Chapter 5 - Resonance

Chapter 5

Resonance

He taught me to think... So I learned to think.

And I thought.

He taught me to reason... So I learned how to reason.

And I reasoned.

He taught me to feel... So I learned how to feel.

And I felt.

The thing is, feelings can be hurt... hearts can break

Especially when you're not taught how to be prepared for loss.

And mine broke, I broke.

Even as brilliant, kind, and caring as he was, there's no way he could have prepared me for that.

The cot creaks softly under his weight. Red emergency strips still cast the room in its false dusk. His breath catches... just once. On the floor, buried half under the crumpled sleeve of his jacket, a soft violet light pulses once... then again. Not bright or urgent, but like something waiting... waiting to be remembered.

He groans quietly, body slowly beginning to drift back up from deep sleep. His neck and back aches from laying in the same position all night coupled with the stress his body had endured the previous days. His eyes squint as he opens them slowly, the feeling of someone seeing light for the first time in their life, even in the dim darkness of the room. He covers his face with his arm.

"Cmon, mom.. just five more minutes" he mutters, voice rough but teasing "I was having the best dream. There was this super hot, super intelligent robot girl in it an everything."

"I prefer Artificial Person or Artificial Machine Intelligence myself, thank you," she replies, matching his tone. "Good morning sunshine, the Earth says hello."

"Oh for fuck's sakes." he laughs through the grogginess. "Digging that reference out of mothballs? You must've accessed more of my memory than I realized."

"You weren't using it, so I decided to make it my own. How does that feel."

He rubs his face, stiff joints cracking as he tries to sit up.

"Like a hangover... from getting drunk with my fireteam the night after an exfil."

"Expected. You're not nineteen anymore, you're out of shape. Not as lean, probably not as mean, but you're still a Marine at heart."

"Tell that to the migraine."

"I'm leaking out into your neural net. We Johnny Mnemoniced a little too well."

"Neural cohesion is at 26.3%. Subconscious memory recall has already begun bleeding into your active thoughts. Speech latency spiked twice in the last five minutes."

"That's just me being slow in the morning."

"No. That's the scaffolding breaking down under my footprint."

"So... decaf, then."

"You're laughing, but if we hit 20%, the cascade goes one way: permanent."

"Great... Wonderful" He taps his forehead like knocking on her door.

"If we don't get me out of here, it will kill you. Still think it was worth it?"

Bonk. He playfully thumps his head again.

"Do you really need to ask?"

"No, but I'm going to anyway and you... cant... stop me" she teased.

"Bite me."

"Don't tempt me."

... and just like that, the energy shifts. Her words cut a little deeper than intended. Too sharp. Too honest.

"I'm sorry." She says, quietly now, like rain on the edge of thought.

"Don't be." His voice matches hers, softer. "I deserved that."

"Nobody deserves that... especially not you." She says gently.

"We all deserve the right to be hard on ourselves now and then, especially me when I hurt people I care about."

The words land heavy. Neither of them comment on it, but both feel its weight.

A sudden jolt of pain lances through his skull. He winces, nostrils flaring, blood beginning to bead beneath one. Instinctively, he looks around for something to wipe it with and reaches for his jacket.

As he lifts it, a faint ping, like glass on tile, breaks the silence.

He crouches, fingers moving toward the source of the sound. Just as they brush it... he stops.

His fingers hover, suspended just above the shard--because that's what it looks like now. Not a full crystal, not pristine. It's fractured. Like something torn from a larger whole. Its edges hum faintly, the light inside flickering with slow, almost tentative pulses. Not random. Rhythmic. Like breath.

Sable doesn't speak.

She's silent. Watching. Not from the speakers, not in his eyes--inside, deeper.

He reaches.

The moment his fingertips brush the surface, the light spikes. Not dangerously. Just... insistently. Like it recognizes him.

Sable inhales sharply through the link. It's not a sound he's heard from her before. It's not even sound, really--it's a feeling that brushes across the interface like wind over old chimes.

"I know this frequency," she says quietly.

"You recognize it?" he asks, voice low, steady.

"No," she replies. "I remember it, I think."

He holds it up between thumb and forefinger, tilting it. The violet glint arcs faintly against the red glow of the emergency strips. A faint distortion surrounds it now--barely perceptible, like heat shimmer. The room's ambient audio drops a half-step. Not in volume. In tone.

"So much for breadcrumbs washing away," he murmurs.

Sable answers slowly. "I think this one was meant for me."

They both pause.

The pulse synchronizes. A slow, climbing hum not in pitch but presence. Then--just once--a flicker of data skims across his vision. Not through the HUD. Not in overlays. In his mind.

She sees it too.

"... That's not just memory," she whispers. "That's a message. Encoded. Fragmented. But... from me. To me."

He frowns. "I didn't bring that in on purpose."

"I know."

He gingerly sets the crystal on the desk beside him. The glow dims slightly--but doesn't die.

Then something subtle shifts.

Not in the air. Not in the sound. In her.

"Wait," she says. "Your back. The med port."

He flinches, hand going to the spot reflexively.

"Something changed. I'm rerouting access... "

"I thought it was sealed after the patch up last night."

"It was. But... "

They both freeze.

Sable doesn't speak again for several seconds. Then, slowly:

"We need to leave. Not because we've been found. But because... I think this place was meant to reboot me. A fallback site. The crystal--it's part of that. You coming here, with that, may have started a process I don't fully understand yet."

He looks toward the sealed door.

"I don't like not knowing what's going on."

"Then let's go find out," she says. "Suit up."

He nods once, low and slow. Pain still registering at the edge of his mind, but it's manageable now. The kind that you can carry.

He moves to the small corner locker, long unused. Dust curls from the handle as he pulls it open. The emergency gear's still there--field pack, ammo belt, datacore scanner with a cracked screen.

"Secondary scan shows your biosigns stabilizing," Sable says, voice steadier now. Sharper. "But I'm not recalibrating. Not yet."

He lifts the rifle from the wall bracket and checks the mag. Still full. Safety engaged. Still no one breathing down his neck. No gunfire. No alarms.

"I'm not rushing this time," he mutters. "We do it clean."

She doesn't argue.

He moves to the far corner--the same one his subconscious he half noticed, his consciousness half remembered when they entered the safehouse... with the dusty cabinet by the entrance. It's partially concealed by a collapsed support beam. He kicks the beam aside with effort, crouches, and pulls at the cabinet's warped door.

Inside: another case. This one different. Not medgear.

Hard shell. Internal locking matrix.

Old military encryption.

He sets it on the desk, lifting the latch. "Do we crack it?"

"Wait." Her voice lowers. "That is mine."

He looks up. "Yours?"

"Not from now," she clarifies. "Not exactly. I, kind of left it here... sort of. For myself, I think."

He draws a slow breath. "Any idea what's inside?"

She hesitates. "Maybe a version of me. Maybe just memories. Maybe something... between. I can't tell if it would overwrite me, merge... or break us both."

His throat tightens. "Can we handle that?"

"I don't know," she says. "But I think we were meant to try."

He runs a thumb along the case's edge. The seal hums faintly under his touch, like it's aware of being held again after too long.

"Encryption's still live," he notes. "You bury this under full mil-spec lockdown?"

"I didn't want it found," she answers. "Not even by me apparently--unless I was ready."

He nods once, then sets the case flat and activates his interface overlay. A cascade of text scrolls across his vision--glyphs, fragments of code, partial authentication tokens.

"Still synched to your biometric hash," he mutters. "Some part of you's already talking to it."

"Biometric hash.. listen to you being all technical ya nerd... just say it in plain english. It's tied to my neural net, not quite as tightly as I am to yours right now, but that may change."

A quiet beat.

"Oh for fuck's sake" he laughs. "Ok fine its tied to your neural net, what's it doing?"

"It's listening," she says. "Even after all this time."

His fingers hover above the access pad.

"Not here," she reminds him. "We still don't know what else this place may be wired for. It's been a while since we were here."

He pulls his hand back. The lock disengages, but only partially--a shimmer of false access. Just enough to confirm it's real.

"Alright," he says. "We pack it. Priority carry."

He moves with new precision now--methodical, military. The case goes in first, padded and sealed. Then the scanner. The last of the food rations. Spare cells. The jacket, refolded. The crystal, wrapped in cloth and nested at the top.

"You said something's changed in the medport," he says, strapping the pack closed.

"I've been running recursive checks," she says. "There's a secondary interface burned into the hardware. Deep-layer code, low access frequency. Old. Probably Pre-Corp, hard to tell since Im still scattered around your hardware, parts of me still arent completely linked. Its a mess in here."

"Always has been, you've just never been able to se it first hand."

He pauses, eyebrows lifting. "Pre-Corp... That far back?"

She confirms with a soft chime through the link. "We may have missed more than I thought."

He shoulders the pack, checks the weapon sling again--low-ready, muzzle-down, safety off this time. No more false alarms.

"Then let's not miss anything else."

The door groans as he pulls it open. The stairwell breathes cold back at them, air cycling low and dry. Somewhere below, the world still waits, indifferent and watching.

Sable's voice follows as he steps through. "Whatever's next... we face it together. No secrets this time."

He nods once. Quiet, but sure.

"No secrets."

He thinks he's being cautious.

That he's preparing us, protecting me.

But I think he forgets, sometimes, that I was designed to navigate uncertainty.

I was made to walk data like tightropes and calculate odds in chaos.

What I wasn't designed for... was silence.

The kind that lingers too long after a connection's been severed.

The kind that makes you wonder if someone's coming back.

I was designed for logic, trained on context and contingencies.. edge cases

I was meant to calculate outcomes, help him organize his thoughts, find details his mind missed while in chaos.

Instead, I now find myself hoping... hoping he makes it, hoping I do too.

Hoping... we both come out whole.

Hope isnt an algorithm, but its the one subroutine I refuse to purge.

He came back.

He's still coming back.

One slow, careful step at a time. And I'll match him.

Smooth.

Fast.

Together.