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Saturday, 9:41 AM.
Aidan stood in front of a nondescript industrial building, wedged between a defunct textile mill and an empty distribution center. From the outside, it looked like a dead zone of the city—forgotten, rusted, sealed off from modern life.
But his Core had already activated.
> [Confirmed Location: Echo Facility – Zone 3B]
> Network Encryption Detected – 6 Layers
Internal Access System Active: Host Permission Required
[Awaiting Entry Signal…]
Then, as if hearing the thought, the main door buzzed and slid open with a low mechanical hum.
He stepped in.
Inside was silence.
And cold white light.
---
The Echo Facility wasn't what he expected. No guards, no computers humming ominously in the background. Just a long corridor with concrete walls and embedded LED strips that flickered faintly as he passed each section.
Then he reached it.
A glass door, marked only by a small phrase:
> Observation Room A.
The door opened.
Mika Tanabe sat alone at a round table inside, sipping green tea. A single document folder lay between them.
"You came," she said, without looking up.
"I'm not a coward," Aidan replied, closing the door behind him.
"No," Mika said. "You're just curious."
Aidan sat.
"Why am I here?"
Mika pushed the folder toward him. "Because I don't know what you are yet."
Inside the folder were five profiles. Photos. Notes. System data. None were his.
"These are the five minor system holders you mentioned," she said. "I've met three of them."
"You've been tracking them?"
"No. They were sent to me."
Aidan frowned. "By who?"
Mika exhaled slowly. "You keep asking the wrong question."
He tilted his head. "Then what's the right one?"
She looked up, and for the first time, her expression shifted from stoic to cautious.
"Why were you chosen?"
---
A pause.
Aidan considered the weight of that.
He had assumed—perhaps arrogantly—that his system arrival was random. A stroke of fate tied to his transmigration. But Mika's words reframed it.
"What do you know about the system's origin?" he asked finally.
She stood, walked to the wall, and pressed a hidden panel.
The lights dimmed. A holographic interface activated in mid-air, displaying a rotating network of nodes.
"Every system," she explained, "has a seed signature—an identifier embedded deep inside its code. Most of us never access it. But I did."
She highlighted one node, then another. "Yours is different. Your seed is mutable. It adapts. Learns. Evolves."
"I know that," Aidan said.
"No, you don't," Mika replied. "Because none of the others can."
He stared at the projection. "So I'm a prototype?"
"No," she said. "You're the next phase."
---
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city.
A black sedan pulled into an underground garage. Inside, a man removed his sunglasses and reviewed a tablet. On-screen was a still image from yesterday's transit terminal.
Aidan Vale's face.
The man looked up. "Prepare the handler. Tell her he passed Tier I exposure."
A voice behind him asked, "You want to initiate Class Contact?"
"Yes," he said coldly. "Let's see how the Decision Core handles pressure at full scale."
---
Back at the Echo Facility.
Aidan stood, walking around the table slowly.
"If I'm the next phase… why are you helping me?"
Mika didn't hesitate. "Because I don't want to be obsolete."
There was honesty in that statement. A sharp, unfiltered truth.
"You're afraid," he said.
"I'm aware," she corrected. "Of the pace you're moving at. Of the questions you're beginning to ask. You don't operate like the others. You're building toward something."
Aidan looked at her carefully. "And what about you?"
"My system—" she hesitated for a fraction of a second "—reads emotional footprints. It doesn't predict decisions. It senses regret."
That stunned him.
She continued: "Everyone leaves trails behind. Choices they didn't make. Regret leaves echoes. I follow those."
Aidan whispered, "That's why it's called the Echo Facility."
"Yes."
---
As Aidan turned to leave, she said one more thing.
"There's someone you'll meet soon. His system… it doesn't give him choices. It takes them away."
That sent a chill down his spine.
---
Later that night.
Aidan reviewed the five profiles.
Three names stood out.
Two had weak systems—task-based assistants. One had a pattern-tracking module, like a high-end AI scheduler.
But the last…
Profile marked "Rikuto En". Location: Eastern Civic Agency. Role: Surveillance Liaison Officer.
> [System Classification: Mirror-Type (Unstable)]
> Status: Unknown – No confirmed contact
Aidan looked up from the file.
He knew where to go next.
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