Lira sat by the fire, soldering a cracked emitter ring, while Cael carved the Keymark's spiral into the dirt beside him.
Not out of obsession.
Out of study.
Every time he drew it, the pattern changed.
Not visibly.
But he always felt he'd done it wrong — even when it matched.
"I need to stop it," he said.
Lira didn't look up.
"The system?"
"The memory bleed. The false inputs. It's like it's rewriting me one dream at a time."
"So what do you plan to do? Unplug your soul?"
He didn't smile.
They reached a junction bunker by dusk — old tech, high clearance. One of the few places still shielded from Lock signal waves.
Cael used a glyph key Lira had stolen from a scav-clan to unlock the interior.
Inside: a functioning neural sync disruptor.
"It'll isolate your identity thread," Lira said, scanning it. "But it'll hurt. A lot."
"I want to know what's real."
"You sure?"
"No," Cael said. "But I'm doing it anyway."
He strapped in.
The disruptor clicked on.
Static danced along his spine.
His vision tunneled.
The Keymark went dim.
Then: silence.
Real silence.
Like his own blood had stopped caring.
He opened his eyes.
And someone was standing across the room.
Someone with his face.
Slightly older. Sharper jaw. Uniform black. Spiral embedded into the throat like a collar.
He didn't smile.
He didn't blink.
He just said:
"You waited too long."
Cael stood, not sure how.
"You're not real."
"No," the copy said. "I'm what's left."
"A memory?"
"A contingency file. Personality ghost. Part of the Thirian imprinting net. You were warned, once, that identity would decay post-escape."
"I never escaped anything."
The ghost's brow lifted.
"Exactly."
Cael stepped closer.
"What did I do? Before this?"
"You made decisions no one else would. That's what Thirian-class anchors were for."
"What kind of decisions?"
The ghost's expression flickered.
Not anger.
Not cruelty.
Just… exhaustion.
"You pressed every button. Even the ones labeled 'last resort.' And now the system is trying to remember what made you."
"And what happens if it does?"
"Then we find out if Cael survives Arik."
Static surged again.
The room collapsed into itself.
Cael fell forward, hands hitting cold floor.
Lira was shaking him.
"You flatlined for ten seconds," she snapped. "What the hell happened?"
"I saw me," he whispered.
"And?"
"I don't think he liked what I've become."
Outside the bunker, a whisper echoed across old signal towers.
"Protocol Ghost recognized. Anchor sync at 47%."
"Target is stabilizing."
"Memory recovery will accelerate."
End of Chapter 12: Ghost Protocols