The glyph-ring blazed as if responding to the strange figure's outstretched hand. Pale green light wrapped around the stabilizer in lashing arcs, like veins pumping power into forgotten circuits. The glyphs pulsed in unison—once, twice—and then a soft chime resonated through the air, mechanical and organic at once.
Captain Dace didn't move. His eyes locked on the shape, now motionless within the ruin's shimmer.
"What's it waiting for?" Harran whispered.
"Permission," Arlin said flatly. "Or instructions."
Cela tapped the side of her visor. "Pulse interference is spiking again. It's not just audio—it's attempting a full neural handshake."
Dace exhaled. "Counter the link. Engage neural dampeners, now."
Glyphs on the team's armor lit up in programmed response, cascading in calming blue across shoulders and helmets. The interference softened but didn't vanish. The voice returned—not words, but impressions:
—Burial.
—Fracture.
—Witness.
Private Kellen staggered. "It's in my head. It's not talking—it's showing."
Dace grabbed his shoulder. "What do you see?"
Kellen's eyes were wide, unfocused. "A city... before the collapse. Tall structures... energy spirals. People made of light and memory. And then something ripped it apart."
Before anyone could respond, the stabilizer emitted a low harmonic pulse that struck the ground and sent a ripple through the dust. The second shape stepped backward, slowly retreating toward a collapsed archway. As it vanished, the glyphs dimmed—but didn't extinguish.
Arlin muttered, "It just... downloaded memory into us."
Dace turned to Cela. "Broadcast back to base—if you can punch through."
She nodded, fingers flying across her bracer. "Attempting narrow-band echo relay. Using legacy Foundation protocol signatures to slip past the blackout."
"Smart," Dace said. "They'll recognize those."
Static buzzed, then cracked with a faint signal spike. A voice crackled through.
"...Echo Two... respond... Benedict standing by..."
Dace stepped toward her mic. "We've made contact. Ritual sequence initiated. Intelligence unknown, semi-hostile. Partial memory transfer occurred. Requesting extraction prep and containment specialist. Repeat—containment specialist."
"Confirmed," Benedict's voice came back. "Hold position. Do not attempt to follow figures. They may be anchor echoes."
"Define anchor echo," Arlin muttered.
Benedict's voice sounded grim. "Entities that remember the world too clearly to let go. They are memory-stabilized phenomena—neither alive nor dead—looping a moment too painful or important to release."
Kellen whispered, "What if they're watching us now?"
Dace's jaw tightened. "Then let them watch. But we don't provoke. Not until Benedict figures out what they want."
The group fell silent, each one processing what they'd witnessed. The air remained charged with an undercurrent of something unresolved, as though the ruins themselves were holding their breath. Even the dust motes hung in suspension longer than they should.
---
In the observation vault beneath Vehrmath's data sanctuary, Benedict Ashcroft stood alone before a pulsing, caged fragment of green light. It hovered mid-air like an inverted tear, its glow steady, rhythmic—a mnemonic relic salvaged from Sector 9-D. The moment it had activated in the field, he had known: this wasn't just a recording. It was an anchor echo.
"Still in the same state," murmured Benedict, half to himself, half to the listening drones that orbited nearby. "Responsive to memory resonance, sensitive to neural feedback, but lacking self-direction... yet."
The echo pulse flickered suddenly, reacting to his proximity.
"Curious." He stepped closer, letting his bracer scan the echo's spectral boundaries. "Why do you remember only parts of yourself?"
Without warning, the echo flared—and the vault darkened. A static wave rippled across the walls as shadows reformed into outlines. Shapes. A corridor. Boots. Screams. Shards of the past.
Benedict stiffened. He wasn't watching a projection. He was inside it.
A voice echoed—his own voice, but younger. "If you can hear me, I failed."
"What...?"
The vision snapped violently. Benedict was thrown backward, bracer sparking, aura flaring in instinctive magical defense. He rolled across the floor and came to a stop with his back against the vault wall.
The echo dimmed—but didn't vanish.
"That's new," Benedict muttered, panting. "Aggressive interaction. Not just playback—initiated recognition."
His bracer rebooted with a soft tone. Data streamed across the display: Neural handshake: partial sync. Signature match: 2nd-generation memory loop. Anchor attempting recursion.
He stood shakily. "You're not a ghost. You're not a message. You're trying to... become."
Behind him, one of the drones sparked and collapsed, as if something unseen had passed through it.
Benedict narrowed his eyes. "You're not the only one still remembering."
He turned slowly, voice steady despite the tremor in his fingers. "You're trying to rebuild yourself... from fragments. From what we left behind."
A door hissed open at the far end of the vault. Standing in the doorway was a figure cloaked in silver-threaded robes—the Overseer of the Council of Shadows. A virtual presence wearing a projection shell.
"You accessed it directly, Ashcroft," the Overseer's voice intoned. "That was not advised."
Benedict brushed dust off his coat. "And yet—informative. The echoes are trying to reconstruct identity. They're not fragments. They're blueprints."
"Which is why they were buried."
Benedict tilted his head. "And what happens when one finishes rebuilding?"
The Overseer paused. "We don't know."
Benedict turned back to the floating pulse. "Then I suppose it's time we find out."
He paused, then added, mostly for the record: "Anchor Echoes—recorded mnemonic phenomena preserved within legacy Pulse infrastructure. Not artificial intelligence, nor spirit fragments. They are emergent mnemonic entities formed when death, trauma, and environmental resonance synchronize within a high-density energy matrix. The result is a memory so powerful it gains structure—self-repeating, semi-aware, and location-bound."
The Overseer's eyes flickered, a visual glitch betraying some internal recalculation.
"They only form," Benedict continued, "when three things align: death with high emotional weight, a Pulse-connected environment, and intent. Sometimes conscious—more often desperate. The dying imprint the network. The network echoes them back."
The echo pulsed again, slower now, as if responding.
"You understand," Benedict murmured to it. "You were never meant to haunt. You were meant to warn."
He turned back to the Overseer. "And now we're the ones who have to listen."
The echo glimmered once more—no longer just a pulse, but a heartbeat.
In that moment, Benedict wondered whether the past had truly ended, or if it was only just beginning to speak.