Zero couldn't shake the look in Fry's eyes.
It was only for a second—but it was there. That sliver of fear that didn't match anything she'd said before. She was always composed, always one step ahead. Until now.
Now she looked like someone who'd seen something they couldn't fix.
Patch had gone unusually quiet, chewing the corner of his scarf like it contained wisdom. That was his nervous tell—something Zero had started picking up on without realizing.
They walked deeper into the auxiliary wing of the Archives, where the lights grew dim and the shelves began to twist in nonsensical ways. Books merged into pipes. Data nodes hovered upside-down. One corridor had a loop—no matter how far you walked, you ended up back at the start, unless you closed your eyes and walked backward.
Zero did just that, and almost walked face-first into a rusted plaque:
"Caution: Memories Stored Here Are Not Chronologically Aligned. Temporal feedback may occur."
Fry muttered, "We're close. That loop wasn't in place last time. Something's warping the substrate."
Zero tried to focus, but the child's words kept playing on a loop in his skull:
"Don't trust the one who leads you to light."
He kept glancing at Fry when she wasn't looking.
She noticed.
"Say it," she said flatly, not looking back. "Whatever's burning a hole in your brain."
Zero hesitated. "That boy—the ghost or echo or whatever he was—he warned me about someone. Said not to trust the one who leads me to light."
Patch chuckled nervously. "Oh great. Cryptic ghost advice. We're officially in prophecy territory. I hate prophecy territory."
Fry didn't respond right away. Then:
"You think that means me?"
Zero didn't answer.
She turned, slowly, and for the first time, really looked at him.
"You think I brought you here to use you?"
Zero shrugged, uncertain. "I don't know. You're the only one who seems to understand what's happening. And that… makes you dangerous."
A long silence followed.
Then Fry said, very quietly, "Good. You're learning."
They stopped at a sealed chamber with an iris-lock and a floating glyph reader. Patch poked at it.
"What's behind here again?" he asked.
Fry replied, "Level 6: Synapse Drift Storage. Memories that failed to anchor, but tried to. They cling to shape. Like barnacles."
Patch grimaced. "Sounds stable."
Fry activated the glyph reader. A spiral of light scanned Zero.
"Fragment recognized: 7.1.3. Access permitted."
The door opened with a breath-like shhh.
Inside was darkness.
But not empty darkness.
The space felt occupied, like a theater where someone was already seated, waiting for the performance to begin.
They stepped in.
The floor was a smooth, obsidian material that reflected nothing.
In the center stood a single mirror shard, large as a window. It hovered above a glyph-laced podium. Data spirals wove through the air like visible strands of memory.
And next to the shard was the boy.
He looked younger now. Or maybe he simply looked sadder.
This time, when he spoke, his voice echoed outside their heads.
"I thought you'd come sooner," he said. "I've been waiting here since before you existed."
Zero took a step forward. "Who are you?"
"I'm the version they forgot. The one they erased because he asked too many questions. The one who wouldn't obey the recursive loop."
Fry stiffened. "He's a fragment."
The boy nodded. "X. Unlabeled. Untethered. That's what they called me. I was never meant to touch the Karnyx. But I did. And it remembered me."
Patch tilted his head. "Wait—so the Karnyx remembers fragments?"
The boy turned to him. "The Karnyx remembers what you feel. Not what you are."
Zero's voice shook. "Why did you show me that memory? Of my mother?"
The boy frowned. "I didn't. That was her. The Karnyx is feeding on your longing. On what breaks you. It wants to see if you're worth remembering."
Fry stepped closer. "And if he's not?"
"Then he'll become like me. A thought without a tether."
The shard shimmered. Inside, Zero saw flickers:
Himself, laughing. Running. Screaming. Being held. Letting go.
Then—something sharp. A betrayal. A scream he didn't recognize as his own.
Patch reached out toward the shard.
"Don't—!" the boy shouted.
Too late.
The moment Patch's fingers brushed the edge of the mirror, the chamber fractured.
Light bent.
Gravity vanished.
Zero found himself somewhere else.
He was on a train.
Not real. But real enough.
Outside the window: darkness. No stars. Just a smear of colors that didn't belong to any sky.
Across from him sat the boy.
"Why am I here?" Zero asked.
The boy's eyes were hollow. "Because you need to decide if you want to stay human… or become what the Karnyx needs."
"And what does it need?"
"A voice that can lie to the system and still believe the truth."
"I don't understand."
"You will. Soon."
The train door opened. A figure stood at the entrance.
Zero's stomach dropped.
It was Fry.
But she was older.
Colder.
Her eyes glowed with Karnyx glyphs. Her skin was traced with circuitry.
She looked at him—and smiled.
And then the train shattered.
Zero collapsed back into his body.
Patch was slumped on the floor, eyes wide. Fry was breathing hard, hands crackling with residual charge.
The boy was gone.
But the mirror shard had changed.
It now displayed only one thing:
Fragment X: Echo Unstable. Probability Fork: Imminent.
Fry stood slowly. "We need to leave. Now."
Zero's voice was a whisper.
"I saw you."
Fry didn't look at him.
"I know," she said. "And that wasn't the last time."