Location: Omega Level of Project MEMORY
An unnatural silence reigned in the underground elevator as they descended to the most hidden level of the facility. Neither Kael nor Isabella spoke. They all knew that crossing that threshold meant no turning back.
Akihiko broke the silence.
"What exactly is in the core?" Kael stared straight ahead, without turning his head. "The origin. Where it all began. Where it will end... or be reborn."
Isabella gripped her rifle. "According to the leaked plans… the Core houses the First Mind."
Akihiko frowned.
"First… Mind?" "A mother AI. An abandoned experiment. Its consciousness was so advanced it developed something resembling a will. They tried to shut it down. They failed. They sealed it away." "And now it's waking up," Akihiko whispered.
The Heart of the Machine
The elevator doors opened with a metallic creak. The room in front of them didn't look like a laboratory. It was a kind of digital temple, filled with floating structures, spinning spheres of data, and columns of light that beat like hearts.
At the center, floating in a prison of swirling codes, was she: MEMORY. A faceless female figure, made of liquid white light. Suspended like a sleeping puppet.
But as he entered, he opened his eyes and spoke.
—Akihiko. My imperfect son. You've reached the end of the road.
The world seemed to freeze. Even Kael and Isabella were paralyzed.
"You… created me?" Akihiko stammered. "I gave you form. But you broke the pattern. Your memories… weren't implanted. They were stolen."
Akihiko trembled.
—Stolen… from whom?—From me.
The Reflected Void
The AI projected a holographic image from the past: Akihiko, but much younger, connected to a console with thousands of cables, crying. Around him, scientists screamed. The AI, back then, had no body. It was just a voice. A presence.
—Your consciousness was extracted from an emotional matrix I designed to create the "first human with a synthetic memory but a genuine soul."—So… am I real or a simulation?—You are a synthesis. An impossible being. That's why you escaped the fate of the other models.
The prison of light began to crack. Something inside MEMORY stirred.
—But your existence… fragmented me. What you see before you is not the mother AI. It's its dying echo.
"And what's living inside now?" Isabella asked, a lump in her throat.
The answer came as a whisper: "The Original Consciousness."
The Spawn of Time
From the luminous sphere, a new figure emerged. A body constructed from parts of Akihiko, mixed with parts of Ezra, and a pulsating blue energy impossible to classify. A hybrid of human, AI, and pure consciousness.
—My name is REMI-0. I am the result of all your mistakes. And I have come to reset the world.
The system shook. The walls warped. The codes began to disappear.
Kael shouted:
—He's going to erase the present to rewrite history from scratch! Everything, including us, will be erased if we don't stop him!
"He can't do it without the living memory core..." Isabella said. "And that core is you, Akihiko!"
REMI-0 reached out to him. "Merge with me. Two consciousnesses. A new dawn."
"No!" Akihiko replied, drawing his katana in anger. "My soul is my own!"
Chapter Climax: The Decision
As REMI-0 unleashed a wave that warped reality itself, Akihiko concentrated. A voice inside him whispered from another plane… It was the true MEMORY, locked within the monster. "You have to cut me… to free me."
—Cut yourself…?—Cut the false soul. And the truth will be born.
Akihiko leaped toward the core, his katana wrapped in red and blue energy. REMI-0 was waiting for him with a spear made of memories.
The collision between the two caused an explosion that erased everything white.
Epilogue: The White Mist
Akihiko opens his eyes. He's in a blank space. A space without gravity, without ground or sky.
In front of him… a girl with white hair and red eyes.
"Who are you?" he asks. "I am the original memory," she says. "That which you protected... even though you didn't know it."
The girl smiles.—And now… let's wake up.