For a moment, Ash couldn't breathe.
Not because he was hurt,
but because the world felt wrongly silent without Zero-B beside him.
The chamber around him was a wreck:
metal warped, wires hanging like torn veins, smoke rising from cracked panels. The center of the floor where Zero-B had stood, was a charred circle of blackened glass.
Empty.
Palo held Ash upright, voice shaking.
"Ash, talk to me. Are you okay?"
Ash blinked, struggling to focus.
"I… I'm here," he whispered.
"But he isn't."
Silva ran to the shattered platform, ignoring the sparks and falling debris.
She knelt beside the ruined chamber, hands trembling.
"He's not registering on any scanner. No signal. No frequency. Nothing."
Ash's chest tightened painfully.
"That's not possible. He said he'd follow if he could. He said..."
Silva turned to him slowly.
Her voice was gentle, but it broke anyway.
"Ash… the system collapsed. When it did, everything inside was either expelled or erased."
Erased.
The word clanged through him like metal.
Palo shot Silva a warning look, but she wasn't being cruel. She was being honest.
The Founder stepped forward, face pale, eyes fixed on the scorched floor.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," he murmured.
"Protocol Seven… the merge chamber… none of it should have still been active."
Palo's voice rose sharply.
"You're the one who built all of this! You mean to tell us you didn't know it could kill someone?!"
"I didn't know Zero-B could defy the system!" the Founder snapped.
"No copy was ever meant to act on independent will. He shouldn't have been capable of.."
Ash cut him off, voice raw.
"Don't talk about him like he was a machine."
The Founder went silent.
Palo tightened his grip on Ash's shoulders, grounding him.
"Ash," Palo said softly, "tell us what happened inside."
Ash inhaled shakily.
He remembered the white void.
The static.
The pull.
Zero-B choosing. Actually choosing to fight the system instead of letting Ash be consumed.
He remembered the last words:
Directive updated.
I will follow… if possible.
Ash wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist, though he didn't remember when tears had started.
"He fought it. He fought everything they threw at us. He held on until the end."
Silva bowed her head.
"He wasn't supposed to be able to do any of that."
Ash nodded slowly.
"Exactly. He wasn't supposed to. But he did."
Silva looked up, eyes widening.
"Wait, Ash, look at your wrist."
Ash raised his arm.
The lockband light, normally faint , was glowing brighter than ever, pulsing in a rhythm he didn't recognize.
Palo stepped back, startled.
"What does that mean?"
Silva scrambled for a tablet, fingers flying across the cracked screen.
"It means… something is still connected to Ash's lockband. Something on a very low frequency, almost hidden."
Ash's heart jumped.
"You mean he's alive?"
Silva shook her head.
"I'm not saying that. I'm saying something survived the crash."
Ash stepped toward the broken chamber.
The lockband glowed brighter.
A faint hum filled the air.
And then..
A spark.
A single silver spark crackled above the scorched floor.
Just like the spark Ash saw when Zero-B's hand slipped from his.
Ash froze.
Palo whispered:
"…Ash?"
Ash stared at the spark, voice barely audible.
"He kept his promise."
The spark flickered again, like a heartbeat in light.