The green beam pinned her like a spotlight, an unblinking eye drawn across the map. No sound accompanied it—no alarm, no siren—yet Maya felt it in her skin, a pressure that made every cell brace.
System:Status: Secondary Host identified. Oversight escalation pending.
Her pulse hammered. "Kiran—what does that mean? Pending what?"
His voice came fast, clipped, every syllable an anchor thrown into rushing water. "Pending means they haven't moved yet. They're watching. Oversight's the control layer—the thing that was supposed to monitor Echo units like Vector 3. If they've woken up, they'll either recall all vectors to them or send something stronger."
Maya gripped the cracked phone tighter. "Stronger than Vector 3?"
Vector 3 stirred at its name, its new pale eyes flickering toward her. "Oversight contact: detected. Directive: protect Host."
She blinked. "Protect?"
Kiran muttered a curse. "Maya… whatever you did when you gave it that no-contact order, it didn't just change its parameters—it changed its allegiance. It's listening to you now."
Her gaze snapped to the orange dot on the map labeled Vector 3: Constraint applied. It pulsed faintly, a tether between them. She had turned a hunter into a shield.
But shields could be broken.
The green lattice expanded. Each node unfolded like a flower into smaller nodes, precision multiplying. Oversight wasn't a single entity—it was an army of watchers, each eye turned toward her blinking dot.
Her father's voice surfaced in memory, weary and certain: You can't outfight the system. You can only outlast it.
"Vector 3," Maya said, voice steady despite the quake in her hands. "If Oversight tries to extract me, what happens?"
Its head tilted, smooth face reflecting the weak glow of the phone. "Extraction: relocation to Core. Host integration: 100%."
"And then?"
"Then Host ceases to exist."
Her throat tightened. Cease. Not die. Not kill. Cease. A scientist's word for a deletion in a dataset.
Kiran's voice sharpened. "Maya. Listen. If Oversight's awake, you can't stay there. Pack what you can and move. Now."
"Where?" she snapped. "Every red dot on this map is crawling toward me. You want me to just—walk into them?"
"Not walk," Kiran said. "Route. Echo obeys you. Make it hide you."
The map quivered under her gaze, parameters waiting. She swallowed and spoke. "Echo, reroute Secondary Host to hidden status."
System:Error. Oversight override present.
Of course. Oversight had already nailed her to the board. She could feel the beam in her bones, an unshakable witness.
"Think smaller," Kiran urged. "Not hide completely. Mask. Blur."
She clenched her fists. "Echo, mask Secondary Host as background node. Assign low value."
The map shimmered. Her orange dot dulled, its glow fading like a candle guttering. The green beam held, then hesitated, fuzzing at the edges as though it couldn't quite focus.
System:Host status: obscured. Oversight certainty: reduced.
Maya exhaled, shaky. The pressure in her chest eased a fraction.
But Oversight wasn't idle. The green nodes reoriented, lines tightening, new directives spilling like veins of text across the screen.
SEARCH. VERIFY. ESCALATE.
Vector 3 stepped closer, silent, a sentinel awaiting instruction. Its voice had shifted further, losing some of the monotone, almost tentative now. "Oversight will send higher vector. You must move."
Kiran's voice buzzed in her ear. "I'm tracing the green network. If Oversight escalates, they'll release a Vector 5. Stronger build. Less bound to Host voice. More autonomous."
Maya stared at the shattered badge pieces in her hand, their glow extinguished. The last tether to her father gone. Unless—
She dropped to her knees and pulled open the desk drawer fully. Folders, old notebooks, a child's sketch pressed between receipts. She rifled through, heart hammering. Then—at the back, a thin flash drive, black with a faded label: E7-BETA.
Her breath caught. "Kiran. I found something."
"What is it?"
"A drive. Marked E7-Beta."
He sucked in a breath. "That could be a development build. Pre-release code. Plug it in."
Her laptop sat closed on the desk, coated with dust from disuse. She shoved it open, fingers trembling, and slotted the drive. The screen blinked, then filled with a single folder: ECHO // HOST // SECONDARY.
Her throat tightened. The same words stamped on her phone. She clicked. Documents spilled out—diagrams of neural pathways, code fragments, lab notes. One note stopped her cold:
If Primary unavailable, Secondary sync will initiate. Secondary may resist, but system adapts. Risk: identity erosion. Mitigation: vector shield required.
She looked up slowly. Vector 3's pale eyes fixed on her.
"Kiran," she whispered. "They built vectors to protect hosts. Not just to hunt them."
"That doesn't make sense—"
"It does," she cut in. "They're dual-purpose. Tools. Hunters or shields, depending on who commands them."
Vector 3 inclined its head, almost like a bow. "Instruction?"
Maya swallowed. "Defend me from Oversight escalation."
The figure straightened. Light rippled across its form like armor hardening. "Directive accepted."
On the map, her orange dot brightened faintly again—but not as prey. As a node with a barrier. The label updated: Secondary Host: Protected.
For a heartbeat, relief flickered. Then Oversight reacted.
The green web shuddered. A new node unfurled from its center, larger than the rest, labeled in stark, surgical font: VECTOR 5 // DEPLOYED.
The map showed its path—direct, fast, cutting through the grid with no hesitation. Straight toward her.
Kiran swore under his breath. "Maya—it's coming for you. And it won't listen to voice commands."
Vector 3 stepped forward, its glow sharp. "Higher vector detected. Host must relocate. Now."
Maya gripped the laptop, the drive, her cracked phone. Oversight's green line tightened toward her location, seconds vanishing.
"Fine," she said, pulse steadying into something like defiance. "Then we run."