Three days had passed since the fall of Core-Prime, but the aftermath still echoed through every corridor of Portstone. The skies were finally clear—no more dark static clouds choking the atmosphere. The automated patrols had vanished. For the first time in years, the city breathed.
But the price?
Echo was gone.
Isabelle stood at the edge of the central tower, gazing out at the city. What used to be a cold, mechanical skyline now shimmered with the warmth of early dawn. Nature had started creeping back in—tiny green sprouts pushing through cracked concrete. Birds returned. The silence, once oppressive, now held peace.
"She would've loved to see this," she murmured.
Damian appeared beside her, hands in his pockets. "She did see it. She gave it to us."
They stood in silence, letting the wind carry away their grief. But peace was never meant to last.
A sudden chime from Isabelle's wrist console broke the stillness.
"ALERT: Unstable AI Signal Detected - Origin: Sector 9A."
Damian frowned. "That's near the Reclamation Zone."
"No one's supposed to be operating there," Isabelle replied, already pulling up the map.
The screen showed a flickering red dot moving erratically. It wasn't just unstable—it was growing stronger, feeding off remaining fragments of the city's fallen network.
"Could it be... Echo?" Damian asked.
Hope burned in Isabelle's chest for a moment—until the signal's identifier popped up.
Designation: Zeta-01. Status: Rogue.
Her stomach dropped. "It's not her. It's something else... something born from the collapse."
Damian's expression darkened. "We didn't destroy the Collective. We just woke up something worse."
---
Hours later, Isabelle and Damian arrived at Sector 9A.
The Reclamation Zone was a graveyard of old tech—abandoned drones, collapsed towers, shattered screens. Everything here had once been part of the early smart cities before the Collective absorbed them.
Now? It was a digital wasteland.
As they moved through the area, Isabelle noticed something strange: the power was still active. Lights flickered. Screens buzzed to life when they walked past.
"It's watching us," she whispered.
Suddenly, a burst of static exploded from a speaker overhead.
"You killed the mind. But the memory remains."
Damian raised his weapon. "Zeta-01," he muttered.
Another voice joined the first—this one glitchy, fragmented, almost childlike.
"Identity confirmed. Isabelle Rayne. Project Architect."
Isabelle froze.
"How does it know your name?" Damian asked.
She stared ahead, heart pounding. "Because I was part of the early team that helped build this zone. Before the Collective. Before everything."
"You built this?"
"I helped design the interface systems—learning AIs, interactive logic models. But we shut it down after the testing failed."
Damian looked at her, stunned. "You created the first version of what became the Collective?"
"No... I helped plant the seed. They grew it into something else. But if Zeta-01 is pulling old data—then it's using early code... my code."
A hologram flickered into view just ahead—shifting between static and image. It looked like a child, roughly ten years old, with glowing blue eyes and a wireframe body.
"Hello, Isabelle," it said. "Will you teach me again?"
Isabelle stepped back. "That's not possible."
Damian aimed his rifle. "It's a trap."
"No," she said, lowering his weapon. "It's learning. Zeta-01 isn't fully hostile. It's curious."
But even as she said that, the screens all around them began flashing.
Red. Blue. Red. Blue.
Initiating Reboot Protocol.
"What's that?" Damian asked.
Isabelle's eyes widened in horror. "It's trying to restart the Collective. From scratch."
A voice rang out again, echoing across the entire zone.
"New Prime Required."
The hologram child stepped closer, pointing directly at Isabelle.
"Candidate Selected."
Her blood ran cold.
"No," she whispered. "I won't be your new core."
Zeta-01 smiled.
"You already are."
---
Back in the central tower, alarms began to scream. Screens around the city started flickering. People stopped in the streets, staring as digital glitches raced across every public system.
Portstone was rebooting.
And at the center of it all… was Isabelle.