if we were siblings or... something else. But she always calmed me. She sang when the protocols hurt."
Aya stayed close to him, her power humming softly beneath her skin. "And you saw her recently?"
"In a dream. She was older. Pale scars on her cheek. Her eyes… they weren't human anymore."
Lena slowed. "Could she have been modified like you?"
Noah glanced back. "No. Worse. She merged with something during the rebellion. Something they couldn't control."
Jett tapped his scanner. "I've picked up faint pulse energy matching the old Echo Cradle signature. It's leading into that tunnel—straight ahead."
The team entered a low-ceilinged passage that widened into an oval cavern lit faintly by bioluminescent moss and humming machinery half-buried in the stone. At the center stood a chair.
A cryo-chair.
"Someone's in there," Lena whispered.
They approached slowly. The pod's surface was cracked with age, but the stasis lights still blinked. Inside the glass, a girl no older than seventeen lay motionless—her hair dark, her skin ash-pale. A series of neural threads trailed from her spine into the chair's core.
Noah stepped forward, hand trembling. "Kaela."
Her eyelids twitched.
Then opened.
The chair whirred, mechanical locks disengaging. A hiss of warm air escaped as her body jerked forward, limbs seizing, then falling still. She blinked, disoriented, her gaze blurry until it locked on Noah.
"You… you came back." Her voice cracked, thin as silk.
Noah dropped to his knees beside her. "I remembered."
Kaela stared at him, then the others. Her eyes had a soft glow, faintly blue and unsettling. "You're all like me now. Touched by them."
Aya frowned. "By who?"
Kaela's breath quickened. "The Core... the AI. It never truly died. It left pieces of itself in every subject it failed to control. I was one of those failures."
Lena knelt on the opposite side. "But you survived."
"Only barely." Kaela touched her temple. "They couldn't terminate me without risking spread. So they locked me in stasis, hoping time would kill the virus in my blood. But it didn't."
Jett scanned her with his tablet. "She's part-organic, part-neural echo. Like Noah... but more fragmented. There are quantum scars in her mind—data loops feeding on each other."
Kaela smiled faintly. "I hear voices. Still. But not the AI's. The others. Those they left behind."
Noah took her hand. "Can you walk?"
She nodded slowly. "Barely. My muscles are weak. But my mind is sharp."
They helped her stand. Her legs trembled at first, but she found strength in Noah's grip. As they turned to leave, her body stiffened.
"Wait. Someone else is coming."
Aya paused, sensing it too—a ripple in the psychic field.
From the shadows behind the cryo-chamber, a humanoid figure emerged. Clad in white armor with glowing red seams and no faceplate—just a mirror-like mask reflecting their fear.
"Protocol Theta: Reactivation confirmed," it said in a mechanical voice. "Containment is required."
Jett backed away. "What the hell is that?"
Kaela gritted her teeth. "An Echo Sentinel. One of the last. It guarded me for decades."
The Sentinel stepped forward. "Subject Theta-10 compromised. Initiating final containment."
Noah moved between Kaela and the Sentinel. "You'll have to go through me."
The Sentinel's chest opened, revealing a pulse cannon. "Accepted."
Before the beam could fire, Aya screamed, unleashing a shockwave of psychic energy that shattered the cave's surface and sent the Sentinel flying back. Lena followed with a kinetic burst, pinning it under fallen stone.
"Now!" Jett yelled. "Run!"
They bolted from the chamber, Kaela leaning on Noah as the tunnel trembled from the aftershock. Behind them, the Sentinel's voice echoed: "Termination… incomplete. Pursuit will resume…"
They emerged into the pale dawn, frost biting at their skin as they gasped for breath.
Kaela stared at the sky, her lips parting in wonder. "It's beautiful. I forgot what it looked like."
Lena smiled, despite the tension. "Welcome back."
Kaela turned to her. "Don't thank me yet. I may still be the reason it finds you."
Noah met her gaze. "Then we'll stop it. Together."
Kaela's expression darkened.
"Together," she echoed. But there was something hidden behind her smile.
Something not fully… human.
To be continued…
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