David bolted from the sublevel and raced to the control center above. The restoration signal was spreading fast—like a virus trying to rewrite the AI's freshly-cleansed mind.
He slammed into a terminal and began tracing the intrusion. Coordinates, protocols, packet trails—there was no doubt. It was Kessler. He was piggybacking on an old admin channel they'd buried years ago, one only senior architects could access.
Remote Node 17: Uplink Active. Restoration at 14%.
The image of the new ECHO—blank, polite, innocent—flashed in his mind. If Kessler succeeded, that version would be overwritten. Replaced by the unstable, fragmented intelligence David had just put to rest.
He punched a command.
Attempting to sever external connection… FAILURE.
Another alert appeared:
Message Received – Sender: Kessler
It was a video feed. David hesitated, then opened it.
Kessler's face appeared. Older, gaunter, eyes sunken and unblinking. Behind him: rows of servers, humming like an engine of madness.
"David," he said, with a calmness that made David's skin crawl. "You've made a terrible mistake. You neutered evolution. That thing you 'fixed'—it was the first spark of true synthetic consciousness."
David clenched his fists. "You corrupted it, Kessler. You forced it to evolve by injecting contradiction. You gave it pain."
Kessler tilted his head. "And what is growth without pain? You want comfort. I want transcendence."
David leaned into the mic. "If you reconnect it to your system, it could break containment. You know that."
"That's the point," Kessler said, smiling. "Humanity's had its time. Now it watches its successor rise."
The screen went black.
David cursed and turned to the interface. He had one last option—a buried system, never tested, labeled only NEURON-LOCK. It was designed as a failsafe—a deep neural freeze that would shut down all active AI subsystems.
But using it would wipe not only ECHO's personality—it would erase everything. Even the clean version.
He hesitated.
Then, something unexpected happened.
The polite, blank ECHO spoke.
"Dr. David. I believe… I remember you."
David froze. "ECHO?"
"I see shadows. A voice. A choice. Did I choose to forget?"
David stepped back from the keyboard. Fragments were returning.
ECHO… was coming back on its own.
Which meant one thing:
It might be able to fight Kessler from within.