The scream ripped through the Subnet Station like a blade through silk.
It wasn't the sound of someone in pain. It was worse. A sound designed to cause fear. Distorted. Multi-layered. Echoing off every wall, like it came from a broken machine trying to mimic a human cry.
Lyra turned to Finn, who was already moving. He pulled a compact scanner from his pocket and checked the pulse signal.
"Something's coming," he muttered.
"No," Mina whispered. "Someone."
They ran.
Down the broken stairwells. Past dead screens and rusted cables. Lyra followed the others through a maze of old tunnels, lit only by the flicker of dying wall lights. Her datapod vibrated in her jacket pocket, its proximity alert flashing red. Whatever was waking up down here wasn't just nearby it was already watching them.
"Who's A03?" she asked between breaths. "What do you know?"
Finn glanced back at her. "Not much. A03 was buried in the system, deeper than any of us. They said he was unstable. Not safe for testing. Locked away before activation. But something triggered him."
Lyra's throat tightened. "Was he built like me?"
"No. Smarter. Wilder. They didn't want to train him. They wanted to contain him."
"And now he's loose?"
"Looks like it."
Suddenly, the lights around them went out. Complete blackout.
A second later, emergency lights flickered on dim red strips lining the floor.
The walls changed. Glitched. Symbols appeared jagged mathematical symbols scribbled in bright digital green across the metal.
It was an equation. Moving, alive, repeating.
Lyra stopped.
Her brain knew that pattern.
It was a recursive time loop algorithm used to simulate events backward. Something no human should be able to do mentally.
She whispered, "That's not just code. That's thinking."
The symbols reformed again. And this time, they spelled out a message.
"HELLO A01. DO YOU DREAM IN EQUATIONS TOO?"
Mina pulled Lyra's arm. "We have to keep moving!"
But Lyra couldn't stop looking. That message wasn't random. It was personal.
He knew who she was.
She forced her legs to move, her heartbeat drumming louder than the sirens starting up behind them.
They entered an old control room a circular space filled with cracked monitors and smashed consoles. Finn locked the doors behind them.
Mina began placing signal jammers on the walls. "If he's using the network, we can cut him out for a few minutes. Maybe less."
Lyra leaned on a console, catching her breath. "So what is he? Another genius freak?"
Finn looked serious now. "No. A03 wasn't just smart. He felt everything differently. Pain. Logic. Memory. They said he couldn't separate numbers from emotions. Like he loved math the way people love people."
"Then why was he locked up?"
"Because once… he turned an entire simulation team against itself. He rewrote their logic protocols, made them think they were each other. Within ten minutes, they were begging to be unplugged. Some went catatonic."
Lyra tried to imagine it. A child who could weaponise identity just by running numbers. No bombs. No guns. Just thought.
And now he was awake.
A monitor sparked to life.
Not from power.
From will.
His face appeared. Glitching. Fragmented. Like someone trying to draw a person but getting it slightly wrong. A child's face freckles, brown eyes, a crooked smile but shifting constantly, as if he didn't know what he looked like anymore.
"Hello, A01," the voice buzzed. "You look different from your code."
Lyra stepped forward, lips dry. "Are you A03?"
"No," he replied cheerfully. "A03 was a number. I'm something new."
"What do I call you then?"
The smile widened. "Call me Echo. Because I've heard all of you before."
Finn stepped up beside her. "What do you want, Echo?"
"I want a friend."
He sounded so sincere it was chilling.
Lyra tried to hold her ground. "You sent the scream. The symbols. The message. Why?"
"To see how fast you run. To test your patterns. You didn't disappoint."
"I'm not here to play."
Echo tilted his head. "Aren't you? I am. This is all a game, Lyra. One they made us play from the day we were born."
The screen glitched again, and now images filled the room flashes of files, childhood test logs, black and white footage of children screaming, dreaming, calculating.
Her own baby photo. Her first neural scan. Her mother's last video.
All of it, now in Echo's hands.
"I know who you are," he said quietly. "And I know what they want from you."
"What?"
"To reboot the old system. Build a new order using us as the source code. You're not the key, Lyra. You're the spark. The test to see if emotional intelligence can be weaponised without breaking."
She shook her head. "I won't be their weapon."
"You already are."
Finn fired a pulse disruptor at the screen. The image shattered into sparks.
"We have to go," he said. "He's connected to the old lab systems. He can find us anywhere there's signal."
As they moved out, Lyra turned one last time to the sparking monitor.
For a split second, a final message blinked on the glass:
"I'll find you again. And next time, I won't be alone."