The silver spark hovered in the air. Tiny, trembling, impossible.
Ash moved toward it slowly, like any wrong motion might make it vanish.
Silva held out a warning hand.
"Don't touch it yet! We don't know what it is."
Ash shook his head.
"I do."
Palo swallowed hard.
"Ash… are you sure?"
Ash didn't answer with words.
He lifted his glowing wrist.
The spark reacted instantly,
stretching upward, pulsing in sync with Ash's heartbeat.
Silva's eyes widened.
"It's resonating with you. That means...."
The Founder cut her off quietly.
"It means this is a remnant."
"A remnant of what?" Palo snapped.
The Founder hesitated.
But Ash already knew.
"A remnant of Zero-B."
The spark pulsed once, bright enough to cast shadows across the broken chamber.
Silva staggered back.
"It shouldn't be possible. When the system collapsed, data fragments, neural patterns, anything inside the link… all of that should have been destroyed."
Ash kept his eyes fixed on the spark.
"He resisted the merge. He resisted the system. He resisted deletion. And this, ..this is what survived."
The Founder stepped closer, his expression a mixture of awe and fear.
"This isn't just a fragment. Look at the oscillation pattern. It's stable. It's acting like… like a seed."
Ash turned sharply.
"A seed of what?"
The Founder looked directly into Ash's eyes.
"A new form. A copy rebuilding itself."
Palo's breath hitched.
"You're saying Zero-B isn't gone?"
Silva shook her head, conflicted.
"Not exactly alive… but not erased either. He's somewhere between. Like his consciousness condensed into a single point."
Ash swallowed.
Zero-B holding on until the last second,
telling Ash he would follow if he could,
flickered through his mind.
He whispered:
"He found a way."
The spark drifted lower, hovering just above Ash's palm.
Ash reached out slowly.
Palo grabbed his arm.
"Ash, wait. What if it hurts you?"
Ash didn't pull away.
"He'd never hurt me."
The spark answered for him.
It floated into Ash's palm. Gentle, warm, almost like a breath.
Ash froze.
The light touched the center of his hand, then sank inward, dissolving into a soft pulse beneath his skin.
The lockband on his wrist flared so brightly Palo shielded his eyes.
Silva stumbled back from her equipment.
"I'm detecting… a secondary signal inside Ash. It's faint, but it's there."
Palo stared at Ash in shock.
"You mean he's inside you?"
Ash shook his head slowly.
"Not inside. Connected."
The Founder ran a shaky hand through his hair.
"This changes everything. A copy consciousness surviving outside the system… we've never seen anything like it."
Silva paced anxiously.
"But what does it mean? Is he stable? Is he conscious? Is he rebuilding? Is he.."
Ash cut her off quietly.
"I can feel him."
Everyone stopped moving.
Palo stepped closer, voice gentler now.
"Ash… what do you feel?"
Ash pressed a hand over his chest, right where the spark settled.
"Not words. Not thoughts. Just… a pull. A presence trying to find its shape again."
He didn't say it out loud.
But it felt like Zero-B reaching out, steadying himself inside the darkness, searching for a way back.
Silva turned to the Founder, voice urgent.
"If a remnant can survive like this, your project is way more advanced than any of us thought."
The Founder paled.
"Or it's far more unstable."
Ash clenched his fist.
"He's not unstable. He's trying to survive."
The room shuddered suddenly.
A ripple running through the floor like a low earthquake.
Silva checked her device.
"Another system collapse wave! We need to get out of here, now!"
Palo grabbed Ash's hand, pulling him toward the exit.
"Ash, come on! The whole place is failing!"
Ash let himself be dragged, but his eyes stayed fixed on the dim glow beneath his skin.
The second spark flashed faintly, like a signal.
I'm here.
Ash whispered back, under his breath:
"I know."