The silence in the chamber was alive.
Noel stepped forward slowly, her boots clicking against the metal floor. The only sound beyond her breath was the faint hum of the intact pod, its systems still running—quiet, steady, as if waiting for something.
Or someone.
The man inside didn't move.
Noel's eyes were fixed on the shard embedded at the base of his throat—soft blue light pulsing in a rhythm that matched the sync key in her hand. Almost like a call and response.
She turned the key over slowly, as if it might reveal more. "He's not like the others," she said. "Why is this pod still running?"
Jack was silent again, longer this time.
Then:
"Because that's not just a prototype. It's a relay body. Designed to house a soul pattern before full sync."
She blinked. "Wait… a host?"
"Yes," Jack said. "But it's more than that. A puppet. An artificial vessel designed to imitate me. To act as me if something went wrong. The experiment must have started the moment they planned to seal me. Without me knowing."
"But he's still alive."
"Yes," Jack said. "Which means whatever Spectra was doing here… they didn't finish."
.....
She circled the pod. The glass was thicker than it looked—reinforced. Scratches along the edges suggested it had been accessed before, maybe hastily resealed. Dried prints still marked the surface.
"Five others didn't make it," she muttered. "What were they trying to do?"
Jack's voice turned grim.
"Burn-in testing. Each one a failed sync. The body rejected the imprint, or the mind collapsed before the tether could stabilize."
"And this one?"
"He survived," Jack said quietly. "Or something inside him did."
....
Noel stopped at the rear of the chamber. A set of old terminals were offline, but not dead. She placed her palm against the interface and pulsed energy through her wristband. Faint lines of code flickered to life across the screen.
> Access Log: CRADLE-017
Status: INACTIVE / SUSPENDED
Last Wake Attempt: [Data Corrupted]
Imprint: [Sequence Signature J-AK.0.1]
Observation Note: Fragment stable. Host conscious at low frequency. Soul pattern residual. NOT FULLY DORMANT.
Her breath caught. "Jack… is this you?"
He hesitated. "No. It's a shadow of me. A forced imprint. One they tried to grow into a puppet copy. But it failed."
She turned back to the pod.
"Then what happens if it wakes up?"
Jack didn't answer.
Suddenly, the lights above dimmed. Not flickered—dimmed, like something was drawing power. The hum deepened. The pod's glow pulsed faster. The air in the chamber shifted, like something ancient stirring.
Jack's voice returned—tight. Urgent.
"Noel. Back away."
"Why?"
"Because I'm not the only thing inside him."
....
The man's eyes opened.
They didn't focus, just flickered faintly like static catching signal. His body twitched. Tubes shifted. But instead of speaking, the shard embedded at his throat pulsed—and projected light.
A grainy holographic memory bloomed above the pod. The hologram flickered once, then stabilized—casting pale blue light across the chamber walls. Noel stepped back, instinctively raising a hand as the projection sharpened.
Two figures stood in a sterile room—one in a lab coat, the other in a darker, military-style uniform. Their voices were distorted by time, but the words carried weight.
> "You need to speed it up. We don't have time for another collapse."
> "The imprint's unstable," the scientist said. "He's resisting. Neural feedback has increased exponentially since the last injection." He said, turning tolook briefly at the pod. "You're forcing too much onto a shell that wasn't grown for this."
> "And the host?" the commander asked.
> "Holding, but barely. His system's rejecting the soul pattern. We've tried anchoring it with a diluted shard fragment—results are inconsistent. He wasn't designed to hold the full signature. He's not ready." He repeated.
> "Then modify it. We're not waiting. His body's already hidden—if something happens to the seal, we need the surrogate to be operational."
> "But even the tethering protocols are incomplete. If this thing gains self-awareness—"
> "It won't. That's not its purpose."
That made the other figure pause.
> "The body is secure," he said at last. "Off-grid. Buried so deep even the Council won't find it. We just need time."
The feed shimmered again, degrading around the edges. Their voices turned to static.
> "We can't stall much longer," the scientist warned. "If the anchor fails—"
The hologram glitched. Then resumed for one final line:
> "He won't remember the real body's location. Not until the failsafe triggers. Until then, the puppet holds the line."
.....
The image vanished. The pod began to shudder. Lights flashed red. A siren wailed somewhere deep within the walls.
> "ACCESS—IMPRINT—ERROR—"
The prototype convulsed once. The shard at his throat cracked.
Jack spoke low and fast. "That pod's failing. The imprint's destabilizing. The relay's going to crash."
Noel stepped back, shielding her eyes as sparks flew from the machinery.
The man's mouth moved again. A whisper, barely audible through the failing systems:
> "Still… there… sealed… not… dead…"
Then the lights blew out.
The pod went dark.
And the chamber fell back into silence.
Only the sync key still glowed—pulsing steadily in her hand.
Jack's voice returned, quieter than before.
"They didn't destroy my body," he said. "They hid it."
Noel stared at the broken pod, heart pounding. "Then we find it. And we bring you back."
Jack's voice was calm now. Grounded.
"Yeah. One piece at a time."
She took one last look at the broken pod.
Then she stepped back into the corridor.
And behind her, the dark began to breathe again.