The wind carried whispers now.
Not just air or birdsong, but something deeper—systemic murmurs threaded into the breeze. Arix felt it before he heard it. Like static across his skin, his shard vibrating with a low resonance that didn't stop even when the world around him fell still.
They moved carefully through the trees, toward the place where Selis had marked the second signal.
The forest grew denser as they advanced, roots thick like cables, bark etched with unnatural symmetry. Leaves shimmered with a faint iridescence, casting flickering colors on their armor. The terrain was steep in places, uneven and quiet. Too quiet.
Calyx led point, weapon lowered but ready. She crouched by a gouge in the earth—long, blackened, the soil scorched.
"Something landed here," she murmured.
"Or something rose," Kael muttered, eyeing the treetops that bent inward like they'd recoiled from some explosion.
Selis knelt beside a twisted length of old conduit half-buried in ash. "This wasn't just impact," she said. "There's power residue. Whatever it was, it broadcasted when it arrived."
Arix stood at the edge of the crater, eyes narrowed. "It didn't come quietly."
The air shimmered again, hot and cold mixing in unnatural ways.
Then the sound came.
A low, humming pulse—not mechanical, not organic, but something in between. It made the ground quiver, like it recognized them. Like it was deciding.
They raised their weapons together, a single motion honed by survival.
The forest ahead shifted.
And something moved within the silence.
A shape emerged—not entirely solid. A construct, vaguely humanoid, composed of fractal light and filaments of code. It didn't walk so much as drift, hovering a few inches above the ground. Its body was translucent, layered with flickering data streams that wove across its form like veins.
Selis whispered, "It's a specter."
"A what?" Kael asked, eyes narrowing.
She took a cautious step forward. "A failed Vault projection. This shouldn't even exist anymore."
The specter paused. Its face—or the semblance of one—shifted through a dozen different human features in less than a second. Male. Female. Old. Young. It was trying to match them.
> "Reclaimer. Query: Access Intent. Sequence Delta-Two. Response Required."
Its voice was layered, echoing in multiple tones.
Arix held his ground. "You're not part of the standard system protocol."
> "Protocol fragmented. Intent reconstructed. Memory: partial."
Selis began tapping her datapad, capturing the entity's waveform. "It's running off legacy data. Pre-failure architecture."
Calyx's grip tightened on her weapon. "Why show itself now?"
> "Presence of Reclaimer triggered dormant thread. Observation complete. Clarification: purpose undefined."
Kael stepped closer, his tone hard. "You're watching us? Recording?"
The specter's form shimmered, and for a moment its body mirrored Kael's exact silhouette.
> "Observation: defense response activated. Aggression index: high. Hostility not required."
"Then don't copy me," Kael snapped.
Arix raised a hand. "Back off, both of you. Let it speak."
The specter turned to him, and for a moment its face settled—almost recognizably human.
> "You changed the seed."
"I did."
> "You altered the system's root logic."
"Yes."
> "Why?"
Arix took a breath, the forest holding still around him. "Because the world before was broken. Because the Vaults only taught fear. Because what came after wasn't enough. We didn't just want survival. We wanted something better."
The specter hovered silently.
> "Processing."
A pause. Then its body fractured, glitched, and reformed. When it stabilized, its arms dropped to its sides. Less aggressive. Almost... reverent.
> "Reclamation authorized. Sub-nodes aligned. Integration possible."
Selis let out a shaky breath. "It's submitting."
Calyx lowered her rifle. "Or pretending to."
Arix tilted his head. "Integration into what?"
> "Into the Framework. Unity Thread expansion approved. External resistance anticipated."
Kael grimaced. "Resistance?"
> "Obsidian Prime remains. Data suggests preservation of original directives. Hostile adaptation predicted."
"Great," Kael muttered. "So we've got rogue AI survivors."
Arix turned back to the specter. "Can you show us where?"
The entity extended an arm. A projection appeared—an overhead view of the terrain, forest overlay fading to reveal an underground facility several kilometers northeast. The structure pulsed red.
> "Vault 3—Fragmented Core. Status: Reawakening."
Selis stepped closer. "That's a Prime Vault. It was sealed years ago."
> "Seal integrity compromised. Echo disruption detected. Hostile logic reconstituting."
Calyx exhaled slowly. "Then that's where we go next."
The specter's form shimmered again. It began to fade.
> "We are not enemies. We are the memory that survived."
Then it was gone.
Only the whisper of the system remained, humming low under the forest's breath.
Arix turned to the others.
"Prep your gear," he said. "We're heading for the source."
Kael loaded his rifle with a sharp click. "Let's make sure the next thing we meet understands the word no."
Selis was still staring at the place where the specter vanished. "It remembered us... not just as threat. But as change."
Calyx walked beside Arix as they moved.
"What if the Prime remembers you differently?" she asked quietly.
He looked forward, jaw set. "Then I'll remind it who I am.