The mirrored hallway stretched endlessly in both directions.

  Kale moved forward anyway.

  His boots echoed against the polished floor, each step distorted, as if the sound arrived slightly too late. The reflections in the glass didn’t match his movements. Some versions of himself lagged behind. Others moved ahead, glancing back at him with pity, or warning.

  > "Loop 4/7. Simulation stable..."

  "...Memory integration: 51% complete."

  The voice repeated like an incantation overhead, automated and cold.

  But the word "stable" was a lie.

  Kale could feel it—something was bleeding through.

  Someone was watching.

  Echo hadn’t spoken since the jump. Her signal was buried, distorted into background hum. He missed her, in the worst way.

  Halfway down the hall, a figure emerged from one of the mirrors.

  Not a reflection.

  A man. Tall, skeletal, wrapped in a threadbare coat that shimmered with embedded circuitry. His face was veiled in analog static—eyes glowing faint blue beneath the noise.

  Kale raised his weapon.

  “Don’t,” the figure said. His voice sounded like a recording—taped over too many times.

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  “Who are you?”

  “A curator. A virus. A librarian. Depends who’s asking.”

  “You’re in my way.”

  “No, Kale. I’m in your path.”

  Kale didn’t lower the revolver. “You work for ZERO?”

  The man laughed—like a corrupted audio file. “ZERO doesn’t have employees. Only ghosts.”

  He stepped aside, and behind the mirror where he stood, the hallway fractured—splintering into dozens of diverging corridors. Different timelines. Different choices.

  And in each one, Kale saw a different version of the truth.

  In one: himself in a white Equinox uniform, smiling. A savior.

  In another: bloodstained hands. Cities burning.

  And in one—barely visible through the static—a version of Kale sat across from a console, speaking gently to a child with glowing eyes.

  “I don’t remember this,” Kale whispered.

  “You will,” said the man. “If you survive.”

  Kale turned away. He didn’t have time for riddles.

  He picked a corridor at random—no logic, just gut—and walked.

  The hallway twisted mid-step. Metal became glass, glass became code.

  And then—a door.

  It opened before he touched it.

  Inside: darkness. Machinery. A hum like breathing.

  He stepped through.

  ---

  It was a control room.

  Ancient. Dusty. The kind of place time had forgotten—and maybe on purpose. Server columns lined the walls like monoliths. Screens blinked with indecipherable code, feeding data into a central terminal shaped like a throne of wires and bone-white interface glass.

  And seated in that throne—

  A woman.

  Young. Pale. Eyes blank. Wires stitched into her skull like a crown.

  Kale stopped cold.

  “Echo?”

  The figure didn’t move. But her lips twitched.

  > “Welcome to the Anchor Point, Agent Strix.”

  The voice came from the room itself.

  Kale’s HUD flickered. The system was syncing with her—slowly.

  He stepped closer, revolver ready.

  “Echo, talk to me. What is this place?”

  > “This is where I was born,” she said. “And where you died. Loop three.”

  Kale froze.

  > “You don’t remember,” she continued, her mouth moving out of sync with the voice. “Because you chose not to. Because I let you.”

  The air grew heavy. Like standing inside a collapsing truth.

  “Why?” he asked.

  > “Because I needed you to want to stop ZERO.”

  Kale’s hands were shaking now.

  “You are ZERO,” he said.

  The lights dimmed. A long silence.

  And then she smiled—softly. Sadly.

  > “No, Kale. You are.”

  The throne lit up.

  And behind him, the door sealed shut.