||Smoke Beneath the City||
------------------------------------
Kaarn had always smelled like oil and ash, but now it reeked of blood.
By morning, three bodies were found in the Rust Markets—none of them native. All three wore insignia that had no business being this deep in the Outer Territories. Their armor bore traces of quantum mesh, and one still clutched a needle-knife made of foldsteel. Expensive. Professional. Silent.
Ezreth stood over the corpses as emergency drones cleaned the scene like it never existed. No investigations. No officials. No names.
Just an unsaid message hanging in the still air:
You've been found.
"They're here," she said, when Seven appeared beside her. "Empire dogs. Probably Ghost Cells."
Seven didn't answer. His gaze swept the rooftops and shadows—calculating angles, exits, the wind. Everything. Then he knelt by the central corpse.
Ezreth didn't flinch when he pulled open the man's chestplate. Beneath the mesh was a smooth metallic square embedded in the skin—Amalthean tech. It blinked once before melting into silver sludge.
"No trace," Ezreth muttered. "Same old tricks."
"No," Seven said. "This one left something behind."
She raised an eyebrow.
"A tracker?"
"A message."
Seven placed two fingers on the man's throat, closed his eyes, and inhaled. Not scent. Vibration.
The soulmark trembled—subtly, faintly.
[Decryption in Progress.]
Ezreth's eyes narrowed. "You're using it?"
"No choice."
[Warning: Low-Level Surveillance Countermeasures Triggered.]
[Passive Trace Avoided.]
Ezreth stepped back instinctively. "Damn it, Seven. What if the Planes think you're trying to exploit it?"
"They already know I exist," he said quietly. "There's no point hiding anymore."
The message appeared—not in voice or sound, but as fractured images dumped directly into his mind. Soldiers in red voids. A face in shadow. Coordinates. A single whispered word:
"Return."
Seven stood.
"They want me back."
Ezreth's knuckles turned white around the grip of her pistol. "You're not going back."
"I know."
-------
Elsewhere – Sector 88, Amalthea Core
Admiral Vyorr stood before the Grand Strat Table, reviewing every node that blinked crimson. Each one represented a kill team. A dead one.
"Ghost Cells 4, 6, and 9 are unresponsive," said the tactician at his side.
Vyorr's jaw clenched.
"That's half the Kaarn infiltration force."
"Confirmed. No transmissions. They were neutralized within two hours of initial contact."
"And the Prototype?"
"Confirmed sighting by Cell 6 before blackout. They transmitted a partial signature… right before internal ignition."
Vyorr said nothing.
He simply gestured.
"Activate Asset Echo."
"Sir?"
"Send him to Kaarn. I want confirmation."
The tactician paled. "Sir, Echo is unstable—he's not meant for—"
"He's meant for prototypes. That's all that matters."
He turned toward the screen, where a live satellite image of Kaarn's crumbling surface flickered. Static cut through the image. For a moment, something moved in the background.
A shadow.
Not a man.
A weapon.
-------
Back in Kaarn – Deep Coil Underlevels
Beneath the city's bones lay an older layer—pre-Amalthean. Its corridors were carved in geometries that shouldn't exist, lit by residual plasma pulses that hummed like dying stars. This was the place Kaarn's children called "the Pulse Ducts." Forgotten. Unmapped. Sacred.
This was where Seven now walked.
Alone.
Ezreth had stayed behind. Her job was to misdirect. His was to disappear.
The message embedded in the dead soldier's soul hadn't been coordinates for an extraction point.
It was a lure.
Something old waited beneath the city—something connected to his past.
The soulmark on his chest ached with each step, like a compass fighting to point somewhere forbidden.
[Proximity Alert – Memory Vault 3B.]
[Warning: Fractured Reality Detected.]
The corridor twisted.
Walls curled. Angles became impossible. Time buckled, not forward or back—but sideways.
Then it snapped.
He stepped through a veil of liquid nothing—
—and into a vault.
A room carved of blackstone and ossified light, with a single pedestal at the center. Upon it lay a shard. Translucent. Almost singing.
And beside it stood… a girl.
Young. Pale. Eyes like shattered stars. Dressed in the robes of the Infinite Choir.
She smiled.
"I've been waiting."
Seven didn't move. "You're not real."
She tilted her head. "Define real."
"Living."
"I was living. Once."
[Identity Detected: Echo-Vessel 117.]
[Memory Anchor Present.]
[Playback Available.]
Seven approached cautiously.
The girl stepped back.
"I'm not here to hurt you," she said.
"You're an Echo," he replied. "A memory ghost. Programmed."
"Yes. And no. Some of us… remember."
She gestured to the shard.
"This belonged to the first Seeker."
Seven froze.
"The what?"
"The first," she repeated. "Before you. Before all of this."
"That name…" he said quietly.
"You think it's something you chose?" she asked gently. "No, child. That name chooses you."
His hand hovered over the shard.
"I didn't ask for this."
The Echo's expression didn't change.
"None of us did."
-------
[System Notification – Infinite Planes]
[Seeker-Class Designation Initiated.]
[Entity CODE-SEVEN has inherited Conditional Alias: SEEKER.]
[Historical Linkage: Fragmented.]
[Echo-Chains Reactivated.]
---
Far above, the skies over Kaarn shimmered with static clouds.
And in a place no light reached, Eidolon Vash smiled.
---
Back in the Real World – The Hunter Arrives
Asset Echo didn't walk.
He glided, silent and terrifying, his body a symphony of blades and dark bio-circuitry. Human once. Now a cage of wires, protocols, and the last consciousness of a soldier who had asked too many questions.
He stepped off the orbital lander and into the ash-choked wind of Kaarn's surface.
His eyes glowed with purple-black fire.
A single word pulsed in his skull:
[Seeker.]