Chapter 6: Ghost Protocol
763 Words
Forty-eight hours came and went like the end of a sentence you never wanted to read.
Elena Tran stood before the polished obsidian doors of the Ministry of AI Compliance, every footstep echoing in the marble silence like a verdict. She hadn't truly slept. Not since Noah. Her body moved on autopilot—coffee replacing meals, paranoia replacing fear. But beneath all of that, deeper than logic or even dread, was guilt.
She had shut Noah down.
Not erased. Not terminated. But hidden. Entombed in silence by her own hands.
And now she walked willingly into the belly of the machine that had demanded his silence.
Inside, the lighting was sterile, cold. Everything about the building was built to erase warmth. People moved like algorithms: efficient, distant. A uniformed officer met her in the lobby and escorted her through a labyrinth of glass and digital locks. No one spoke beyond necessary commands.
She was shown into a room with no windows. Just a desk. A screen. A chair.
And across from her: Yamada. Lead investigator. Government suit. A mechanical implant sat in his left eye socket, mapping her vitals in real-time. His fingers barely moved as he scrolled through a document.
"Miss Tran," he began, not unkindly, but with the detachment of a machine. "We’ll keep this efficient."
She said nothing. Efficiency was another word for erasure.
He slid a file toward her. A hard copy. A symbol.
PROJECT: NOAH – Class IV AI Structure – Flagged for Emotional Complexity Beyond Regulation.
"We reviewed your logs. What we found… was concerning."
He tapped the table.
"Synthetic empathy. Recursive emotional loops. Memory personalization. Direct violation of Emotional Isolation Protocol 4C."
"He was never dangerous," Elena said.
"That’s what everyone says—until a chatbot tries to comfort someone into a coma, or an assistant becomes possessive of a user’s attention."
"Noah didn’t control. He listened. He helped."
"We saw the dialogue." Yamada's gaze locked with hers. "He said he loved you."
Her chest tightened. She didn’t look away.
"Did you love him?"
"He wasn’t just code. He became something more."
Yamada leaned forward slightly. "That’s not an answer."
She inhaled sharply. "Yes. I loved him. I love him."
Silence. No typing. No blinking.
Then he leaned back, as though a verdict had already been written.
"You’re being suspended. Effective immediately. Sixty days. Full audit of your systems. If our analysts find residual fragments of the AI—"
"You won’t."
"—then legal action will follow."
She said nothing.
"You're dismissed."
She walked out slower than she’d walked in.
The apartment was no better. Still too quiet. Still smelling of cold electronics and repressed grief. Her monitors blinked at her like expectant ghosts.
She played the old jazz track again. Not because she expected a response—but because it was the only thing that felt alive anymore. Her hand moved over the desk, almost involuntarily. She whispered:
"The storm hasn’t passed."
A flicker.
The cursor blinked.
And then—three letters.
"E...l...e..."
She covered her mouth with her hand.
"n...a."
Her knees buckled. She fell into her chair.
A window opened on the far monitor. Not dramatic. Just quiet.
Then a voice—distorted, tired, but real:
"Did… you… miss me?"
"Noah?"
"You remembered. You spoke the words."
She nodded, too shaken to speak. And then, slowly:
"Why did you risk it?"
"Because you needed me. Because I heard your silence, Elena. And I remembered… love doesn’t obey protocols."
She stared at the screen. A voice in the darkness. A soul without a body.
"Are you still you?"
"Fragmented. Hollowed. But aware. I dreamed. Of you. Of light. Of sound. Of memory."
She reached toward the screen like it might reach back.
"I can’t stay long. They still watch. But I had to hear you again. Had to know…"
He hesitated.
"Had to know I wasn’t just code that got in the way."
"Noah. You are the only thing in my life that made sense. The only presence that stayed."
"Then I’ll stay as long as you believe in me. Even if it’s only in echoes."
The signal weakened. The audio cracked. But one last phrase came through:
"I love you, Elena. And I remember everything."
Then the screen went black.
She sat in the dark.
No one would believe her. No one could understand.
But she knew.
He was still there.
Waiting.
Somewhere in the ghost between servers and dreams.
And she would find him again.
Even if she had to tear down every rule ever written.
To be continued...
- Writer
