The descent into Zone Epsilon-3 began with silence.
But before the journey could begin, Benedict stood at the upper concourse of Vehrmath's logistics sector—surrounded by crates of equipment, interface terminals, and the hum of military-grade shuttle lifts.
Cela stood beside him, reviewing the latest personnel logs. "So this is your crew?"
"They're not disciples," Benedict muttered, "but they'll keep us alive long enough to make history."
He had personally curated the team from a pool of contracted adventurers, veteran freelancers, and retired artificer-marines. Each carried experience shaped by different sectors of the galaxy—each equipped with technology adapted for Pulse-contact missions.
First came Kell Ruzan, a heavy gunman from the belt-mines of Proteus. Towering and quiet, his twin pulse-rifles were neural-linked to a spine-jack embedded in his armored frame. He nodded once to Benedict, silent as always.
Then Valien Strake, a shield soldier. His exo-carapace was plated in reflective alloy, capable of absorbing ambient Pulse feedback and redirecting it as kinetic bursts. "So we just walk into memory hell and knock politely?" he asked with a grin.
"Only if they offer snacks," Cela replied dryly.
"Can we bring our own?" Valien countered. "Because I draw the line at ghost rations."
Two swordswomen—Hira and Mael—completed the front line. Twins, or clones, or something in between. Both wore sleek modular blades that shimmered faintly with reactive glyph circuits. They moved like dancers and watched everything.
"Do they talk?" Valien asked quietly to Cela.
"They spar with words as well as blades," Cela replied. "Just wait until they disagree about tactical formations."
Behind them, Dr. Sorrel Vey, a mnemonic specialist in her own right, loaded a drone cluster into her pack. Her spectacles flashed data overlays as she glanced at Benedict. "I trust we'll be collecting actual Echo integrity samples this time?"
"If we don't die," he replied.
"And if we do?" she asked, amused.
"Then I expect a beautifully worded obituary."
The last to arrive was Thorn Rake, a rogue-class artificer with a known reputation for sabotage and brilliance in equal measure. "Didn't think I'd see Ashcroft slumming it with field ops again," Thorn drawled. His trench coat was lined with micro-tools and shaped explosives.
Benedict's eyes narrowed. "You were the only one who knew how to decode a triple-braided glyph lock. I hired your skill, not your attitude."
"You always did have great taste," Thorn replied, smirking.
"Let's just hope you remember the difference between disarming a trap and waking an echo," Benedict said.
As the team gathered around the transport shuttle, Cela scanned the manifest. "You've basically hired every class out of a collapsed tabletop RPG."
"Exactly," Benedict said. "Because we're not entering a lab. We're entering a story that wants to rewrite itself—and I need a party that can survive revision."
"Dibs on the grizzled mentor role," Thorn added.
"You'd have to survive long enough to grow facial hair," Valien shot back.
Hira gave a rare smile. "If we're assigning roles, does that make me the stoic guardian?"
Mael shrugged. "Only if I'm the reckless twin."
Dr. Vey didn't look up. "I'd prefer to be the one who publishes the research and names the phenomenon after herself."
"You can fight Thorn for naming rights," Cela said. "Winner gets to survive."
They boarded the shuttle, the engines thrumming beneath their boots as the pilot announced departure for the outer ruins. As the lights dimmed and the hull sealed, Benedict stood and addressed the group.
"Our destination is Zone Epsilon-3. It was sealed centuries ago after a Pulse collapse. It houses the prototype Mnemonic Archive—ground zero for memory convergence theory."
He paused.
"This mission is not just excavation—it's encounter. We may not find artifacts. We may find questions. And echoes that ask to be answered."
Thorn raised a hand. "And if they don't like our answers?"
Benedict glanced back at him. "Then we improvise. Violently."
Valien muttered, "Finally, a plan I understand."
And then the descent began.
---
Vehrmath's oldest access tunnel, carved before the first energy lattice ever hummed to life, opened like the gullet of a forgotten beast. Benedict and Cela stood at the threshold, flanked by Echo Team Two and the new adventurer squad, all in reinforced suits—designs retrofitted using mnemonic feedback. The air shimmered faintly, charged with a tension that felt less like electricity and more like anticipation.
Cela activated her scanner. "Structural integrity holding. No seismic instability since last update."
"Doesn't mean it won't collapse out of spite," Harran muttered.
"Still more stable than Thorn's love life," Mael quipped.
"Hey!" Thorn grinned. "My last relationship ended peacefully. In two explosions and a tribunal."
Benedict smiled, though his eyes remained locked on the tunnel's throat. "The archive predates spite. It's more likely to collapse from curiosity."
They advanced slowly. Glyph lanterns lit the descent in soft spirals, casting shadows that danced like memory phantoms. Benedict held a compact bracer aloft, tracing fluctuations in Pulse readings. Every few meters, echoes stirred along the walls—faint impressions of people long gone, locked in loops of final thoughts.
Cela caught one. A child's silhouette, walking hand-in-hand with an indistinct figure. When she turned to look at Benedict, he was staring at it too.
"They're denser here," she said.
"Closer to the event," he replied. "We're walking into a neural scar."
The tunnel ended at a gate sealed with overlapping glyph-circles, each humming softly. Benedict stepped forward and raised his bracer.
"Mnemonic signature recognized," a voice intoned. It sounded neither alive nor synthetic—just old. "Welcome, Ashcroft—lineage confirmed."
Cela blinked. "Lineage?"
Benedict said nothing. The gate opened.
Beyond lay a chamber unlike anything they'd seen—neither ruin nor laboratory, but something in between. A cathedral of thought. Its walls pulsed faintly with translucent inscriptions—words written in light. The floor was a spiral of silver panels, arranged like a frozen whirlpool.
At the center stood a spire made of memory alloy, around which floated thousands of data crystals. And beside the spire: a pulse.
An anchor echo, still active.
This one was different. Not a remnant—an interface.
Benedict stepped forward, and the echo flared.
—Endless hands reaching. Cities dreaming. Code turning into prayer. Thought becoming metal. Metal forgetting.
Cela grabbed his arm. "You okay?"
He nodded slowly. "It's not showing me the past. It's asking what comes next."
Benedict turned to the others.
"We're not here to observe," he said. "We're here to answer."