> *"To restart a system, sometimes pulling the plug isn't enough; you have to burn the motherboard. The soul is merely data stored in corrupted sectors, waiting to be recovered."*
— Unit 404 Archive Records, "Notes on Consciousness and Static—
The silence inside the workshop was heavier than the noise in the streets of Nova-Veridia. Outside, after the brief miracle of sunlight that had erupted a week ago, the city was beginning to return to its old gray routine, that familiar and suffocating rain. The ruins of the Syndicate Tower still smoldered, and the chaos created by the power vacuum was palpable on every street corner. But in Nena Volt's sterile room, time seemed to have frozen.
Detective Kaelen stood before the thick glass partition, hands in the pockets of his trench coat. His eyes were fixed on the vertical cylinder in the center of the room.
Jester was there.
He hung suspended in a blue, viscous liquid. The Clown, once the city's loudest, most colorful, and most unpredictable presence, was now motionless, like a fetus in a womb. Hundreds of thin cables pierced his body, carrying data to the main unit at the top of the tank. In place of his shattered metal leg, a crude skeletal prosthesis, temporarily assembled by Nena, stood. But it wasn't this that caused Kaelen's stomach to cramp.
It was Jester's face. The absolute peace on that face. The makeup was gone, that twisted smile absent. He was just a young man sleeping. And this normality frightened Kaelen more than anything.
"How's his condition?" Kaelen asked. His voice had the rough, sandpaper tone of a man who hadn't slept in days.
Nena Volt turned her wheelchair with a soft whir of its motor. The multi-lens sensors where her eyes should be rotated to focus on Kaelen's face. Her metal fingers ceased their dance on the keyboard.
"Physically? He's recovering at an incredible rate," Nena said, her voice filled with mechanical coolness yet human concern. "Nanobots are reweaving the cellular structure. Muscle fibers, bone tissue... All recovered in a week. But mentally..."
Nena gestured with her head towards the large monitor on her right.
On the screen, beneath the rhythmic waves indicating a heartbeat, stretched a flat, green line that was supposed to represent brain activity.
"No brain activity," Kaelen said, swallowing the lump in his throat.
"No," Nena corrected. "There is activity, Detective. But not at a frequency our technology can read. It's as if the operating system has crashed and is waiting to boot in 'Safe Mode'. I don't know where his consciousness is, Kaelen. Perhaps it's lost within the Static, or perhaps..." She paused. "Perhaps it's been formatted."
Kaelen took a few steps towards the tank and pressed his hand against the cold glass. The vibration of the glass spread into his palm.
"Can you hear me, you damned jester?" he whispered. His voice hit the glass and bounced back. "If you can hear me, wake up. Because things are going to hell out there. Gangs are running rampant in the streets. And my sense of humor isn't enough to manage this city. We need your stupid jokes."
There was no answer. Jester's chest slowly rose and fell in the liquid, but this was merely the result of the oxygen pumped by the machine.
The hydraulic door of the sterile room hissed open. The draft of air that flowed in gently rippled Kaelen's jacket.
Echo glided in. Her feet seemed not to touch the ground, her presence more translucent and melancholic than ever. Immediately behind her was Titan. The scars of that colossal battle a week ago had become permanent on Titan; his shoulders were slightly slumped, his black hair had turned completely white. But the steel-like will in his eyes was still there.
"Detective," Echo said. Her voice echoed not in the ears, but directly in the mind. *"The City Council is asking for you. The rebels, the remnants of the police... All are waiting for a leader. They want you to be the interim police chief."*
Kaelen shook his head with a bitter laugh. The offer sounded like the world's worst joke.
"I'm not a cop, Echo. I gave up that badge years ago, when this city lost its soul. I'm just a stubborn, old man," Kaelen said, without taking his eyes off Jester. "Being chief is your job, Titan. Your shoulders can bear this burden."
Titan crossed his arms over his chest with a metallic creak. "I am a warrior, Kaelen, not an administrator. I give orders, I don't make policy. People are looking for a symbol. They're asking for Jester. They're saying, 'Where is the 'Fugitive'?' They see him as a savior, a saint."
"Tell them he's dead," Kaelen said harshly. His voice cut through the room like a knife. He turned and looked into Titan's eyes. "If they know he's alive, the remnants of the Syndicate, those freak hunters, will swarm here to finish the job. He's vulnerable right now."
Echo glided to the side of the tank. She placed her pale hand on the glass, next to Kaelen's handprint. Her eyes glowed faintly.
*"His mind... is very far away,"* her mental voice whispered. *"But I feel a connection. Very thin, like a thread about to break. As if trapped within a dream."*
Echo turned her head and looked at Nena. *"Let me in. I will try to find him."*
"It could be dangerous," Nena warned, her sensors turning red. "His mind is like a virus field right now, Echo. His connection to the Static isn't stable. It could pull you in too."
"We have to take the risk," Kaelen said, his voice firm and commanding. "We can't put this city back together without him. Do it."
Echo took a deep breath – or seemed to – and closed her eyes. The fluorescent lamps in the workshop flickered with a sizzle. The voltage dropped, shadows lengthened.
***
**ECHO / MENTAL LINK**
This wasn't a white void. This wasn't Kaelen's gray, wet world either.
When Echo opened her eyes, she found herself inside a colossal circus tent, stretching into infinity. The canvas overhead was as high as a starless sky. Around her were thousands, perhaps millions, of seats, but all were empty. The red velvet seats carried the dust of silence.
And right in the middle, at the center of that enormous emptiness, was a single tightrope.
Jester was there.
He wore his familiar purple suit, but it wasn't torn, it was pristine. The makeup on his face was flawless. He was walking on the rope with a long balancing pole in his hand. There was no net below; only a bottomless, swirling darkness.
"Jester!" Echo called out. Her voice echoed in the empty stands.
Jester stopped. He tilted his balancing pole slightly and looked down at Echo. There was a strange, peaceful smile on his face.
"Echo?" he said. His voice was cheerful, but this cheerfulness was not of madness, but of childlike innocence. "Do you have a ticket? The girl at the box office is a bit grumpy. Though the show has been canceled, but..."
"You need to wake up," Echo said, rising to the level of the rope. "Everyone is waiting for you. Kaelen, Titan... The city is burning, Jester."
"Why should I wake up?" Jester said, sitting cross-legged on the rope. He placed the pole on his lap. "There's pain there, Echo. There's betrayal. There's cold. Here, there's only balance." He lifted his head and pointed to the dark top of the tent. "And... my mother is here."
Echo looked up. At the very top of the circus tent, a woman's silhouette swung on a trapeze. She wore an elegant, shimmering costume. Elena. Jester's mother, whom he had lost years ago.
"She's not real, Jester," Echo said, her voice trembling. "She's just a memory. The Static is using your weak point."
"Memories are the only real thing I have," Jester said. His eyes welled up, but his smile didn't fade. "Go, Echo. Leave me be. There's no fear of falling here."
And Jester slowly let himself fall sideways. He slid from the rope and began to drift into that bottomless darkness, into infinity.
***
**THE REAL WORLD**
Echo was thrown backward with a high-pitched scream. If Titan hadn't caught her in mid-air, she would have crashed to the floor.
A thin trickle of blood seeped from the young medium's nose. Her eyes were wide with terror.
"What happened?" Titan asked, shaking her.
"He refuses to come," Echo gasped, her voice weak. "He's happy in his own world. He... he chose to fall. He doesn't want to wake up."
Kaelen angrily punched the tank's glass. "Coward!" he yelled, his voice echoing in the workshop. "After all that fighting, after pulling us out of that hell, you're giving up? Now?"
Just then, the heavy metal door of the workshop opened with a loud bang, as if forced. Everyone inside was ready to draw their weapons, but what entered didn't look like a threat.
A clunky **Postman Android** entered, its joints rusted, its paint peeling. Its model number likely belonged to the late 1950s; a faded "Nova Postal Service" logo was on its chest. Gears creaked as it walked.
The Android walked towards Kaelen. Its sensors scanned him, then stopped.
"Detective Kaelen?" the mechanical, crackling voice said. The words sounded like they came from a broken record.
Kaelen frowned. "That's me. What do you want?"
"You have a package," the Android said. "Sender: **Unknown**. Delivery Protocol: **Exactly 7 days after the fall of the entity codenamed Jester.**"
The Android clicked open a rusty panel on its chest. A compartment smelling of steam and oil emerged. Inside the compartment lay a small, black velvet-covered box.
Kaelen hesitantly took the box. The Android, with the mechanical satisfaction of a completed task, powered down where it stood, its lights extinguishing.
Kaelen opened the box.
Inside, there was a polished silver, antique **Circus Whistle** and a folded piece of paper.
He unfolded the paper. The handwriting was familiar; crooked, uneven, as if his hand had trembled while writing. It was Jester's writing.
*"Hey Kaelen,*
*If you're reading this, I'm probably either dead, or turned into a vegetable like a pickle in a jar. Don't worry, I foresaw this. Probability calculations, you know...*
*Let me tell you a secret, my grumpy friend: I'm not just a 'Glitch'. I'm also a 'Backup'."*
*If I don't want to wake up – and it's probably very comfortable there – give me a reason."*
*Blow the whistle. But be careful, this whistle doesn't just call dogs. Sometimes it awakens monsters too."*
*"- The Clown."*
Kaelen crumpled the note in his palm. He took the silver whistle between his fingers. The metal was cold.
"What will that do?" Nena asked, looking at the flat line on the monitor. "Blow a whistle at someone who's brain-dead? That's not scientific."
"I don't know," Kaelen said, bringing the whistle to his lips. His eyes were locked on the motionless body in the tank. "But Jester always has a Plan B. It doesn't have to make sense."
Kaelen took a deep breath and blew into the whistle with all his might.
No sound came out.
Those in the room heard nothing. The frequency was far above what the human ear – or even Echo's sensitive mind – could perceive.
But the thing inside the tank heard it.
Jester's fingers, suspended in the liquid, suddenly twitched.
The flat line on the monitor suddenly shot to the ceiling. Alarms filled the room.
**DIT-DIT-DIT!**
"Activity!" Nena shouted. "Cortex activity increased by 400%! This is impossible!"
Jester's head inside the tank suddenly snapped upward. His eyelids flew open.
Kaelen staggered back a step.
Those eyes... They weren't the familiar blue or hazel. There was no iris, no white.
Jester's eyes were filled with a pure, glowing, **BRIGHT RED** light.
A thin crack appeared in the tank's glass. *Crack.*
Then another. *Crack.*
Jester opened his mouth in the water, but the sound that came out wasn't a human scream; it was a digital roar. He slammed his fist against the glass.
**BANG!**
The thick safety glass shattered like a spiderweb. Blue liquid began to spill onto the floor.
"Get back!" Titan shouted, pulling Kaelen by the arm.
Jester burst out of the tank, shattering the glass. Sparks flew as cables ripped from his body. He landed on the wet floor on all fours, like a predator.
He slowly lifted his head. Those red eyes scanned everyone in the room like targets, like data packets.
This wasn't an awakening. This wasn't the old Jester returning.
The red warning text that appeared on Nena's screen explained everything:
**SYSTEM ERROR... ADMINISTRATOR MODE ACTIVE... SECURITY PROTOCOLS DISABLED.**
Jester growled. And at that moment, Kaelen realized that blowing the whistle might have been the biggest mistake of his life.