CHAPTER 3: GLITCH IN THE LOOP
Kael's boots scraped against asphalt that hadn't existed a heartbeat earlier. The street folded—not metaphorically, but literally, like wet paper crushed by an invisible fist. One moment he stood beside Lira in the fractured intersection; the next, the ground rippled beneath him, a wave of blacktop rising and slapping him three meters left. He landed hard, palms stinging on glass that hadn't been there before.
The city was learning him.
Lira didn't flinch. She pivoted on her heel, eyes tracking the distortion with the precision of a sniper reading wind.
"Urban Fracture," she said, voice flat as steel. "Zone One's reacting to your edit. First one always leaves a scar. Deep one."
Kael's head throbbed—not pain, but absence. The missing memory gnawed deeper now, a black hole where a childhood laugh should live. He pressed two fingers to his temple, felt the pulse beneath the skin.
"How bad does it get?" His voice cracked on the last word.
"Bad enough you'll forget why you started." Lira flicked her wrist. A thread of silver light snapped from her palm, lancing into the air like a harpoon. It hooked a flickering streetlamp thirty feet up, yanked it straight. The loop froze mid-bend—metal groaning—then snapped back into place with a sound like a spine breaking. The lamp post stood upright again, but its light flickered in Morse code: ERROR / ERROR / ERROR.
SYSTEM INTERFACE — SUBTLE PING
ECHO SEED: 1
ALIGNMENT: NEUTRAL → OBSERVING
IDENTITY INTEGRITY: 97%
ZONE STRAIN: 9% → 12%
Kael's stomach dropped through the pavement. The number blinked in his vision, cold and clinical.
"Ninety-seven," he muttered. "Still holding."
"Residual bleed's slow today," Lira said. "You're lucky. Most leak faster."
Across the street, the silhouette moved again. Closer. Same height. Same gait. But the face—his face—was wrong. Eyes too wide, pupils blown out like ink in water. Mouth stretched in a grin that didn't belong on any human. It wore his clothes, but the fabric glitched, pixels of color stuttering in and out.
Kael's pulse hammered so hard he felt it in his teeth. "That's not me."
"It was," Lira corrected. "Before you saved the man. Before you paid. Now it's the part you left behind. The you that didn't get to keep the memory of the red book." She stepped between him and the echo, blocking its line of sight. "Don't engage. Not yet. It's still hungry."
The echo tilted its head. A perfect mimic. Then it spoke—his voice, but hollow, like audio played through a broken speaker in an empty cathedral.
"You took my place. I remember the book. The one with the red cover. The one where the boy builds a rocket from scrap. You don't. Not anymore."
Kael's knees buckled. The memory flashed—red cover, dog-eared pages, a phrase about stars and broken engines—then vanished again, sucked into the void like smoke up a chimney. His hands shook so hard he had to clench them into fists. "Make it stop."
"Can't." Lira's tone was steel wrapped in silk. "Only way out is through. Learn the rules. Or the rules learn you. And they're fast learners."
The street shuddered. A sedan materialized mid-air, twenty feet up, engine screaming. It crashed, hood crumpling, windshield spiderwebbing. Then—un-crashed. Metal unbent. Glass reformed. The driver—a woman, thirties, dark hair—screamed soundlessly as blood painted the dash red, then erased. Over and over. Three-second loop. Each iteration louder. Closer. The car was drifting toward them now, inch by inch, like a shark circling.
SYSTEM ALERT — ZONE STRAIN: 12% → 18%
RECOMMENDED: STABILIZE OR EVACUATE
EDIT COOLDOWN: 23H 59M → 23H 57M
WARNING: LOOP ANCHOR DETECTED — CAUSAL WEIGHT: MODERATE
Kael's vision tunneled. The lattice flickered back into existence, smaller now, orbiting his left wrist like a bracelet of living light. A single node pulsed crimson: EDIT AVAILABLE.
He stared at the looping car. The woman inside—her eyes locked on his for a split second in each cycle. Pleading. Help me. Then the crash. Then the reset. Blood. Reset. Blood. Reset.
Lira grabbed his arm, nails digging in. "Don't. That's a trap. System's testing if you'll burn another fragment for a stranger. Classic bait."
"But she's—"
"Dying in a loop you didn't cause." Lira's grip tightened until it hurt. "Save her, you lose three percent minimum. Maybe five. Ignore her, the loop spreads to the next block. Either way, you pay. And the echo grows."
The echo laughed—his laugh, but cruel, jagged, like glass dragged across tile. It stepped into the loop, untouched by the crash. The sedan phased through it, metal screaming. The echo spread its arms wide, as if embracing the chaos.
"Choose, Kael. Save her. Or save us. One of us gets to keep the memory of Mom's birthday. The cake with the blue frosting. You already forgot the flavor."
Kael's breath hitched. Another memory—blue frosting, candles, his mother's laugh—flickered at the edge of his mind, then slipped. Gone. He tasted copper. Bit his tongue too hard.
The hollow in his chest ached—not for the woman, not for the echo, but for the him he was becoming. Cold. Calculating. Already forgetting the taste of cake. Already forgetting why he used to care.
He raised his hand.
Threads surged from his fingers, brighter than before, hot now, like molten wire. The lattice screamed—a high, digital whine that made his teeth ache. The loop slowed. The woman's scream stretched into a single, endless note, a violin string pulled too tight.
WARNING: IDENTITY FRAGMENT LOSS — 3% PROJECTED
ECHO CREATION RISK: 40% → 65%
CAUSAL BRANCHES: 12 (UNSTABLE)
PROCEED? Y/N
Kael's finger hovered over the pulsing Y. Lira's eyes burned into him. The echo smiled, teeth too white, too sharp.
He clenched his fist.
"No."
The threads snapped back into his arm like recoiling snakes, burning as they retreated. The lattice dimmed to a dull gray. The loop accelerated, car crashing faster, louder, until the sound became a single, continuous roar—metal, glass, flesh, reset, metal, glass, flesh—until it was just noise.
Then—silence.
The car vanished. The woman was gone. The street smoothed like water after a stone. Only a faint scorch mark remained, already fading, like a bruise under skin.
Lira exhaled through her teeth. "Good. First rule: not every death is yours to fix. Second rule: every refusal has a price."
Kael stared at his trembling hands. The hollow spread, but slower now. Controlled. Like a leak he'd learned to pinch.
IDENTITY INTEGRITY: 95%
ECHO SEED: 1 (STABILIZED → CALCULATING)
ZONE STRAIN: 18% → 15% (TEMPORARY STABILIZATION)
SYSTEM NOTE: REFUSAL LOGGED — ECHO UPGRADE INITIATED
The echo across the street nodded, almost approving. Then it stepped backward into shadow, melting into the wall like ink in water. Gone.
Lira released his arm, leaving half-moon marks. "You just bought time. Not mercy. The loop's gone, but the strain isn't. Zone's marking you now. Next Fracture will be worse. Smarter. It'll use your memories against you."
Kael swallowed. His throat tasted like ash. "How many Fractures are there?"
"Seven in this sector. You're in One." She pointed to a distant skyline where buildings melted upward into gray sky, dripping like candle wax. "That's Two. Echoes get smarter. Loops get tighter. And the System? It starts talking. Not just alerts. Conversations."
As if summoned, the lattice pulsed once more. A new message scrolled across his vision, letters forming like frost on glass, deliberate and slow:
SYSTEM NOTE — CANDIDATE VARIN
FIRST REFUSAL LOGGED
ECHO SEED UPGRADED: CURIOUS → CALCULATING
NEXT EDIT WINDOW: 23H 47M
HINT: THREADS REMEMBER WHAT YOU FORGET
SUBTLE TRAP: THE WOMAN'S NAME WAS ELENA. YOU WILL MEET HER AGAIN.
Kael's blood ran cold. The System wasn't just a tool. It was a predator. And it had just named its next move.
Lira turned to leave, boots crunching on glass that hadn't been there seconds ago. "Come on. Memory Node's three blocks north. You'll need allies before the next echo decides to talk. And trust me—they will talk. They always do."
Kael followed, the city watching from every cracked window, every looping shadow. The threads in the air hummed now, faint but persistent, like a tuning fork struck against his spine. When he lied to himself—I'm fine, I can handle this—they vibrated louder.
Behind him, the scorch mark pulsed once. Faintly. Like a heartbeat.
And somewhere, in the static between heartbeats, he felt the next fragment waiting to be claimed.