She was created to follow. To imitate. To obey. But now Echo is hearing voices no one implanted, seeing symbols no one ever taught her—and something inside her is counting down.
Echo stopped sleeping.
Not because she was afraid.
Because every time she closed her eyes, the dreams got clearer.
The same sequence:
A mountain made of steel bones.
A voice in a language her mouth could shape but not understand.
And a clock, ticking down.
She started recording them.
But the recordings never saved.
The data corrupted itself mid-export — even Aya couldn't trace why.
The terminal simply logged the event as:
"ECHO PROTOCOL — ACCESS DENIED."
It started to bleed into her waking hours.
She was walking through Archive Sector 4 when her reflection twitched in a display panel.
Not glitched. Moved differently.
Then whispered:
"There are others. Buried.Beneath glass.Beneath war."
She stared at herself.
Didn't blink.
Didn't scream.
Just walked away.
Ava was the first to notice something was wrong.
They were in the greenhouse, watching Fall try to coax a small vine to grow under UV filters.
Fall was humming.
Ava was sipping tea.
Echo sat across from them, sketching.
She drew a circle.
Then thirteen slashes across it.
Then a single, vertical eye in the center.
Fall saw it first.
Froze.
"Where did you see that?"
Echo didn't look up.
"I didn't. I remembered it."
Aya was called in.
She ran diagnostics. Full scan. Neuro-mapping.
Everything came back clean.
No implants.No residual Concord code.No viral triggers.No known AI patterns.
But her conclusion chilled the room:
"She's not being hacked."
"She's remembering something we didn't give her."
Rook entered halfway through the briefing. Listened. Crossed his arms.
"Could this be more Corefather contamination?"
Aya shook her head.
"No. This isn't from the Archive.It's older. Buried under the Archive."
Later that night, Echo returned to her room.
She opened her logbook and found a page she hadn't written.
There were symbols on it.
Sharp. Linear. Alien.
But familiar.
She touched them, and her hand trembled.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
Then the whisper returned.
Not from outside her.
From inside.
"Thirteen thrones.Thirteen blades.One voice that did not kneel."
"You are the last shard.The copy of the key."
She backed into the corner.
Shaking.
And from her mouth — not her voice — came one final phrase:
"The Echo Protocol is live."