The deeper they went into Neptune-7's underbelly, the more the station seemed to transform. What had begun as standard maintenance corridors gave way to older, forgotten passages lined with rusted pipes and flickering emergency lights that hadn't been replaced in decades. The air grew thick with the scent of ozone and decay.
Kael followed Lysara through narrow passages that felt like veins in the station's mechanical body. His head throbbed with a dual rhythm—the physical pain from his encounter with the Echo Hunter merging with the psychic pressure of the new presence in his mind.
Brother. I remember this place.
The voice—no, the echo—spoke without words, implanting memories directly into Kael's consciousness. Images of scientists in white coats. Blueprints glowing on holoscreens. His father, younger than Kael had ever seen him, arguing passionately with men in military uniforms.
"Stop," Kael gasped, pressing his palm against the cold metal wall for support. "I need a minute."
Lysara turned, her expression unreadable in the dim light. "We don't have a minute. Security just expanded their sweep to include the lower maintenance sectors. According to my hacked feed, they're using Echo-detection scanners now."
Kael closed his eyes, trying to separate his own thoughts from the invasive presence. "It's getting stronger. This new echo... it's not like the first one. It's... aware."
Lysara studied him carefully. "How aware?"
"It talks to me. Not just skills and memories. Actual conversation. It called me brother." Kael opened his eyes, meeting Lysara's gaze. "What does that mean?"
Lysara's jaw tightened. "It means we're in deeper trouble than I thought. The original Echo Core project had a theoretical limitation—they called it the Brother Protocol. The idea was that certain genetic lines could house compatible echoes that would work together rather than compete."
"But that's a good thing, right?" Kael asked, a flicker of hope rising in his chest.
"Only if they stay in their lanes," Lysara said darkly. "The project files I've seen mention catastrophic neural collapse when echoes developed independent consciousness. Test subjects didn't just die—they shattered across multiple timelines simultaneously."
Kael felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold metal beneath his hand. "So what do I do?"
"Survive," Lysara said simply. "Same as always. Your father designed failsafes into the system. If anyone knew how to control multiple conscious echoes, it was him."
They continued through the maze of passages, Kael struggling to maintain his sense of self as the new echo's memories bled into his awareness. The deeper they descended, the more vivid the memories became.
This way. Left at the junction. The access code is your mother's birthday—04172129.
Kael froze mid-step. "How did it know my mother's birthday?"
Lysara stopped walking. "Know what?"
"The echo. It just... gave me an access code. For a door we haven't even reached yet. It said it's my mother's birthday."
Lysara's eyes narrowed. "That's not possible. Even with genetic compatibility, echoes can't access personal memories from your current timeline. Unless..." Her voice trailed off.
"Unless what?"
"Unless it's not just an echo," Lysara said slowly. "Unless it's something more."
Before Kael could ask what she meant, a low hum filled the corridor—a sound that vibrated in his bones and made the Echo Core flare to life inside him.
[WARNING: Echo signature detected. Type: Hunter-class. Proximity: 200 meters.]
"Not again," Kael muttered, pulling his pistol from his waistband.
"This is different," Lysara said, her own weapon already drawn. "The signature is... scattered. Like multiple hunters moving as one."
A sound like metal scraping against metal echoed from the darkness ahead. Then another from behind them. And another from a ventilation shaft above. Surrounding them.
"We need to move. Now." Lysara grabbed Kael's arm, pulling him down a side passage. "The facility entrance is close. Just another hundred meters."
They ran, boots clanging against metal grating. The scraping sounds followed, multiplying, growing louder. Kael could feel the Echo Core straining against his mental barriers, offering power, offering knowledge, offering escape.
Let me help. I know how to fight them.
Kael hesitated. The first echo's voice was a whisper in his mind, trained and cautious. This new presence was different—confident, almost eager. He remembered how it had taken over during the fight with the Hunter, how it had torn seven echoes from their host with casual power.
"What happens if I let you take control?" Kael asked silently.
We survive. That's all that matters.
The scraping sounds were right behind them now. Kael could hear breathing—mechanical, rhythmic, wrong. He skidded to a halt at a dead-end corridor, Lysara colliding with his back.
"Wrong turn," she cursed, spinning around. "Back the way we—"
The words died in her throat.
Seven figures emerged from the shadows, moving in perfect unison. They wore the same featureless black armor as the Hunter they'd defeated earlier, but these were different. Their movements were jerky, unnatural, as if multiple entities were fighting for control of each body.
One of the figures stepped forward, its head tilting at an impossible angle. When it spoke, seven voices overlapped in a dissonant chorus that made Kael's teeth ache.
"Kael Virex. Designation: Primary anomaly. The fragments seek reunification."
Lysara raised her weapon. "Don't listen to them, Kael. They're damaged. Unstable."
The lead Hunter-fragment raised its hand, and the other six spread out, encircling them. "The Virex line was always flawed. Your father knew this. That is why he sealed us away. But the Core has awakened. The fragments must return to the whole."
Kael felt the new echo stir within him, its presence expanding like ink in water. They're telling the truth. Part of it, anyway. We were never meant to be separate.
"What are you talking about?" Kael demanded silently.
The Echo Core was never just a tool. It was a prison. And we were the prisoners.
The Hunters advanced as one, their movements synchronized with eerie precision. Lysara fired her weapon, the stun blast hitting the lead Hunter in the chest. It stumbled but didn't fall. The other six didn't even flinch.
"They're linked," Lysara shouted over the sound of her weapon firing again. "Take out the leader, and the others might destabilize!"
Kael raised his own pistol, but his hand was shaking. The Core was screaming at him to surrender, to let the new echo take control. He could feel it fighting against his mental barriers, hungry for the power to destroy these fragments.
[CRITICAL WARNING: Neural integrity at 68%. Synchronization failure imminent.]
"Kael!" Lysara's voice cut through his internal struggle. "Whatever's happening in there, fight it! Don't let it take you!"
The lead Hunter lunged, faster than should be possible. Lysara dodged, but not fast enough—the Hunter's fist connected with her ribs, sending her crashing into the wall. She slid to the floor, weapon skittering out of reach.
Kael fired, the shot going wide as the Hunter twisted mid-motion. Another Hunter grabbed his arm, crushing bone. Pain exploded through his body, and he dropped his weapon.
"Join us, brother," the lead Hunter hissed, its face inches from Kael's. "The fracture must be healed. The Core must be made whole."
Now! The new echo screamed in Kael's mind. Let me save us!
In that moment of desperation, Kael made his choice. He lowered his mental barriers and surrendered control.
The world shifted.
Blue light erupted from Kael's eyes, his mouth, the pores of his skin. The Hunters recoiled as if burned. Kael—no, something wearing Kael's body—straightened, cracking his neck with a sound that shouldn't have been possible for human vertebrae.
"You dare to call yourselves fragments of me?" The voice that came from Kael's mouth was layered, ancient, powerful. "You are but splinters. Echoes of echoes. I am the Core's first child. The original. The only true Virex."
The Hunters stumbled back, their synchronized movements breaking down. "Impossible. The original was destroyed. Sealed beyond time."
"I was hidden," Kael's body said, taking a step forward. Blue energy crackled around his fists. "Hidden in the bloodline. Waiting. And now I have returned."
What happened next was a blur of motion and light. Kael's body moved with impossible speed and precision, striking each Hunter with exacting accuracy. Not to kill—to unravel. Blue energy flowed from his fingertips into each Hunter, and one by one, they collapsed, their armor dissolving into ash as the corrupted echoes within them were purified.
When it was over, Kael stood alone in the corridor, breathing heavily. The blue light faded from his eyes, and he collapsed to his knees, the full weight of what had happened crashing over him.
Lysara pushed herself up from the wall, wincing in pain. "Kael? Are you... you?"
Kael looked up, his eyes clear but filled with horror. "I don't... I didn't do that. It wasn't me."
"It was still you," Lysara said softly, retrieving her weapon. "Just a part of you that's been waiting a very long time to come out."
She helped him stand, her grip firm despite her injuries. "We need to keep moving. That light show probably triggered every security system on the station."
Kael nodded numbly, his mind racing. The new echo was quiet now, satisfied. But its memories were flooding his consciousness, memories that didn't belong to him yet felt intimately familiar.
My name is Kaelen Virex. I am the first. The original Echo Core host. My brother Jace—your father—sealed me away to save humanity from what I was becoming.
Kael stumbled as they walked, the weight of this revelation pressing down on him. His father hadn't abandoned him—he'd been protecting him from something. From himself.
"You knew," Kael accused Lysara as they reached a heavy metal door marked with faded warning symbols. "You knew what I was carrying."
Lysara input a code into the door's keypad, her movements stiff with pain. "I suspected. The timing was too perfect. The way the Core activated for you when it hadn't responded to anyone else in twenty years." The door hissed open, revealing darkness beyond. "I didn't know it was the original host, though. That changes everything."
"Changes what?" Kael asked, following her through the doorway.
"Everything," Lysara repeated, activating a small flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating a massive chamber filled with dormant machinery and rows of cryo-pods, all covered in thick dust. "According to project files, the original host was deemed too dangerous. He was going to collapse all possible timelines into one perfect reality—one where he ruled everything."
Kael felt the echo stir at her words. Lies. Propaganda. I was going to save them. Save all of them.
"Is that true?" Kael asked silently.
The Council was afraid. Afraid of what humanity could become with the Core's power. They wanted to limit it, control it. Your father was the only one who understood—I had to be more than human to save humanity.
Lysara moved through the chamber, her flashlight beam revealing control panels and monitors, all dead. "This is it—the original Echo Core research facility. Abandoned after the... incident."
"What incident?" Kael asked, though he feared the answer.
"The day your father disappeared," Lysara said, stopping at a central console. She wiped dust from the screen, revealing a faded photograph beneath. "The day he sealed the Core and all its hosts away."
Kael approached slowly, dread coiling in his stomach. The photograph showed his father—younger, happier—standing beside a man who looked almost identical to Kael himself, but with colder eyes and a cruel smile. His father had his arm around the man's shoulders, both of them grinning at the camera.
"That's him," Kael whispered. "The original."
Lysara nodded. "Kaelen Virex. Your father's brother. The first and last true success of the Echo Core project."
Kael reached out to touch the photograph, his fingers trembling. "What happened to him?"
Your father betrayed me. Sealed me in a pocket dimension outside of time. But blood calls to blood, little brother. And when you activated the Core, you opened the door just enough for me to slip through.
"He was contained," Lysara said carefully. "The official files say he became unstable. That he was absorbing echoes without limit, each one making him less human."
They feared what I would become. What I was becoming. Your father couldn't see beyond his fear. He couldn't see the future I was trying to build.
Kael pulled his hand back as if burned. "He's not just an echo. He's a person. A real person who was trapped because they were afraid of him."
Lysara's expression hardened. "Kael, listen to me. Whatever he was, whatever he is—he's not human anymore. The Echo Core changes you. Corrupts you. The more echoes you absorb, the less of yourself remains. Your uncle... he was at the limit. He was becoming something else entirely."
She's afraid. They're all afraid. But fear is what keeps humanity weak, trapped in their tiny lives, never reaching for the stars as they were meant to.
Kael looked around the chamber, taking in the dormant machinery, the dead screens, the forgotten research. This was where his family's legacy had died. Where his father had made a choice that had shaped Kael's entire life.
"We need to find a way out," Kael said finally. "Before security locks this place down."
Lysara nodded, already working at the console. "There should be an emergency shuttle bay. Old designs always had redundant escape routes." Her fingers flew over the keyboard, coaxing the ancient system back to life. "I just need to bypass the security protocols..."
The console flickered, then came to life with a shower of sparks. Screens lit up around the chamber, displaying schematics of Neptune-7's understructure. Red dots pulsed across the map—security forces, closing in.
"They're already here," Lysara muttered. "We've got maybe ten minutes before they breach the outer doors."
Kael studied the schematics, the original echo's knowledge guiding his eyes to a specific section. "There. A maintenance tunnel that connects to the shuttle bay. It's not on the current station maps—it was sealed after the facility was abandoned."
Lysara followed his pointing finger. "You're right. That's an old coolant line. It should still be accessible." She pulled a data chip from her pocket. "I can upload the route to your neural interface. But we need to move now."
As she worked, Kael approached one of the cryo-pods, wiping dust from its glass surface. Inside lay a figure—a woman with dark hair and sharp features frozen in sleep. A nameplate on the pod read "Dr. Elara Voss—Project Lead."
"My aunt," Kael realized with a jolt. "My father's wife."
She tried to save me. When the Council ordered my termination, Elara fought for me. Your father had to freeze her too, to protect her from what came after.
Kael placed his palm against the glass. "Is she still alive?"
The stasis fields are failing. She has hours left, maybe less. But she knows things, little brother. Things about the Core's true purpose. Things your father never told you.
Lysara joined him, examining the pod's control panel. "The stasis field is degrading. If we don't transfer her to a functioning unit soon..."
"We can't leave her," Kael said firmly. "She's family."
Lysara studied him for a long moment. "Kael, we're already pushing our luck. Carrying an unconscious person through security lines—"
"She helped my uncle. She tried to save him." Kael met Lysara's gaze. "If she knows anything about the Echo Core's true purpose, we need her. The Core chose me for a reason. Maybe she knows what that reason is."
Lysara sighed, then nodded. "Alright. But we do this my way. I'll reactivate the pod's mobility systems. You guide us to the shuttle."
As Lysara worked on the pod's controls, Kael accessed the schematics in his neural interface. The route to the shuttle bay was clear in his mind, courtesy of the original echo's memories. But beneath the practical knowledge, he felt something else—an emotion that wasn't his own.
Regret.
She was the only one who believed in me. Who believed in what we could become. And I got her frozen for it. Your father did what he thought was right, but he was wrong. So wrong.
Kael closed his eyes, trying to separate his emotions from the echo's. It was getting harder. The boundaries were blurring. Sometimes he couldn't tell where Kael ended and Kaelen began.
The cryo-pod hissed as its systems reactivated. Lights flickered along its surface, and the glass began to fog with condensation. Lysara wiped sweat from her brow, her face pale with pain.
"Got it," she said, leaning heavily against the console. "The pod will follow your movements. But we need to move slowly—the mobility systems are twenty years outdated."
Kael helped her stand, concerned by how much weight she was putting on him. "You're hurt worse than you're letting on."
"A few cracked ribs," Lysara admitted with a grimace. "Nothing a week in a med-bay won't fix. Assuming we survive the next hour."
They moved toward the maintenance tunnel entrance, the cryo-pod gliding silently behind them. The tunnel was narrow and steep, descending sharply into darkness. Water dripped from pipes overhead, and the air smelled of mildew and rust.
[WARNING: Echo signature detected. Type: Unknown. Proximity: 500 meters.]
Kael stopped short. "Did you feel that?"
Lysara nodded, her expression grim. "Something's down there. Something big."
The original echo stirred within Kael, its presence expanding. Not a Hunter. Something older. Something that was here before the facility was built.
"What is it?" Kael asked silently.
The Guardian. It was placed here to protect the Core's resting place. Your father couldn't destroy it, so he sealed it away with me.
Kael relayed this information to Lysara in a low voice. Her face paled even further.
"The Guardian. I've heard rumors. An autonomous defense system from the First Temporal War. They say it's not just AI—it's alive. A machine that learned to dream."
It dreams of the void between timelines. It hungers for the power of the Core. It will try to take you, little brother. To consume what I have become.
"We can't fight it," Lysara whispered. "Not injured. Not with the pod."
Kael thought quickly, accessing the original echo's memories of the facility. "There's another way. A maintenance shaft that bypasses the main chamber. It's narrower, but it should still fit the pod."
Lysara nodded. "Lead the way."
They detoured through a side passage, the cryo-pod scraping against the walls as it followed. The shaft was barely wide enough for Kael to walk through sideways, and the air grew thin and cold. Halfway through, Lysara stumbled, catching herself against Kael.
"I can't... go much further," she admitted, her breathing labored. "The painkillers are wearing off."
Kael supported her weight, his own exhaustion forgotten in the face of her need. "Just a little further. The shuttle bay is close."
Let me help her, the original echo offered. I can share pain thresholds. It will cost you, but she will survive.
Kael hesitated. Every time he gave the echo more control, he lost a piece of himself. But Lysara had saved his life multiple times. She didn't deserve to die in this forgotten place because of his fear.
"Okay," Kael whispered. "Do it."
Warmth spread through Kael's body, followed by an intense, burning pain that made him gasp. But Lysara's breathing evened out, and she pushed herself upright, her color returning.
"What did you do?" she asked, studying his face.
"Later," Kael said through gritted teeth. "Just keep moving."
The pain was excruciating, but bearable. The original echo had taken Lysara's injuries and distributed them across Kael's neural pathways, using the Echo Core's power to diffuse the damage. It was a temporary solution at best, but it would get them to the shuttle.
Finally, they emerged into a small chamber dominated by a single-person shuttle craft. It looked ancient but well-maintained, as if someone had been coming here regularly to keep it operational.
Lysara moved to the shuttle's control panel, her fingers dancing over the keys. "This is older than I am, but I think I can get it working." She winced as she pulled a toolkit from a storage compartment. "Just need to bypass a few safety protocols..."
Kael guided the cryo-pod toward the shuttle's cargo area. The glass was completely fogged now, and the status lights on the pod were blinking erratically.
"She's running out of time," Kael said urgently.
"I know," Lysara called back, her voice tight with concentration. "Almost... got it."
The shuttle's systems whirred to life, lights flickering on across the control panel. Lysara climbed into the pilot's seat, motioning for Kael to secure the cryo-pod.
"Hurry!" she shouted over the sound of the engines powering up. "Security just breached the outer doors!"
Kael secured the pod's harnesses just as the chamber doors at the far end of the room exploded inward. Security forces poured through, weapons raised.
"Shuttle bay is sealed!" Lysara shouted, slamming her palm against the launch controls. "Hold on!"
The shuttle lifted off just as energy blasts seared through the air where they'd been standing. Alarms blared as they ascended through a narrow launch tube, the walls flashing by in a blur of light and shadow.
Kael strapped himself into the co-pilot's seat, his body trembling with exhaustion and pain. On the viewscreen, Neptune-7's massive structure rotated slowly against the backdrop of stars.
"We made it," Lysara whispered, slumping back in her seat. "We actually made it."
Kael looked at her, then at the cryo-pod secured behind them. They had escaped Neptune-7, but they were far from safe. They had answers, but more questions. And Kael had a passenger in his mind who was growing stronger with every passing moment.
Rest now, little brother, the original echo whispered. I will watch over us while you sleep. We have much to discuss when you wake.
As exhaustion claimed him, Kael realized the truth—he wasn't just carrying an echo. He was carrying a legacy. A legacy of power and pain, of choices made and unmade, of timelines collapsed and futures yet to be written.
And the weight of that legacy was only beginning to settle on his shoulders.
Outside the shuttle, among the stars, something ancient stirred. It had felt the activation of the Echo Core. It had tasted the power of the original host. And it was hungry.
The hunt was far from over.
But for now, in the quiet darkness of the shuttle, Kael closed his eyes and let himself rest. Let himself dream.
In his dreams, he saw two men standing on a hill overlooking a city that no longer existed. Brothers. One holding a glowing blue core. The other holding a weapon.
And between them, a choice that would shatter worlds.
We were never meant to be separate, the echo whispered in his dream. The fracture must be healed.
Kael reached out in his dream, his fingers brushing against the blue light.
I remember now, he thought as consciousness faded. I remember everything.