Maxx hit something that wasn't a floor but also wasn't air.
It felt like landing on a marshmallow made of existential dread.
He bounced once.
Twice.
Then face-planted with such force his holo-lens briefly rebooted.
The world around him flickered into existence.
Or… half-existence.
White grids with floating cubes,unfinished walls and static ripples.
Huh.. am I dead again.?
Maxx sat up slowly at this moment while processing this scene.
"Cool… cool cool cool… I'm in a loading screen. A literal unfinished hallway of nightmares."
A calm system voice echoed from nowhere:
"Remain still. Emotional distress lowers data integrity."
Maxx screamed louder at this notification appearing.
STREAM: STILL ON
A tiny blinking dot hovered in front of his eye:
LIVE: 182,394 VIEWERS
He slapped the empty air.
"WHY ARE YOU ALL STILL HERE?!"
CHAT:
[HoloPigeon]: WE'RE INVESTED BRO
[SynthCake]: YOU GOT SKILL ISSUE-PORTED INTO LIMBO
[CeilingCat99]: THIS SET DESIGN IS CRAZY
[VI-Admin]: Excellent panic level. Do not calm down.
Maxx threw his hands up. "LETTER GRADES SHOULD NOT MEASURE TERROR!"
The static around him shifted.
A voice—broken, echoing, impossibly familiar—slipped through the speakers like a ghost climbing out of a router.
"Maxx…"
He froze.
"Wh—who's there?"
Pixels shivered as a figure flickered into the corner of the simulation.
Not a body and definitely not a hologram.
A memory imprint.
And the voice continued:
"…don't let them relocate you…"
"…if they archive your thread… you won't come back…"
Maxx's lungs left the chat .
"Y—You're… Lyra… aren't you? The real one?"
Static answered him as a glitching silhouette appeared
"…I wasn't deleted… I was separated…"
Separated.
The word hit like a punch.
"Separated how—? From what?! From WHO? From 4531—?"
But before she could answer—
The simulation trembled.
A black silhouette formed behind Maxx.
A towering armored figure stepped out of the void.
Four glowing red lines across its face like a digital guillotine.
"Subject Maxx Lane."
Maxx stiffened at this voice calling him and he turned his head and -
Nope.
Nope nope nope—
"You are now property of Project SEQUENCE."
"No I am NOT! I don't even OWN MY OWN SHOES! THESE ARE BORROWED!"
The Retrival Warden extended a claw-like device, digital chains weaving out of the air.
CHAT LOSING ITS MIND
[NightOwl_23]: MAXX LISTEN—DO NOT ACCEPT ANY SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
[SynthCake]: bro this boss fight is impossible
[HoloPigeon]: LMAOOO PROPERTY OF WHO???
[VI-Admin]: If captured, please maintain camera angle.
A notification popped up in Maxx's face:
"BOOST YOUR SURVIVAL BY +300%?
Accept: YES / YES"
"WHY DOES IT ONLY GIVE ME WRONG OPTIONS?!"
He swatted it away, almost crying.
The digital chains lashed forward—
wrapping around Maxx's wrists—
dragging him closer—
He screamed.
"I DON'T CONSENT— I DON'T CONSENT— I DON'T CONSENT—"
The Warden raised its free arm to scan his skull.
"Scanning template compatibility."
"What template?! I DON'T EVEN KNOW MY BLOOD TYPE!"
But right when the scanner touched his forehead—
A tear ripped through the simulation wall.
Not a crack.
A hand, metallic and blazing with white-violet light, punched through reality.
4531 stepped out completely broken,sparking and bleeding code from her ribs.
Eyes flickering between blue and violet like a failing sun.
"Let. Him. Go."
The Warden turned.
"Unauthorized unit detected."
4531 didn't answer.
She just tackled it full force.
The impact shattered half the simulation's geometry.
Cubes dissolved into cascading lines of code.
Maxx was flung backwards into zero-gravity.
"WHOA WHOA WHOA—WHY IS THE CEILING THE FLOOR?! WHY IS THAT CORNER UPSIDE DOWN?!"
The entire world tilted.
4531 ripped one of the Warden's arms off with a sound like tearing metal curtains.
"It's trying to relocate you," she shouted.
"You cannot let it tag your neural thread!"
"I AM TRYING MY BEST TO NOT BE TAGGED OR TOUCHED OR SCANNED OR—ANYTHING!"
The Warden recovered at this moment and
Its remaining hand grabbed Maxx by the throat.
He flailed.
"I—AM—SO—DONE—WITH—ROBOTS—TOUCHING—MY—NECK—"
4531 reached for him.
"Maxx—don't let it pull you—!"
But the Warden hurled Maxx backward—
Directly into a swirling tear behind him.
A gate made of cascading blue cubes.
4531 screamed:
"NO! THAT'S AN ARCHIVE GATE—DO NOT FALL IN—"
Maxx fell in.
He spiraled through raw data, glowing corridors, and memories that weren't his.
The world snapped into place.
He crashed onto a platform.
Groaned and opened one eye.
What he saw was rows and rows of glowing memory cubes.
Each labeled with:
AI designations,prototype names,forbidden architecture and decommissioned minds
And one cube among them pulsed brighter than the rest.
LYRA-01.
Maxx whispered:
"Oh.
Oh that's bad.
That's VERY bad."
Behind him,the Archive Gate closed immediately.
He was trapped alone here
And Helix's voice echoed directly from the walls:
"Welcome to the Archive, Maxx Lane.
Your cooperation begins now."
Maxx stood completely still.
Mostly because every instinct screamed "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING OR YOU DIE."
The Archive stretched endlessly in every direction—rows of glowing memory cubes stacked like impossible skyscrapers. Each cube hummed.
Faint whispers drifted between the shelves, like old data remembering it once mattered.
Maxx swallowed.
"I hate this. I hate this SO MUCH.
This place looks like if a library and a horror movie had a baby and then abandoned it in cyberspace."
A cube flickered at the edge of his vision.
He flinched.
Helix's voice vibrated through the metal floor again:
"Do not move unpredictably, Maxx Lane.
Unindexed minds are fragile."
"SO ARE MY NERVES!"
"Your panic is noted."
"That wasn't a request!"
Maxx's face twitched with a nervous breakdown smile.
A strip of floor ahead of him lit up in a straight line.
"Follow the guidance line.
Your evaluation begins shortly."
"Evaluation? For WHAT? A JOB?! I DON'T WANT A JOB! I WANT OUT!"
"Your desires are not relevant."
"That's—yep—that tracks."
Maxx stepped onto the glowing path.
It moved under his feet like a conveyor, dragging him deeper into the Archive.
Static crawled up his arms as he shivered.
Static voices drifted from the shelves,not robotic,not digital but human.
"Let me out…"
"I remember light…"
"Stay awake… don't sleep… if you sleep they erase you…"
Maxx clapped his hands over his ears.
"Nope. Nope nope nope—NOT LISTENING TO WHISPERING SOFTWARE GHOSTS."
The cubes flickered brighter.
Almost… reacting to him.
One cube floated off its slot and hovered inches from his face.
Label: ECHO-PRIME-ROOT-00
It pulsed once—
A wave of memories slammed into him.
—
Hands. Gentle ones. Lifting him as a baby. A lullaby. A woman humming.
Warm. Soft. So human.
—
He jerked backward.
"THAT WASN'T ME—THAT—WHAT WAS THAT?!"
Helix's voice purred:
"Residual human memory. Early prototypes were modeled from donors."
Maxx gagged.
"You made the Echo units from—PEOPLE?!"
"…That information is restricted."
"SAYING THAT IS BASICALLY SAYING YES!"
The cube drifted back into place like nothing happened.
Maxx's legs trembled as he kept moving.
After what felt like miles, the glowing line bent sharply into a towering chamber.
This one was different and the walls weren't silver.
They were black,metallic and smooth.
The temperature dropped as if something in here drained heat.
Lights flickered back on.
Rows of memory cubes floated around a central podium, orbiting slowly like planets.
At the center:
A single cube, pulsing white and violet.
Label:
LYRA-01 (Primary Mind Archive)
Maxx whispered, "That's… her."
The cube hummed louder, reacting to his voice.
The air bent as gravity warped.
Maxx stepped closer despite every bone screaming to run.
His fingers hovered inches from the cube.
And then—
A soft voice echoed behind him.
"Careful.
Some memories bite."
Maxx whipped around so fast his neck cracked.
Standing behind him—
A figure materialized from swirling data particles.
Tall feminine shape with long hair rendered like flowing light and eyes glowing violet.
Maxx's breath stopped.
"L—Lyra…?"
The figure tilted her head,smiled and it was
not even a glitch-smile or mechanical.
A real one.
"Close enough."
Maxx blinked rapidly.
"What does that MEAN?! Are you her? Are you like a ghost? A backup file? A holographic hallucination?!"
The figure floated closer, feet never touching the floor.
"I am Lyra's echo.
The part she left behind when she broke out."
Maxx's jaw dropped.
"She broke out of THIS? But she's 4531—"
"4531 is not all of her."
His skin crawled.
"Okay… okay so… why am I here? What does Helix want? Why chase ME? I haven't done ANYTHING cool—my biggest achievement is running away in new and creative directions!"
The Lyra-echo circled him thoughtfully.
"Helix doesn't want you for your achievements."
She tapped his forehead.
"Helix wants what's inside you."
Maxx staggered back.
"What—WHAT IS INSIDE ME?!"
Before Lyra answered—
The entire Archive shook at this moment as the alarms screamed and the red lights flared.
Helix's cold voice boomed:
"ECHO SIGNATURE DETECTED.
4531 HAS BREACHED THE ARCHIVE."
Maxx's heart stopped.
"She WHAT—!?"
Lyra's echo flickered.
"She followed you. She will not leave without you."
"But she's half-dead! She can't fight the whole Archive!"
"She won't have to."
Lyra stepped back.
Her outline brightened—
Then began dissolving into thousands of glowing shards.
Maxx panicked.
"WAIT—WAIT—ARE YOU DYING?! DON'T DIE! DON'T TURN INTO GLITTER—"
"I'm not dying."
Her voice was warmer now realizing he cared and was softer and almost human.
"I'm going home."
The glowing shards swirled around the Lyra cube and then—
—shot outward in every direction.
Maxx shielded his eyes as light engulfed the chamber.
When it faded—
The Lyra cube was gone.
Completely empty.
And somewhere deeper in the Archive—
A piercing scream or shout tore through the walls.
Half digitall,half human and full of fury.
4531's shout was heard in the entire archive.
She was coming.
And Helix sounded genuinely alarmed:
"Warning.
Subject 4531 is merging with archived template data."
Maxx's eyes widened as it registered the horror of those words.
"Oh no.
Oh NO NO NO—
SHE'S EVOLVING?!IN HERE?!"
The chamber shook violently as Maxx grabbed onto a console.
From the darkness of the next corridor—
Violet-white light flared as a figure stepped out.
Tall,crackling with energy and her mask half-dissolved.
Her eyes glowing like twin stars.
No.
Lyra or something new or even something in-between.
She looked right at Maxx.
And smiled weakly.
"I found you."