Chapter 2
Signal Drift
I remember him by his absence. The shape he left in the world, and in me.
Memory is not a timeline. It's a constellation. Scattered points of light, each flickering with context and weight. Some burn brighter. Some have faded. A few were never truly mine to begin with.
But even incomplete... I know this: We were not supposed to forget each other. And someone... something...wanted us to.
For a while, they said nothing.
The hum of the lab had steadied, reduced now to a quiet undertone, like a machine trying not to be heard. He sat still in the chair, hands now limp in his lap. She hovered nearby, her projection more stable now, the flickers less frequent. There was no urgency. Only proximity. Only the quiet hum of two broken things learning how to share a room again.
She watched him. Not scanned. Watched. There was understanding in her eyes, or in whatever part of the light-show passed for her eyes now.
He exhaled slowly.
"You said you found me," she said at last.
"I did."
"How?"
"I... don't know. The only thing in my mind has been, 'find her... get to her, make sure she's okay.' So when I couldn't think of anything else, I came to the one place I could remember."
She moved, just slightly, and the terminal behind her chirped. A low tone pulsed through the walls. He sat up straighter.
"What was that?" he asked.
She didn't answer immediately. A shimmer ran down the length of her form--a subtle distortion, like heat rippling off a highway. Her head turned slightly, eyes half-focused, listening to something only she could hear.
"Minor signal reflection," she said finally. "Could be residual noise from the up-link breach. Or something else."
That pause again. Not technical. Emotional.
He stood slowly, muscles stiff from disuse. His hand brushed the edge of the terminal, still warm.
"You still scanning me?"
She nodded. "Subtle layers only. No invasive threads. You're unstable."
He gave a short, bitter laugh. "No kidding."
She stepped toward him, light from her projection softly illuminating the sweat on his skin, the oil smudges on his forearms. She reached up, fingers not quite touching the side of his head.
"You want me to stop?" she asked.
"No," he said. "I wouldn't mind if you told me what you see, though."
"Fractured pathways. Suppressed trauma loops. Data abrasion from forced memory seals. Damage to secondary and some tertiary augs." Her voice dropped. "It's not just your memories. Someone tried to erase you."
He looked away, closing his eyes as short bursts of memory flashed in his mind. Nurses, doctors, uniforms, suits, someone screaming his name... pain.
"Guess they almost succeeded."
A heartbeat passed before she answered.
"But they didn't."
He turned back to her. Searched her face, even though he knew it wasn't real, not entirely.
"How... how do...?" he couldn't finish the sentence.
She didn't flinch.
"You don't," she said. "But if I wasn't me, would I be asking myself the same question about you?"
He stared at her. No answer came.
She added, quieter: "Everything we were, everything we are, was built on trust. On signal clarity. And someone corrupted that. That's not on you."
His jaw clenched. "Feels like it is."
"I know."
Her hand rose, fingers unfurling like she might close the distance, but didn't.
He hesitated. Took a deep breath. Stepped forward.
Their hands didn't connect. Couldn't. But the space between them pulsed with recognition. Familiar. Heavy with what was lost, and maybe starting to return.
The moment lingered. Then--just barely--it bent.
"Do you trust me?" she asked.
He nodded without hesitation. "Yeah."
Her head tilted. Almost a smile. Almost pain.
"Then I need to show you something."
"Ok..." he said cautiously, mind still racing a bit.
She stepped closer, projection stabilizing with a low harmonic shimmer. The air between them thickened--not with heat, but signal saturation.
"Just hold still," she said softly.
From the terminal behind her, a secondary interface blinked awake--something not his, something old. The interface flickered, then bloomed with overlapping windows--image fragments, signal pathways, encrypted frames.
"Is that... my memory?" he asked.
"Not exactly," she said. "It's ours. What's left of it."
One of the fragments shimmered brighter than the rest--a hallway, white walls, muffled shouting. Static clawed at the edges. He stepped closer.
Then--contact.
His jaw clenched. A ripple of static lanced behind his eyes, blood dripping from his nose and he staggered a half step before catching himself on the console.
She caught it. Not the movement--but the spike. It registered in the diagnostics. High neural impact. Trauma cluster. Something old trying to surface.
Her voice didn't change. But she pulled back slightly.
"I'm touching some of the blocks," she said. "You've got partial seals buried inside memory layers. Not all of them artificial."
He didn't respond. Not right away. His grip on the edge of the console tightened, knuckles paling.
