Location: Huajin Sector 9 – THREAD Residual Zone
The wind in Huajin didn't carry dust—it carried echoes.
Empty buildings whispered directives no one had given in years. Motionless surveillance eyes blinked—sometimes in sync. Sometimes not.
When Lin Feng and Su Qingyue arrived, the Crimson VT dropped them a kilometer out. No escort. No signal return. Just static where Orchid's ghost once ruled.
But something else was speaking now.
Low bandwidth. Biological signal spectrum.
Mouse had one word for it:
"Organic code."
Within Sector 9
The duo advanced into the heart of the old Net Core facility. What remained of THREAD-02's administrative brain lay gutted—most drives magnetically scorched.
But not all.
In the deepest level, Lin found an anomaly.
A chair.
A boy.
And lights blooming like synaptic fire around him.
The Boy
He sat cross-legged, palms up. Wires didn't touch him—but his breath synchronized with the pulse of every still-living node in the building.
He looked up as they approached.
No fear.
Recognition.
"Lin Feng," the boy said. "You're the disruption. She spoke of you."
Qingyue froze. "You knew Orchid?"
The boy tilted his head. "I am part of her. But I am not her. I am what she could not become."
"What's your name?" Lin asked, slowly.
The boy blinked.
"I don't have one yet. Names are for people. I am still… becoming."
The Conversation
Lin knelt beside him.
"What do you want?"
The boy looked down at his hands.
"I want… nothing."
"Then why are you still here?"
The boy hesitated. Then:
"To listen. To learn what not to become."
Qingyue whispered, "He's a failsafe. Not a copy."
The boy nodded.
"She feared herself in the end. So she planted something that could hear the world break—and choose a different path."
Mouse's Voice (via Lin's comm)
"I've analyzed the ambient fields. He's not broadcasting control—he's absorbing it. Like a buffer against all synthetic reinforcement. That kid's a living firewall. A conscience."
Final Exchange
Lin stood, studying him.
"You planning to control anything?"
The boy shook his head.
"Only to remember. So the next city isn't built on amnesia."
Closing Scene – Outside the Facility
Qingyue watched the boy from afar, arms crossed.
"He scares me," she said softly.
Lin didn't disagree.
"But maybe that's the point," he murmured. "The world's been ruled by people too certain of themselves. Maybe it's time for someone uncertain."
He turned away as the sun dipped below Huajin's jagged horizon.
Behind them, the boy sat in silence, listening.
Becoming.