⭐ CHAPTER 8 — “RECURSION EVENT”
1146 Words
Riven had learned to ignore fatigue. Life on Asterion-3 trained every engineer to function through long shifts and looping diagnostics. But this—this gnawing sense that the night itself had been edited—pressed against him like a weight he couldn’t shake off.
He stared at the lab monitors, replaying the corrupted timestamp fragment for the twentieth time since dawn.
00:17:43
Again.
And again.
Every decryption attempt ended the same way: the fragment stabilized faster than before, as if learning how to present itself to him. Even worse, the station’s interface had begun smoothing the artifact automatically, like it recognized the pattern and wanted to help.
He shut the window with a sharp exhale.
The lab doors slid open.
Calyx stepped inside, uniform crisp, posture tight. His gaze swept the room before stopping on Riven’s wristband. “You were here all night.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Riven said.
“Or wouldn’t?”
Riven didn’t respond. Calyx’s tone wasn’t accusatory—just tired. Worried. That worried him more than accusation would’ve.
“You said the anomaly changed behavior,” Calyx continued. “Show me.”
Riven opened his mouth but—
The lights flickered.
Not randomly.
Patterned.
Three pulses: short, long, short.
Both men froze.
“That’s the same sequence from last night,” Calyx whispered. “The one in D6.”
Riven nodded.
The lights steadied, but tension remained suspended in the air.
THE LAB REACTS
Riven moved to the console, calling up the environmental monitor. The numbers looked normal—temperature stable, CO₂ baseline, humidity unchanged—until he traced the log timeline.
Every timestamp read 00:17:43.
Rows upon rows, overwritten identically.
Calyx leaned closer. “That’s impossible. Logs don’t overwrite past records unless—”
“Unless the station thinks the past didn’t happen,” Riven murmured.
Before Calyx could reply, the console printed a new line:
QUERY—RIVEN.HALE
RECURSION: READY
Calyx stiffened. “Riven… did you run something?”
“No.”
The line dissolved. The cursor blinked rapidly—double-speed.
A heartbeat.
Riven swallowed. “It’s establishing a communication layer.”
“And targeting you.” Calyx’s voice dropped. “Why you?”
Riven didn’t have an answer.
IDRIS BREAKS
The lab doors slid open again.
Idris stumbled inside, clutching a datapad like it was keeping him upright. His face was pale, pupils blown wide, breath short.
“Riven,” he said, voice small. “Something’s wrong with me.”
Riven and Calyx moved toward him at once.
Idris thrust the datapad forward, hands trembling. “The logs—everything from last night—every subsystem is showing the same timestamp. Even the backups. Even the backups of the backups.”
Riven’s stomach dropped. “When did you notice?”
“I don’t know.” Idris pressed his palms against his temples. “I—I was brushing my teeth in my quarters, and then suddenly I was here. I don’t remember walking. Or leaving my room. Or… anything between.”
Calyx crouched beside him. “Idris, look at me. How much time did you lose?”
“I don’t know!” Idris snapped, then immediately flinched. “I’m sorry. I just… I feel like something pulled a page out of my head.”
Riven and Calyx exchanged a look.
Memory loss. Again.
This wasn’t random system interference.
This was selection.
Riven steadied his voice. “Idris, you’re not losing your mind. This is the anomaly interacting with human recall.”
Idris’s breath hitched. “Why me?”
Riven couldn’t lie to him.
“You were nearest to the distortion field two days ago. That proximity may have flagged you.”
“Flagged me?” Idris recoiled. “What does that mean—flagged me for what?”
Before anyone could answer, the room vibrated.
Deep. Low. Resonant.
A pulse rolling through the floor as if the station itself had shuddered.
The lights flickered—long, short, long.
Calyx whispered, “Reverse sequence.”
Riven felt an icy certainty settle into his bones.
“It’s responding to us.”
THE FIRST DIRECT INSTRUCTION
Riven rushed to the secondary console, opening the deep-thread sandbox. The window filled with noise—hash strings, frame skips, recursive timestamps—but then the chaos stabilized.
Three lines surfaced:
FIND—THE—POINT
NOT—YOURS
OPEN—THE—PATH
Calyx read over his shoulder. “It’s giving directions.”
“No,” Riven said. “It’s giving a sequence.”
Idris’s breath came fast and uneven. “I don’t want to be here anymore. Please—this is—this is too much.”
Calyx helped him sit, though his own hands were shaking.
Riven couldn't tear his eyes away from the message.
NOT—YOURS.
Not their sector.
Not their room.
Not meant for humans.
OPEN—THE—PATH.
Not “find the path.”
Not “follow the path.”
Open.
Meaning the path wasn’t fully formed yet.
Meaning it expected them to complete it.
Before he could say anything, the overhead display chimed.
COMMAND AUDIT: INITIATED
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS UNDER REVIEW
Calyx cursed under his breath. “Command saw the D6 logs.”
“They’ll wipe the anomaly,” Riven said softly. “Erase everything.”
“Then we need to tell them before they—”
“No.” Riven’s voice sharpened. “If we report it now, the system will purge evidence. You saw what it did to the silhouette capture.”
Calyx didn’t disagree. Which scared Riven more than if he had.
His wristband buzzed.
A new fragment appeared:
TIME—ENDS—IN—43
Calyx frowned. “Forty-three what? Minutes? Hours?”
Riven shook his head slowly.
“No. It’s not a countdown. It’s… a reference point.”
He tapped the earlier logs.
Every overwritten timestamp.
Every anomaly signal.
Every corrupted video frame.
All pinned to the same temporal anchor:
00:17:43
“It’s trying to reassemble a moment,” Riven whispered.
“A moment the station erased.”
THE MAP CHANGES
The station groaned.
This time, the vibration was unmistakable—architecture shifting, air pressure adjusting, something deep in the metal resettling itself.
The holographic floor map on the east wall crackled.
Riven, Calyx, and Idris all turned to watch.
The map glitched—walls bending inward, corridors twisting, levels folding like origami. Then the lines redrew themselves into a configuration no engineer had ever approved.
A new corridor lit up in red.
Descending below D6.
Idris’s voice trembled. “That’s not real. That can’t be real. There’s nothing beneath D6.”
“There wasn’t,” Riven said.
“Until now.”
The final message on the console blinked:
THE—PATH—IS—OPEN
Then vanished.
Leaving the only remaining marker:
00:17:43
A heartbeat trapped in time.
A memory trying to recreate itself.
A request—directed only at him.
- Writer
