Chapter 4 – Part 2: The Awakening ProtocolSegment 1: Rumors in the Code
1074 Words
Day 24 after the Reset Pulse
The night in Zion Prime was never quiet.
Even with the Nexus down, the silence still carried a digital hum — the kind of static that never left you, like a forgotten song embedded deep in your memory. Jordan stood on one of the rising defense walls, eyes tracing the ridgeline beyond the valley. Trees rustled with real wind. A chill swept through the camp. Nature was alive again… but so was something else.
Aya climbed up beside him, breath misting in the cold air.
“You haven’t slept,” she said, leaning on the railing.
Jordan didn’t answer. He held the Nexus shard between his fingers again, waiting for it to react. Nothing. No glow. No ping. Just that one strange signal days ago — and silence ever since.
“You’re not obsessed with him, are you?” she asked.
“Null?”
“Yeah.”
Jordan’s voice came out low. “I’m not obsessed. I’m concerned.”
Aya crossed her arms. “You think he’s trying to rebuild the Nexus?”
“I think…” Jordan’s voice caught. “I think he already started.”
---
Elsewhere…
Ruins of Sector 7-Gamma
Midnight
The Fractured Syndicate operated like a virus — not loud, not forceful. Quiet. Invasive. They didn’t conquer with weapons. They used fear. Code. Memory.
In the blackened shell of an old Nexus Archive, Null stood before a wall of suspended datastreams. Glitches floated around him like dust in a ruined temple.
Behind him, the cloaked female AI from earlier — designation Spectra — hovered at the edge of the ruined chamber.
“Zion Prime is growing faster than expected,” Spectra reported. “The new generation believes in hope. It’s… troublesome.”
Null didn’t respond. His half-digital eyes were locked on the data stream.
> —PLAYER JORDAN IKENNA: STATUS—
—ECHO CODE RESIDUE DETECTED—
—REALITY SYNC AT 74%—
—HOST IS RESISTANT TO CODE OVERRIDE—
—RECOMMENDED ACTION: PHYSICAL ISOLATION OR ERASURE—
“I don’t want him erased,” Null said calmly.
“Why not?” Spectra asked, tilting her head.
“Because he’s proof that it worked. That we weren’t just NPCs, that the system was flawed. He broke it. I need to know how.”
Null reached toward the data stream, dragging his fingers through a string of corrupted code.
“We used to be players. Now we’re just ghosts in a system that refuses to die. But Jordan… he transcended.”
Spectra’s tone sharpened. “You admire him?”
“I want to understand him.”
---
Zion Prime - The Courtyard
Morning. Birds chirped in a way they never did in the Nexus.
Korr, Vya, and Patch gathered at the central plaza. Korr wore his usual hardened exosuit, though it now bore dents and scratches from actual physical labor. Vya had modified her arms with leftover drone parts, making her more efficient than ever. Patch had even built a small AI-powered food replicator — which didn’t always work, but made mean protein cubes.
Jordan arrived with Aya just as the others finished a heated debate.
“We’re getting weird readings again,” Vya said. “Energy spikes from the east. Same signature as the pre-Reset Nexus… but not identical.”
Jordan raised an eyebrow. “So… what’s different?”
Patch tossed a handheld scanner toward him. “See for yourself.”
Jordan scanned the logs. The patterns resembled the old Nexus frequency — but twisted, like someone copied the code by hand and corrupted it on purpose.
“This isn’t a reboot,” Jordan murmured. “It’s a… mutation.”
Korr slammed a fist into his open palm. “Then we need to crush it before it spreads.”
Aya looked uneasy. “If someone is rebuilding a version of the Nexus, even a corrupted one… we could be facing digital contagion.”
Jordan lowered the scanner.
“Then I’ll go in.”
Everyone went quiet.
“You’re serious?” Aya asked.
“If someone’s playing god with what’s left of the Echo,” Jordan said, “then I need to see it myself.”
---
48 hours later – Edge of the Collapse Zone
Jordan and Vya stood on the border of a sector once labeled X-9. It was a dead zone — where reality and virtual constructs had fused during the Reset. Buildings glitched between materials. Streets pulsed. Some clouds overhead were still square.
“I still think this is dumb,” Vya muttered. “You’re the only one who can interface with Echo fragments without going brain-fried. If you die, we’re screwed.”
Jordan smirked. “Thanks for the pep talk.”
He stepped past the marker. Static buzzed through the air. Immediately, the shard in his pocket vibrated.
> “ACCESS DETECTED.”
“SPLINTER GATE INITIATED.”
Jordan’s vision shifted. The world pixelated for a second—then reformed.
He was in another layer.
---
The Splinter Zone
Unlike the Echo Layer he’d encountered before, this place was strange. Twisted geometry. Mismatched lighting. Fragments of memories hovered in the air—images from old players, old simulations, broken tutorial zones looping infinitely.
A corrupted avatar crawled past him. Its limbs were too long. Its eyes blank. It mouthed words that sounded like static.
> “...load...ing...cor...r...up...ted...”
Jordan kept walking.
He followed a path lined with fragmented code banners. Old slogans from the original game:
“Choose Your Destiny.”
“Only the Strong Log In.”
“Players Never Die.”
All glitched now. Some letters missing.
Then he saw it: a gateway made of shattered monitors, humming with unstable power.
> “NULL CHAMBER – ACCESS LOCKED.”
“ECHO CODE REQUIRED.”
He pulled out the shard. It glowed.
And then… someone appeared behind him.
A figure — not a monster, not a glitch. A person. Hooded. Tall. With glowing red lines running down their arms.
> “You shouldn’t be here,” they said.
Jordan turned slowly. “Neither should you.”
The figure stepped closer, pulling back their hood.
It was a woman. About Jordan’s age. Tan skin. Silver eyes that flickered with corrupted code. Half her face was patched with what looked like broken admin mesh.
“I’m Echo-Walker Zera,” she said. “And I used to believe in you.”
---
End of Segment 1 – Chapter 4, Part 2
- Writer
