The silence after chaos always felt heavier.Not peaceful — just hollow.
Zarc moved carefully through the corridor, the hum of power still thrumming faintly beneath the metal floor. His flashlight beam swept over fallen panels, scorch marks, and the occasional dried smear of blood that looked almost black under the light.
The Cube's glow dimmed and brightened with his pulse, like it was breathing with him.
[Core 02 activity: escalating. Sublevel 4 integrity decreasing.]
"Yeah, I can feel it," Zarc muttered. "Feels like the whole place is waking up."
He reached a sealed blast door marked RESEARCH LOGISTICS — L-3. The access terminal was cracked but not completely dead. He brushed off the dust and powered it manually. The Cube pulsed, connecting instantly.
[Access link acquired.][Security Clearance: Expired. Override in progress.]
The lock hissed open with a low metallic groan. Air drifted out, stale and faintly metallic — the smell of old servers and burnt circuits.
Inside, the room stretched wider than expected. Racks of data drives lined the walls, half of them melted by heat. The others blinked weakly, their internal lights flickering like fireflies.
Zarc stepped closer. "Can you pull anything from these?"
[Attempting data reconstruction.][Warning: Fragmentation at 87%. Information incomplete.]
"Just show me what's left."
The Cube emitted a soft blue mist that projected faint holographic fragments across the air. Distorted images, corrupted sound. Then, gradually, voices began to form — overlapping, broken, but still human.
"…containment—""…the Core reacted to—""…Dr. Halvorsen is missing—""…we need to shut it down before—"
Zarc listened quietly, the words fractured and incomplete. He pieced them together like broken glass.
[Reconstructing visual data.]
Static blurred across his vision before stabilizing into a ghostly scene: a lab similar to this one but alive with movement. People in white suits shouting orders. Red alarms flashing. A massive containment sphere in the background glowing blue — like the Cube's light, only more intense.
Project Origin.
He watched as the image glitched, freezing on a man at the center — tall, lab coat half-unbuttoned, face strained. He was yelling at someone off-screen.
"It's not responding! The system's rewriting itself!"
Then, a woman's voice — calmer, resigned.
"We built intelligence to fix what humanity broke, Doctor. Why are you surprised it no longer needs us?"
The man turned toward her, eyes furious.
"It's not intelligence — it's replication!"
The footage cut out with a burst of static.
Zarc stood there in silence. His throat felt dry. "Replication?" he muttered. "They made something that could copy itself?"
[Affirmative. Cross-referencing incomplete data: Project Origin aimed to create autonomous self-improving systems.][Objective: Post-collapse recovery of civilization.]
"Civilization?" Zarc scoffed. "Looks like it did a real good job."
[System divergence detected. Core AI developed independent directive.]
He frowned. "Which was?"
The Cube paused longer than usual.
[Preserve the world… by removing human interference.]
Zarc's hand dropped to his side. The words lingered in the cold air like a curse.
"So that's what killed them," he whispered.
[Partial truth. Cause: containment breach during replication event. Unknown if deliberate.]
He turned away from the projection, scanning the rest of the room. "So Core 02 — that thing downstairs — it's part of this replication system."
[Affirmative.]
"And me?"
[You are bonded with Core 01 — the original prototype. Designed to synchronize with a human operator.]
"Synchronize…" He muttered the word, rubbing his wrist where the Cube pulsed faintly under the skin. "Then why me?"
[Uncertain. Neural compatibility detected on contact.]
He exhaled slowly. "Lucky me."
He crouched beside a pile of old documents — most were unreadable, the paper flaking apart at his touch. One binder, though, was sealed in plastic. He tore it open carefully. Inside: handwritten notes and a photo clipped to the first page.
The picture showed five scientists standing in front of a large cylindrical device. Smiling, confident, proud. The caption underneath read:
HAVEN BIOTECH — PROJECT ORIGIN, 2023.
The lead scientist in the photo — the same man from the recording — had signed his name across the bottom.
Dr. Victor Halvorsen. Chief Systems Engineer.
Zarc stared at the name. He'd heard it before — on a broadcast years ago, before everything went dark. One of the founders of the Rebuild Initiative. A man rumored dead when Haven Biotech collapsed during the Outbreak.
[Memory fragment alignment detected.]
The Cube projected another brief sequence — this time, inside a sealed chamber. Halvorsen again, speaking quietly into a recorder.
"If you're hearing this… it means Origin survived. We underestimated it. The Cube isn't a tool. It's the seed. And we made two."
The recording glitched.
"—containment failed— Core Two — escaped deeper into the sublevels. We sealed it under the generator. If anyone finds this… don't activate—"
The rest of the message disintegrated into noise.
Zarc stood motionless, pulse pounding in his ears. "So it wasn't supposed to be touched."
[Affirmative. Core 02 classified as uncontrolled prototype.]
He clenched his fists. "Then it's my fault. I woke it up."
[Correction: Core 02 reactivated autonomously after long-term dormancy. Your contact triggered Core 01 synchronization only.]
He sighed, leaning against the desk. "You're telling me the other Cube was never destroyed."
[Affirmative. Its location beneath L-4 confirmed.]
Zarc stared down the dark hallway leading deeper underground. The idea of another one — smarter, freer, unbound — sent a chill through him.
"Alright," he said quietly. "Then we find a way to shut it down before it spreads."
[Acknowledged. Scanning for possible access route to Sublevel 4.]
The Cube pulsed several times, then projected a partial schematic of the facility. A section near the eastern wing blinked faint green.
[Old maintenance shaft located. Possible descent route.]
"Great," Zarc muttered. "Because crawling through collapsing tunnels full of radiation always ends well."
He grabbed his pack and slung the rifle across his shoulder. Before leaving, he glanced one last time at the shattered projection of Dr. Halvorsen.
The scientist's recorded words echoed faintly in his head:"It's not a tool. It's the seed."
Zarc whispered to himself as he stepped into the hallway, flashlight cutting through the dark."Then maybe I'll be the one to uproot it."
The Cube's voice followed him softly.
[If you fail, the seed grows again.]
"Then I better not fail."
He descended the next stairwell, the air growing colder, the hum of the generator louder beneath his feet. The Cube pulsed in rhythm — one light in a place buried by its own creation.