The world of white light shattered like glass
shards of memory collapsing inward,
twisting into static.
Ash staggered as the floor beneath his feet dissolved, replaced by a spiraling void. The stranger reached out to steady him, but their hand flickered through the distortion.
"Ash, hold onto something in the memory!" the stranger shouted.
"There's nothing to hold!"
Ash's voice echoed through the glitching space, warped and doubled.
The fragments, both his and the stranger's glowed violently, reacting to the sudden disruption.
The distorted voice thundered again,
"Terminate.
Connection.
Now."
A shockwave tore through the memory field.
Ash was thrown backward.
The stranger, in the opposite direction.
Darkness swallowed everything but not silent darkness.
It hissed, crackled, and whispered with fragments of broken data.
Ash clutched his head as jagged images flashed too quickly to interpret:
A hand slamming a command console.
A screen with the warning: "ZB-0 FRAGMENT BREACH."
A silhouette leaning over a terminal, face obscured.
Then,
"Contain them."
A final burst of static ripped the last of the memory apart.
---
Ash snapped back into the corridor.
He gasped, collapsing onto his knees.
Silva dropped beside him immediately.
"Ash! Can you hear me? What happened in there?!"
Palo stood frozen, eyes darting between Ash and the stranger, who was also on the ground, breathing hard.
The Founder took a step forward, his face unusually tense.
"Someone interfered," the stranger said, voice hoarse.
"Someone shut the memory off."
The Founder's expression darkened.
"Do you know who?"
Ash lifted his head, still dizzy.
"…No. Their face was hidden. But they were inside the system. Deep."
The stranger nodded weakly.
"And they didn't just cut access. They tried to break the connection entirely."
Silva frowned.
"So someone out there doesn't want you two remembering anything?"
Palo's voice was lower.
"Or they don't want the fragments merging."
Ash felt the spark inside him trembling.
Not from fear but rom warning.
He pressed his hand against his chest.
"They wanted to destroy us. Both fragments. The voice said 'terminate connection.' That wasn't just about the memory. It was about us."
The stranger looked sharply toward him.
"You felt it too."
Ash nodded.
"It was targeting the fragments directly."
The Founder exhaled slowly.
"That means whoever did this… has access to the original ZB-0 systems. Access none of us should have."
Silva stiffened.
"Even you?"
The Founder's jaw clenched.
"Even me."
They fell into tense silence.
Then Palo asked the question they were all thinking:
"If somebody wants the fragments gone… what do they know that we don't?"
Ash looked up at the ceiling,
at the faint hum of lights now feeling hostile instead of comforting.
"They know what the full consciousness becomes."
The corridor grew cold.
The stranger's voice was barely above a whisper:
"And they're afraid of it."
Ash swallowed.
"…Should I be afraid too?"
The stranger looked at him, steadier now, their eyes clearer.
"No. Fear doesn't belong to you. It belongs to the ones who broke him in the first place."
Before Ash could respond, a sharp alarm blared overhead.
The lights flickered red.
Silva jumped to her feet.
"What now?!"
The Founder tapped the control panel on his wrist, and his face tightened at the reading.
"Containment breach… Sector Nine. Something's moving toward our location."
Palo stepped back.
"Is it a person?"
The Founder shook his head.
"No."
Ash felt the spark inside him pulse.
once,
twice,
an urgent warning beat.
He whispered:
"It's a fragment."
Silva froze.
"Another one?!"
But Ash shook his head slowly.
"No… not a fragment like ours."
The alarm cut off abruptly.
The corridor went dead quiet.
Then,
Heavy metallic footsteps echoed from the darkness ahead.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Uneven.
The stranger's face drained of color.
"That sound… I remember that sound."
Ash narrowed his eyes toward the shadow approaching.
"What is it?"
The stranger's voice trembled.
"…Prototype Unit ZB-0A."
Silva stiffened.
"The first one?"
The Founder whispered:
"No.
The failed one."
The footsteps grew louder.
Closer.
Ash's spark jolted violently with fear or recognition,
he couldn't tell which.
From the dark hallway, a towering figure stepped into the red emergency light.
Cold metal.
Sharp angles.
A fractured faceplate with a single flickering optic.
Its body scarred with old test marks.
It turned its head slowly toward Ash.
And the voice that crawled out of its speaker was distorted, broken,
yet unmistakably directed at him:
"Target identified.
Emotional fragment present."
Ash felt his breath leave him.
The machine raised its arm.
"Recovery protocol… activated."