I didn't sleep that cycle. Not because I wasn't tired—I was. The kind of tired that settles into your bones, soft and constant, like background static. But rest wasn't what my mind wanted. Not now. Not with the lines of logic still running behind my eyes, not with the room shifting in subtle ways around me. So I paced.
Patch dozed nearby, limbs occasionally twitching in some kitten-coded dream. She made soft noises—chirps, grunts, the occasional wheezing snore—but she didn't stir when I moved past her for the fifth or sixth time.
I was thinking.
More than that—mapping.
Each new change the debug room had made felt like a conversation. Every node I installed, every need I addressed, every quiet gesture of trust—it all fed into some silent ledger the system kept out of sight. I didn't know what the final score was. Maybe it wasn't points. Maybe it was a pattern.
But if the system was measuring my intent, then my intent needed to be sharp.
I stood in front of the logic chamber's entrance, sipping at my fourth cup of coffee. The machine had started giving it to me in slightly better mugs now—reinforced ceramic with subtle grip texture. Small detail. Large signal. Comfort wasn't just a reward. It was recognition.
The floor panels beneath the logic alcove shimmered when I entered. A quiet handshake between thread and node. This wasn't activation—it was permission.
The Logic panel still showed the recall buffer as empty.
I crouched beside it again, studying the parameters:
[THREAD EVENT CAPTURE: DISABLED]
[MEMORY TRACE STORAGE: MANUAL ONLY]
[USER NOTES: ENABLED]
That last line was new.
I tapped the interface.
A prompt opened:
[ > Begin entry: ]
I hesitated.
Then leaned in.
"Memory. SpectraBean's backpack. Pink. Left on the stairs before the integration. Recalled in Nullspace escape room."
The moment I stopped speaking, the line auto-saved. A new overlay appeared beside it:
[ANCHOR STABILITY: 12.6%]
[ASSOCIATED FRAGMENT: BLOCK SHELL]
I straightened slowly.
It wasn't just notes.
It was anchoring.
Not just for myself, but maybe, one day, for what had been lost.
I stayed crouched a while longer, staring at the projected anchor data. The concept opened like a fractal in my mind—each thread of memory cross-referencing events, objects, people. If the system recognised links between memory and physical fragments, then logic alone wasn't enough to preserve what had been lost. Emotion mattered. So did specificity.
It wasn't just about recalling events.
It was about encoding them.
If I could stabilise a memory trace of Lily's backpack with only a verbal note, what else might be traceable? The controller from that night. The words Lou mouthed in her final moment. The smell of popcorn in the living room. The music from the garage speakers when everything fractured.
I stood slowly, pacing the compact logic room again, noting the way the panels shimmered more actively now. Not brighter—faster. Like they were anticipating input. Not from system commands. From me.
Across the alcove, a second panel I hadn't touched before pulsed into view. It bore no icon, just a waveform gently undulating across a flat surface. The system didn't label it, but I approached anyway.
The moment my hand hovered near it, a list unfolded:
[USER-DEFINED NODES: EXPANSION PERMITTED]
[ - ECHO HOLDING ZONE]
[ - PERSONAL LOG STACK]
[ - FRAGMENT INDEXING BAY]
[ - INCOMING THREAD ECHO FILTER? Y/N]
That last one gave me pause.
Incoming?
Not outgoing?
I tapped the projection to confirm. No prompt. Just a line of text:
[WARNING: FILTER ACTIVATION MAY DESTABILISE NULLSPACE NEARBY]
[REQUIREMENT: BASE STABILITY ≥ 75% // COMPANION SYNC ≥ 65%]
I backed away slowly.
We weren't there yet.
But the system was giving me a glimpse.
It wasn't just capable of receiving echoes. It was preparing to intercept them.
I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck, feeling the faint tingling buzz that always crept in when I was neck-deep in a logic build. The last time I felt it this clearly, I'd been working on an automation mod for a colony builder sim and forgot to sleep for thirty-two hours.
I looked toward the junction chamber.
We'd need more structure.
Not just functional rooms.
Process stacks.
Echo indexing.
Thread recovery.
Environmental overrides.
The system wasn't going to explain any of it.
But it would mirror me.
So the more I treated this place like a live development build, the more the system would reveal.
This wasn't a sanctuary anymore.
It was my sandbox.
And I was going to see how far the rules could bend before they broke.
I stepped out of the logic chamber and returned to the junction with a different pace. No longer exploratory. This was planning momentum—when thought outruns fatigue and turns into motion. I circled the radial twice, tracing each node with my fingertips, half-formed ideas stitching themselves into sequence.
I needed a core loop. Something to stabilise my activity across cycles. Nullspace would continue to demand fragments. I couldn't just keep reacting to exposure spikes and system echoes with no structure. If the debug room could act as a closed-loop sanctuary between those runs, it needed to process what I brought back—not just store it, but interpret it.
I stood in front of the logic chamber again and opened a new thread in the projection:
[ > SYSTEM LOOP: CYCLE DEFINITION]
[ STEP 1: NULLSPACE ENTRY // ECHO PROXIMITY SEARCH]
[ STEP 2: FRAGMENT EXTRACTION // PATCH-ASSIST]
[ STEP 3: RETURN NODE ACCESS // EDGE CASE REQUIRED]
[ STEP 4: DEBUG ROOM INTEGRATION // LOGIC INTERPRETATION]
[ STEP 5: STABILITY UPGRADE OR NODE UNLOCK]
[ REPEAT]
The system didn't reject the input.
Instead, a new notification shimmered beside it:
[USER-DEFINED STRUCTURE: ACCEPTED]
[LOGIC PRIORITY WEIGHT: 31%]
[AUTOMATED SUPPORT MODULE – RESEARCH PROTOTYPE UNLOCKED]
I blinked.
I hadn't requested that. But the system had offered it, responding to the structure of my thought.
That wasn't just logic mimicking user behaviour.
That was system inheritance.
Behind me, a soft paw-step tapped across the floor.
I turned.
Patch approached from the cot, tail up, walking with deliberate steps. She moved not with urgency, but with a kind of practised grace. Her eyes were focused. Clear. And something about the way she carried herself had shifted.
Not behaviour.
Awareness.
She hopped onto the pedestal without invitation, curling beside the active radial like a living control unit. When I stepped closer, her eyes tracked my movements not like a cat watching a hand, but like an interface processing an input.
Her sync percentage updated in the corner of my peripheral overlay:
[PATCH_001_B // SYNC: 65.9%]
[ROLE UPDATE: COMPANION // CONTEXTUAL LOGIC FILTER ENABLED]
She blinked once.
Then turned her head toward the radial.
And the system responded to her presence with a node shimmer of its own.
It didn't say anything.
But I felt the pattern unfold.
I wasn't building this alone.
I had a partner.
I watched the light play across the pedestal's radial, the gentle shimmer that danced along the edge of a newly forming node—one that hadn't been selectable before. It didn't announce itself with any fanfare. No pop-up. No audio. Just a presence, shaped by proximity and behaviour.
Patch remained curled at the top of the interface ring, chin resting on her front paws, tail wrapped across her hindquarters in a lazy, deliberate loop. She didn't look up, didn't meow, didn't signal in any way I would have once considered communication. But the shimmer had appeared the moment her paws touched the pedestal.
That wasn't coincidence.
That was design.
I traced a hand through the light and opened the node's preview manually.
It didn't look like the others.
[NEW ROOM TYPE: MEMORY ANCHORING CHAMBER]
[FUNCTION: STABILITY SEQUENCING // FRAGMENT INTERFACE SUPPORT]
[ANCHOR PAIRING: PATCH_001_B]
[USER ACCESS: NULLPOINTER]
[REQUIRED INPUT: EMOTIONAL RESONANCE + MEMORY TRIGGER]
That last line made my chest tighten.
Not system input.
Not code.
Emotion.
This wasn't just storage. It wasn't a chest for loot or an archive for logs. It was interactive memory space. Something built to give shape to the intangible, to define echoes not by how they were stored, but how they were felt.
Patch shifted slightly and rolled onto her side, paws in the air, tail flicking once toward the shimmered interface. I gave a short, tired laugh and sat on the edge of the cot, watching her.
"Is this what we are now?" I murmured. "You do the heavy lifting and I journal the past?"
She didn't answer. But her paw extended, brushing through the radial interface. A flare of light blinked through the projection, brief, harmless, but unmistakably noticed by the system.
The pedestal chimed softly.
[PAIR INPUT DETECTED]
[MEMORY CHAMBER NODE UNLOCKED]
[CONSTRUCTION BEGUN: 18%]
I blinked.
Patch licked her paw, then casually rubbed it behind one ear.
I stood and moved closer, watching the outline of a new corridor begin to build in light behind the pedestal, toward the back wall, where no door had previously existed. It formed like scaffolding sketched in real-time. Thin beams of holographic geometry rotated into place and hovered, awaiting further development.
This wasn't Nullspace creation.
This was growth.
From us.
With us.
The debug room wasn't just our base now.
It was becoming a mirror of intent.
I knelt beside the pedestal and looked at the chamber's projected purpose again. Anchoring. Stability. Emotional resonance.
This room wasn't going to be for fighting.
It was going to be for remembering.
And maybe, eventually, for restoring.
The memory chamber's scaffolding continued to pulse softly in the background, geometry forming in delicate, methodical loops. Each element locked into place with a smooth, almost reverent hush, as if the system itself knew this node was different. Not just functional. Not even vital.
Sacred.
I stood before the projection and studied the overlay again. The words hadn't changed, but they carried weight now.
Emotional resonance.
Fragment interface.
Anchor pairing.
The terminology was clinical, but what it described was anything but.
This wasn't just a room.
It was a bridge.
To memory.
To identity.
To everyone I'd lost.
I thought of Lily's backpack again—the pink crewmate, the fraying zipper she refused to fix because she'd stuck it down with glitter tape and it "made it cooler that way." I hadn't touched it since the night of the integration. It had vanished, like everything else, but its shape remained burned behind my eyes.
And now?
It wasn't just a grief-bound image.
It was data.
Fragmented, yes.
Corrupted, maybe.
But preserved.
I pressed one hand to the projection surface and leaned in slightly, my breath fogging the light. "If I can stabilise one memory… I can stabilise others."
Patch stretched behind me, spine curling like a bow, before hopping down from the pedestal. She padded quietly to my side and sat, eyes trained on the incomplete node forming near the wall.
"Is this what you've been trying to show me?" I asked quietly. "That they're not gone?"
She didn't respond.
She didn't need to.
The sync overlay blinked once in the corner of my vision:
[PATCH_001_B // SYNC: 67.4%]
[EMOTIONAL LINK: STABLE]
I stepped away from the projection and crossed to the wall where the room was still forming. The corridor leading to it shimmered with uncompiled potential—light without physics, intention without shape.
It looked like the ghost of a memory itself.
A place not quite rendered. But waiting.
Waiting for me.
I stood before it and whispered the first truth I hadn't let myself say aloud since that night in the garage.
"I'm going to find them."
Patch rubbed against my calf and stayed there.
Not pushing.
Just present.
I returned to the centre of the junction chamber, feeling the hum of light under my boots, the subtle thrum of active logic flowing just beneath the tiles. The pedestal's radial interface spun at idle—no alerts, no warnings. Just readiness.
It was no longer the UI of a survivor.
It was the command wheel of a builder.
Patch trotted past me and leapt up onto the cot with a practiced little hop, curling into the dent she'd made permanent with her repeated naps. Her eyes blinked slowly, then closed. She knew her role, at least for now.
Not just emotional anchor.
Not just companion.
She was the tether.
Without her, the system didn't stabilise.
Without her, the fragments didn't sync.
Without her… I wouldn't have survived Nullspace long enough to learn any of this.
I watched her for a moment longer, then turned back to the radial and began creating a new log:
[ > THREAD NULLPOINTER]
[ > CYCLE 2 // STRATEGIC OVERLAY]
[ > - Memory Chamber: Construction begun]
[ > - Fragment Loop: Defined]
[ > - Resource System: Established]
[ > - Node Response: Syncing]
[ > - Companion Link: Stable]
[ > ]
[ > OBJECTIVE REFINEMENT:]
[ > 1. Anchor more memory fragments]
[ > 2. Explore logic routing across system echoes]
[ > 3. Identify override-class exploits]
[ > 4. Rebuild access pathways]
[ > 5. Create return logic for integration sync]
I paused.
Then added a final line.
[ > 6. Retrieve them. All of them.]
The log shimmered once and folded into the core node without a sound. The lights adjusted. The air shifted. And somewhere deep beneath the floor, the system listened.
It didn't respond aloud.
It didn't need to.
The next node would be ready when I was.
For now, the base pulsed with gentle light. The memory chamber continued forming, slow and steady. The ration node updated with a new suggestion for the next cycle's meal: grilled cheese on seeded bread, no crusts.
I snorted softly.
"Real funny," I murmured. "You're lucky you're good at coffee."
I sat back on the cot, leaned my head against the wall, and let my eyes close—not in exhaustion. Not in despair.
But in intent.
The core was real.
The rhythm had begun.
And tomorrow, I'd take the next step toward making sure memory didn't just survive here.
It would grow.