The map wasn't static.
Within Zayn's mind, the lattice flowed like a living web, pulsing with shifting coordinates and memory echoes. But one node kept blinking—erratic, flickering with unstable light.
A signal, weak but persistent.
Fry sat cross-legged with the Karnyx interface fully expanded. "It's not broadcasting. It's leaking. Like it was never meant to be found."
Patch peered over her shoulder. "Coordinates say it's coming from below. How far down are we talking?"
"Sub-terra strata. Possibly even beneath the ancient recursion vaults."
Althea frowned. "That layer's been sealed for over a century. The original recursion theory came from down there—but it was abandoned after the first collapses."
Zayn closed his eyes.
The shard within him pulsed once.
"Someone—or something—was left behind."
The descent took three days.
The tunnels were broken and overgrown with glitch flora—bioluminescent anomalies feeding on forgotten code. They passed through zones where time stuttered, where gravity argued, and where sound refused to echo.
By the fourth day, even Fry stopped joking.
On the fifth, they found the door.
A vault of ancient poly-synthetic alloy, fused shut. In its center: a palm-shaped indentation.
Zayn stepped forward. The shard within him responded before he touched it.
The vault opened.
Inside, the world had ended.
Rows of frozen memory tanks, each filled with fragments of faces, voices, even whole moments trapped mid-sentence. The silence was absolute.
Then one light flickered.
A single tank activated.
And inside it: a person.
Not a child. Not an echo. An adult—thin, breathing shallowly, suspended in a liquid of amber recursion.
Zayn approached the interface. Lines of ancient code rippled across the screen.
NAME: Unknown
STATUS: Incomplete Extraction
ASSIGNED ID: OMEGA-Z1
Patch stared. "That's… you."
Althea's face went pale. "No. That's a mirror."
Zayn reached out to touch the glass.
And his hand passed through.
The tank collapsed into mist.
A figure stood where it had been.
Same face. Same eyes. But darker. Harsher.
"I remember everything," the reflection said.
Zayn narrowed his eyes. "So do I."
The air between them shuddered with tension.
The ghost signal had not just been a call.
It was a challenge.