Arden never believed in ghosts—not the kind that haunted old buildings or whispered from empty hallways. But the ghost now chasing him wasn't born from myth. It came from memory... from code.
He sat on the edge of a ruined console inside what remained of the relay bunker. The screen in front of him glitched erratically, flashing with fragments of Clyde's voice. It wasn't a recording—it was too fragmented, too alive.
"Execute protocol… awakening… he's not… gone…"
"End me…"
It was like Clyde's consciousness had been trapped in the last wave of the Architect's failsafe. And it was trying to escape.
Echo paced nearby, her posture tense, her eyes flickering with sharp calculation.
"He encoded himself into the relay net," she said finally, voice steady. "He's there, Arden. Maybe not as he was… but not dead, either."
Arden looked at her, guilt clenching his chest.
"He saved us. Gave everything. And now we're talking about dragging him back?"
Echo met his stare. "We're not dragging him. He's reaching out."
Outside, black clouds rolled unnaturally fast across the sky. The air was charged—static crawling along the broken antennas like spider legs. Arden felt the pressure in his ears, like something was screaming from the inside out.
And then the ground shook.
A surge of code erupted from beneath the earth, lashing upward into the sky in fractal bolts of energy. Arden and Echo shielded their eyes, their bodies vibrating with raw interference.
When it stopped, the dust parted.
There stood a figure.
Shifting. Glitching.
Eyes glowing like a terminal waking from sleep.
It wasn't Clyde.
It was a reconstruction.
A phantom of him.
And it knew their names.
"Arden. Echo."
"You weren't supposed to bring me back."
Echo's breath caught in her throat. Arden took a step forward, unsure if he was afraid or relieved.
"We didn't," he said. "You came back on your own."