Eira's fingers trembled as she placed the shard into the terminal's cradle. The device pulsed faintly, syncing like a heartbeat. Data streams flickered on the cracked console, lines of code and fractured images scrolling too fast to read.
A low hum filled the chamber—a sound like whispered promises.
Her breath caught when the screen shifted. A static-laced face appeared.
Her mother.
Not the warm illusion. Not the echo.
But real. Recorded.
"Eira," the message began, voice thin but steady, "if you're hearing this, then the Archive still lives. And so do you."
Eira's throat tightened.
Her mother's eyes searched, scanning beyond the camera—searching for something lost.
"I was forced to hide this message," the recording continued. "They erased so much. But some memories, some truths, can't be fully wiped. Not if you hold on."
The screen flickered, showing images—files encrypted in layers of vow and code. Names. Dates. Faces she didn't recognize. But one phrase echoed louder than the rest:
Project Recall: The Price of Perfection.
"Eira," her mother's voice faltered. "They never told you why. But I did. For you."
The message ended abruptly.
The chamber fell silent once more.
Eira sat back, mind racing. The shard pulsed gently in her palm—as if urging her forward.
She had more questions than answers now. But one thing was clear:
The system was breaking.
And so was she.
The moment Eira emerged from the tunnel, her knees gave out.
Kael caught her before she hit the floor.
"Easy," he said, voice low but urgent. "What happened?"
She didn't answer—not yet. Just pressed the shard into his hand, still faintly glowing with residual heat. Her eyes were distant, as if some part of her hadn't come back yet.
Wren was already flipping open a cracked display panel. "Did it work? Did you trigger a dump? Tell me you didn't fry the whole—"
"It worked," Eira said, voice hoarse. "And I saw her."
They all fell silent.
Ysel leaned forward, arms crossed, tension etched across her brow. "You mean... your mother?"
Eira nodded.
"She left a message. Not just for me—for us. Project Recall. It's not just memory suppression. It's... design."
Kael helped her sit. "What did she say exactly?"
Eira hesitated, then activated the shard again. A low blue light rose in the center of the chamber. The ghost of her mother's message played again—flickering and broken in parts—but enough to still the room.
Wren's mouth hung open. "That's not just a log. That's a seeded subroutine."
"She wanted it found," Eira said. "She hid it knowing someone would come back for it."
Ysel's voice was hard. "So what now? We have a piece of truth and nowhere to use it."
Wren snapped their fingers. "Wrong. We upload it. But not to the cloud. That's suicide. No, we bury it inside one of the Registry's live-feedback loops. Where it'll replicate quietly."
Eira looked at her hands. They were steady now, but she didn't feel steady.
"We can't just drop it," she whispered. "We have to understand it. All of it."
Ysel shook her head. "There's no time for careful. We move while we still have shadows to hide in."
Kael crouched beside Eira.
"What do you want?" he asked quietly.
She blinked.
"I want to finish what she started," she said.
"But not just for her."
She looked around the room—at Ysel's stone face, at Wren's twitching grin, at Kael's steady presence.
"For everyone who still remembers... even if they don't know why."
The group sat in tense silence for a moment.
Then Wren muttered, "Well. Guess I'm all in, then."
Ysel sighed. "I never liked breathing easy anyway."
Kael touched Eira's shoulder, and she turned to him.
"You're not alone," he said.
She nodded.
But in her chest, she felt it: something had shifted. Not broken.
Lit.