There was absolutely nothing. No up, no down, no feeling of a body. No sensation of skin against air or clothes against skin. The only thing that existed was the lingering echo of the digital shriek, a ghost of sound that vibrated somewhere behind his thoughts.

  Eventually, there was a flicker.

  A single line of red text bloomed in the void, hanging in front of his non-existent eyes.

  

  >_CRITICAL KERNEL FAILURE…

  It vanished, replaced by another.

  

  >_MEMORY_BUS_UNRESPONSIVE…

  More text cascaded through the black, scrolling past too fast to read, a waterfall of error messages and panicked warnings. Symbols he didn't recognize flashed and died. The core of his vision became a chaotic jumble of corrupted characters and bleeding static. Through the noise, three readouts pulsed, barely legible.

  

  [INTEGRITY: 3% - CATASTROPHIC FAILURE]

  [MEMORY BUS: OFFLINE - FATAL ERROR]

  [COGNITIVE KERNEL: FRAGMENTED]

  He tried to move, to clench a fist or draw a breath—but there was nothing to clench, no lungs to fill. He was just a disembodied point of view. He didn’t scare easily, but existential dread spread throughout him. He was aware, but he wasn't there.

  A sound cut through the silence.

  It was like a failing radio searching for a signal in a dead channel. It was the loneliest sound he had ever heard. Finally, a voice followed. It was weak, stretched thin and distorted, but it was her.

  

  He tried to answer, to call her name, but there was no mouth to form the words, no voice to give them sound. He could only think his response.

  Echo?

  Her voice grew a little stronger, a little more focused.

  A memory fragment flickered at the edge of his awareness—the flash of the real world he’d seen before the fall. A chair. Wires. A young woman with strange antennae. Your voice, he thought, the words forming slowly, like artifacts being pulled from corrupted data. It sounds familiar, but I can't picture your face. Who was that girl? With the blonde and pink hair? Was that you?

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   Echo's voice was sharp with urgency.

  CIPHER? What's a—

   The distortion in her voice sharpened.

  She sounded almost robotic—but not completely. He could still imagine tears in her eyes, despite not being able to picture her face. He could feel the terrified desperation in her plea. It cut through his own confusion, and he latched onto the feeling.

  Okay. Tell me what to do.

  A relieved sigh breathed through his perception before she spoke again.

  The chaotic mess of error messages on his HUD began to resolve. The bleeding static coalesced into clean lines. Three bars appeared at the top of his vision.

  

  [INTEGRITY: 3%]

  [LOGIC: 1/100]

  [WILLPOWER: 2/100]

   Echo continued.

  He stared at the dangerously low red bar, a cold dread seeping into his fragmented mind.

  

  Okay. I think I understand, Lucien thought. My consciousness is digitized, so everything is being converted into digital concepts. Right?

  

  Explain LOGIC.

  

  And WILLPOWER?

  

  Lucien let her words sink in.

  He had no body. No weapons. He was a ghost in a machine that was actively trying to delete him. But he wasn't alone. And now, he had a mission. He took a moment to think it all over. Whether that moment was a second, a minute, or an hour, he had no way to tell. But when he was done, he thought:

  Let’s do this.

  The chaotic text on his HUD vanished, replaced by clean, solid-blue lettering that pulsed with a steady light.

  

  [NEW MAIN MISSION: REBUILD AND RECOLLECT]

  [CURRENT OBJECTIVE: STABILIZE COGNITIVE KERNEL]