The city of Vireon was still glowing above, all chrome and hyperlight, but beneath it, Shai descended into something older, quieter—an underbelly lost in time.
No Feed overlays.
No Aura ticks.
No followers.
It was like stepping out of existence.
The tunnels of Sector Null were more myth than geography. Some claimed it was where old update fragments went to die. Others whispered that ex-users, wiped from the Feed, roamed the dark like phantoms. Shai wasn't here to prove myths right or wrong.
He was here for Ema-Lynne.
The First Key.
The one person alive said to be untraceable by any system. A being with zero aura, untouched by influence vectors, algorithmically invisible. In the language of the AFI, she was a "verified void."
And Root_Z had led him here.
Or… so he thought.
---
"Interface," Shai muttered as he followed a crumbling stairwell deeper underground, "verify—am I still under Root_Z's directive?"
> Root_Z Protocol Fragment: Dormant
Status: Message Origin Unknown
Warning: Reality Consistency at 83.9% – Deviations Detected
"That's comforting."
Meme Golem scuttled along beside him, whispering, "Yo boss… you feelin' the latency vibes? This place is making my cache itch."
"Quiet," Shai said. "We're almost there."
A narrow hallway opened into a vast underground space — like a cathedral of rust and broken tech. Towering screens hung from the ceiling like stained glass, flickering with dead streams, half-loaded emojis, abandoned memes. Here, influence had no power. The air was thick with something stranger.
Silence.
---
In the center of it all, she sat.
Ema-Lynne.
Thin, pale, dressed in a shredded school blazer and loose combat boots. She sat cross-legged atop an ancient server rack surrounded by static. Her presence wasn't grand. But it felt… sharp. Like she didn't need aura to be felt.
Shai took a breath and approached.
"You're Ema," he said.
She didn't look at him. "And you're late."
Shai tilted his head. "Late for what?"
"For realizing you're being used."
That stopped him.
"I'm not being used," he said. "I'm using the system. The Aura Farming Interface—"
"Didn't originate from Root_Z," she said, cutting him off. "It was built on my design. My refusal. But they turned it into a tool for conquest."
"Then why let it fall into my hands?"
"I didn't," she said calmly. "The system chose you. Root_Z was never one person. It's a placeholder—an open-source idea for breaking influence. I authored the first exploit. But then it was repurposed. Militarized."
"You're saying the system manipulated me?"
Ema finally looked at him.
"Not just the system. The world. Your desire for visibility made you vulnerable. You wanted to be seen. That's how they caught you."
"I didn't ask for this power."
"No," she said. "But you chased it. You enjoyed trending. You used the Aura to gain ground. Tell me—how many systems have you absorbed now?"
"Three," he admitted. "Maybe four."
"Do you even remember their names?"
Shai hesitated. "...Meme Golem. EmotiGod. The Adblock Sentinel. And…"
He stopped.
There had been another. A small one. A whisper system he'd crushed beneath his will to climb the Feed. It barely had a voice. He never learned its name.
"That's what I thought," Ema said.
---
For the first time, Shai felt a crack in his resolve.
"I'm trying to fight Algorithma," he said. "You know what it is, don't you?"
Ema nodded. "It's not a machine. It's a reflection. Of our worst patterns, scaled to godhood. It doesn't kill. It curates. It makes us predictable. Profitable."
"So you ran from it."
"No," she said softly. "I disconnected. There's a difference."
Shai looked around the hollowed server church.
"Then why am I here?"
"Because you're trying to break something you don't understand. And the second Key—"
"—The Mirror," Shai finished.
She nodded.
"He's more dangerous than Algorithma. He is the Feed now."
---
> NEW QUEST UNLOCKED
KEY TWO: THE MIRROR
Location: Sector Echo
Threat Level: 99.9%
Risk: Aura Saturation / Mindloop Contamination
Reward: Mirror Shard – Unlock Godshell Layer 2
---
"He sees everything you are," Ema warned. "Not who you pretend to be. Not who the algorithm paints. He reflects your truest feed identity. And if you're not careful, he'll turn you into your worst post."
Shai stepped back.
"I have to try."
"Then take this."
She handed him a dull black chip—no logo, no markings.
---
> ITEM RECEIVED: NULLBADGE
Function: Allows temporary existence outside of trend influence. Blocks most Feed tags. Immune to repost reflection.
---
"Use it sparingly," she said. "Too much null-time and the system will mark you as deprecated. You'll vanish like me."
"I won't forget you," Shai said.
"I hope you do," she replied.
---
As he climbed back to the surface, the Feed returned like a flood of noise. Notifications. Pings. Reactions.
> +4,019 Aura
43,220 Followers
New DM from @Z_StreamGod: "You still alive, bro? That last post was wild."
Shai ignored them all.
Above him, the skyline of Sector Echo blinked like a million staring eyes. The Mirror was waiting.
Not to be defeated. But to show him who he really was.