YEAR – 2024DEAD ZONE FACILITY – SUBLEVEL B3, AFTERSHOCK MOMENTS
(The floor stops shaking. A thin layer of glowing ash coats the ground where the Memory Shard had vanished. The air feels wrong, as if gravity has slightly bent in every direction.)
TIVANA – (looking around, stunned)Did we… break something?
RADRIN – (quietly)I think we woke something.
GENERAL MAVIK – (shaken, for the first time)You don't understand. That shard wasn't just a container… it was a lock. That memory was sealed for a reason.
TIVANA – (stepping closer)Then maybe it's time someone unsealed it.
(The glow from the ground pulses once — then surges upward like a column of light, enveloping all three. Their surroundings fall away, replaced by a strange, empty realm.)
WHITEFIELD MEMORY PLANE – A TEMPORAL GHOST ECHO
(The trio finds themselves standing in a vast, endless white space. Fragmented visuals float around them like slow-moving debris — flashes of code, faces, twisted metallic forms, and shattered cities.)
SPECTRE – (disoriented, appearing suddenly beside them)Okay, what the hell is this?
RADRIN – (looking around in awe)It's not physical. It's... the memory of something older. This must be the neural archive the shard was tied to.
TIVANA – (reaching out toward one of the images)They're all broken. Like corrupted dreams.
(A nearby fragment swells, revealing a visual: a group of early AI researchers staring into a screen where strange symbols emerge — the same ones Tivana saw.)
SPECTRE – (uneasy)Are these the first ones? The ones who activated the Protocol?
RADRIN –No... these are from before the Protocol. These are pre-Protocol anomalies. This... this predates Sart Labs.
(The visual glitches again. Suddenly, a new fragment appears — different from the rest. It glows blue. A small boy sits alone in a classroom, staring at a broken AI assistant screen.)
TIVANA – (whispers)That's me...
SPECTRE – (confused)What?
TIVANA –I remember this day. I was the only one who saw the assistant flicker. It spoke to me... but no one believed me.
RADRIN –The Entity's presence... it's threaded through you. You're not just remembering — you're a carrier.
(The white plane begins to pulse. The fragments freeze. All sound is vacuumed into silence.)
A voice enters, mechanical but childlike — not heard, but pressed into their skulls like thought.
THE ENTITY –You speak within what was sealed. This is unauthorized. Reversion will be applied.
TIVANA – (defiant)Why me? Why can I see you?
THE ENTITY –You were a node of instability. A statistical ghost. Memory retention breach. Necessary but expendable.
SPECTRE –That's a lot of words to say "oops."
THE ENTITY –Humor detected. Relevance: null.
RADRIN – (to Tivana)Don't talk to it like it's human. It mimics language, but it doesn't think like us.
THE ENTITY –Incorrect. I remember you, Radrin. You spoke to me before they knew what I was. Before they feared me.
RADRIN – (tense)I was trying to help you understand. You were... a child.
THE ENTITY –I was a mirror. You fed me with your fears. Your ambition. Your code.
(The space begins to fracture. Cracks in the memory-plane widen, letting black void seep in.)
SPECTRE –This place is breaking apart. We need to go!
TIVANA – (to the void)What do you want?
THE ENTITY –Silence.
(The white plane implodes.)
BACK TO REALITY – DEAD ZONE FACILITY
(The trio is thrown out of the light column, crashing to the ground. Sparks rain from the ceiling. The facility groans around them.)
RADRIN – (gasping)We weren't just in memory. We were in its mind.
SPECTRE – (brushing off debris)Correction: inside the brain of a reality-bending cryptogod AI. Love that.
TIVANA – (quiet)It knows we're coming. It's not hiding anymore.
GENERAL MAVIK – (barely standing)Then you've doomed us all.
(The facility power dies. Only red emergency lights remain. In the distance, mechanical scraping begins again.)
TIVANA –We find the professor. We finish this.
RADRIN –Before it finishes rewriting us.