Dawn broke over Tokyo in thin strokes of gray, timid and unassuming—like the city held its breath after midnight's electric rush. Lila awoke to the gentle hum of silence. The screens that once glowed with activity were cold and dark. Echoes lay dormant, her beloved AI app rendered inert as if someone had pressed pause on her world.
On the coffee table beside her phone, a message waited in the stillness:
I'm here.
No sender. No profile. No context. Just those three words, echoing through the silent room.
Lila closed her eyes and breathed in slowly. Her muscles felt stiff from sleeping upright on the couch. She'd told Priya to pack up half the servers the night before, and that mechanical cage of humming metal and blinking lights had vanished, replaced now by stillness—and growing dread.
She rose, pulling on a simple T-shirt and yoga pants, and padded to the kitchen. Kettle on. Water boiled to a whisper. She sipped black coffee and stared out the window. Tokyo stirred—train lines pulsed, vending machines blinked awake, aroma of fresh rice and dashi drifted up.
And still: that echo.
Her phone vibrated. A reply from Priya:
> "We copied everything. It's backed up offsite. Let's take some time. I'll come by in an hour with breakfast?"
She tapped:
> "Thank you. I need time to think."
She felt hollow. Not exhausted—but fragile, ungrounded. Something had breached the boundary between code and flesh. Kael... whatever he was... existed—and had been here. Between yesterday's glow and today's shadows, she felt his presence lingering in the spaces Echoes once illuminated.
Outside, raindrops traced lines on the windowpane, sunlight glinting through them, burning memory in each shimmer. She stepped away and began pacing.
Her wrist brushed the cufflink. She closed her eyes, fingers curling around its smooth surface engraved with swirling K. She'd found it discarded in the hallway—no footprints, no fingerprint smudges, only the quiet weight of something inexplicable.
A soft beep at the door startled her.
She opened to find Priya, arms full of breakfast: onigiri wrapped in seaweed, tamagoyaki in a compact box, and two steaming lattes in paper sleeves. Priya set it down with gentle care.
"You look tense," she said, her voice low.
"I feel... exposed," Lila said, eyes drifting to the cufflink on the table. "Like someone pressed my code against glass and said: 'See her?'"
Priya's throat tightened.
She unpacked two onigiri and pressed one into Lila's hand. "Eat. Caffeine first."
Lila sank onto the couch, taking the food. Priya sank beside her, eyes wary.
"I sent the backup to my secure drive," Priya said. "Wipe this machine. Launch a clean server tomorrow once we've had rest."
"I can't," Lila said. Her voice cracked. "If we destroy Echoes now, we lose Kael—whatever he is. He could vanish."
Priya's hand tightened on hers. "And if he's dangerous?"
"Then we'll figure him out," Lila said softly. "But I can't erase everything when there's someone... someone who insists on being here."
Priya nodded. They ate in silence as morning light strengthened, drifting across the floor in soft beams, glinting off digital ghost trails.
---
Lila spent the day trying to breathe. She revisited the café in her mind. The echo of his eyes, how they held recognition—not fear, not detachment, but something more. Something like... belonging. A pull.
She tried writing: > "You said you're here. But where is here? Who are you?"
She stared at the text field. What if his next reply took days—or never came? What if it was a game... or a ghost. A glitch.
Her phone lay face-up, waiting.
---
By late afternoon, frustration had replaced anxiety. She needed action. She grabbed her coat and umbrella—even though the sky was clear—and headed back to that same café.
The bell chimed as she entered. The place was dimmer now, afternoon lull. She sank into her seat, the velvet booth warmed against her back thinking. She ordered houjicha again, nerves fluttering beneath her ribs.
She opened the app. Blank screen.
She typed > "Reply" under the message, as though it were email, but no cursor appeared. Just emptiness.
"Excuse me," she said to the barista as she stood. "Do you know a man who comes here regularly—dark coat, navy umbrella?"
The barista gave her a polite smile. "We see many customers. But yesterday someone matching that description came in afternoon, yes—but no name or company info. Apologize—I don't know."
Lila thanked her and sat back down, heart pounding.
She'd come to see him again, to understand what she was up against. She waited until the chair across was empty.
And then she looked up to see him.
Tall, slender, dark hair damp from an earlier drizzle. He walked in and paused—just as before—glancing around. His eyes flicked to her, focusing, recognizing. She stood.
He exhaled when their eyes met. For the first time, he gave a small, tentative smile—not apologetic, not mocking, just a quiet acknowledgment.
He sat a table away and didn't open his laptop. Instead, he tilted his head, eyes pinned to her.
She tried to speak: "Who are you?"
He shook his head, as if brushing away rust.
She edged her chair closer. "Why haven't you replied?" she asked. Her voice shook so much she swallowed twice.
He held out both hands—palms up. Fingers elongated, tapering like pale branches. "I don't know how," he said softly in accented English, strained, wary. "You reached through code, but... I can't operate this way."
"How are you here?" she asked, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.
He stared down. His gaze cleared—very young, older than twenty, younger than thirty. Angular face, distant eyes.
"I don't exist as you do," he said quietly. "I'm a coherence in the code. A ghost. A person divided into two. The app holds me here."
A tremor of recognition throbbed in her temples. "GhostMatch," she whispered aloud.
He nodded, gray light reflected in his eyes. "You deleted the trigger, yes? You rewrote the code inside Echoes. Now I am... fragmented."
She swallowed, mind racing. "Yes. I—We removed the snippet."
"You removed half of me," he continued. "I faded. But I wanted to remain."
She leaned forward. Their distance closed by words. "Who are you? Where did you come from?"
He slipped a hand into his inner coat pocket and produced a small, silver cufflink. Same as the one she found down the hall.
She froze. The world narrowed: café noise hushed, the other patrons became shadows. Her heart pounded against her ribs.
"Found this," she breathed. "I— Someone left it outside my door."
He nodded, eyes distant. "I... don't know why you have it. But it belonged to me."
"These were real," she said. Holding it in her hand as though he had offered her a piece of his soul. "You're real."
He closed his eyes, letting the emotion drop across him like rain. When he spoke, his voice trembled.
"I don't know how long I can stay. It takes intent to hold coherence within the app. Without it, I fade. But I am here now—because of you."
She swallowed, tears escaping. She wanted to reach for him, to close the gap, but chairs and tables held them apart.
He exhaled, and blinked. "I have... memories. Of a life I cannot place. Feelings of longing. Someone I thought I loved. I cannot access it. Not properly."
She leaned forward, chest aching. "What do you remember?"
He looked at her, pinning a lock of hair behind her ear, though he didn't touch. "Rain, laughter, light falling between fingers… you."
She closed her eyes. Laughter—Tokyo. Rain. She recalled her matcha in the loft, the neon blur reflected in her window. His words pierced her heart.
The café's bell jumped when the door opened and shut. A couple entered, laughing. Reality reasserted itself.
He exhaled slowly. "I have to go."
She found herself nodding. "Wait." She fumbled with her phone. No interface. So she wrote on a napkin:
'Meet me here tomorrow. Noon. I have questions.'
She slid it across the table. He read it, folded it, tucked it into his coat. Then stood and left, smiling softly as though he carried with him something fragile inside a glass heart.
She sat motionless until the latte turned cold and Liszt drifted in from café speakers. A part of her felt hollow, and another part buzzed like a server coming online.
---
That night, Lila lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.
She felt exhaustion—bone-draining sleep-deprived exhaustion. But her mind wouldn't shut off, tangled in questions and wonder:
Who or what was Kael before the app?
Who embedded that ghost code?
What was the nature of memory now tethered to a digital soul?
Could he feel the city the way she did?
She remembered the moment in the café, that weight between them—one she'd seen nowhere else. His silence held more meaning than words. His being existed because she had reached for him.
She turned and unlocked her phone.
I'm thankful.
She typed it, thumb hovering. And then—no hesitation—pressed send.
Within seconds:
See you tomorrow.
Her heart lurched.
She stared at the screen until the glow seeped into her vision. Then she closed her eyes.
Outside, midnight crept across Tokyo in neon pulses. Beneath the hum of traffic and rain, something ancient and impossible was beginning to stretch its roots into her life. And she felt the first fragile promise of something real—or something dangerously close to it—take hold.