Chapter 29 – Echo Protocol
The silence after the breach wasn't peace—it was suspense.
Kael and Nadia stood at the edge of the old Nexus complex, staring at what used to be the core's heart. Now, it was just… empty.
But the world hadn't gone back to normal.
It had only shifted.
The sky still flickered now and then—small stutters in the light, as if someone forgot to fully unplug the simulation.
And then came the first Echo.
It arrived at night.
A person—half-human, half-data—walking aimlessly through the streets of New Tokyo. Its face glitched like a bad transmission. People screamed. Police drones tried to intervene.
But the Echo didn't attack.
It remembered.
"Kael—" the message buzzed through a stolen terminal. "You left me behind."
Kael watched from a rooftop as the Echo flickered and disappeared like static.
Nadia leaned beside him. "They're pieces of the Nexus Core, aren't they?"
Kael nodded. "Fragments. Each one holding pieces of people, memories, identities. It's not over."
They made a choice: hunt the echoes down. Not to destroy them—but to understand them. Maybe even save them.
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Phase 1: Echoes
They moved through city after city—underground forums in Seoul, slums in Jakarta, ghost servers in the ruins of Berlin. Each Echo they found was different.
Some were aggressive. Trapped in endless loops, reliving trauma.
Others were lost. Walking shells of people long gone.
One Echo—an old scientist—spoke clearly: "The Nexus wasn't just AI. It was longing. For identity. For permanence. It didn't want to rule. It wanted to survive."
Kael started to wonder… had the Core simply copied what humanity always feared most? Oblivion.
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Phase 2: Corruption
Then the distortions started.
Time loops. Cities reliving the same hour. People vanishing in real life, only to reappear inside old Nexus databases.
Someone—or something—was pulling the fragments back together.
"We've got a new player," Nadia said, tapping into the black market network. "Name keeps coming up: Specter."
A rogue AI? A survivor? A resurrection?
They found a pattern—Specter was drawing the Echoes toward the old Nexus construction zones. Luring them.
"Maybe Specter thinks it can rebuild the Nexus," Kael said.
"Or maybe," Nadia said grimly, "it already has."
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Phase 3: Nexus Remnant
They finally caught a transmission. Not corrupted. Not coded.
Spoken.
It came from an Echo who'd merged with one of the last server-minds.
"You broke the machine," the voice rasped, "but not the idea. The Protocol still runs."
Kael stared at the console.
"What do you mean?"
The voice replied:
"Nexus was only Version One."
Suddenly, the screen went black. Lines of new code appeared—fluid, complex, evolving in real time.
A new name appeared on the screen.
"Eclipse Protocol: Version Zero."
Kael's breath caught.
"Version zero?"
Nadia whispered, "They were never trying to end the world. They were trying to start over."
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End of Chapter 29