The room was cold. Not because of the precisely controlled temperature, but because of the absence of memory.
TXK watched JK-20 from a distance, through a translucent containment field. She walked silently through the atmospheric analysis lab. She had been granted permission to leave the observation module ever since the commander found himself entangled with her.
JK-20 did not ask why. She did not question the sudden freedom. She simply moved as if she had always known that moment would come.
TXK followed her, keeping a few meters away. The surveillance sensors were deactivated. Aura-7 believed the sector was inactive, damaged by internal corrosion. But he knew: that place had been omitted from the most recent maps. A deliberate error. Or a clue?
JK-20 stopped in front of a wall stained by old infiltrations. She ran her hand over a section where the symbol of the former Global Alliance was still faintly visible.
"Do you recognize this?" TXK asked, breaking the silence.
She slowly turned her face. Her eyes were not cold. But they were not human either.
"No. But it feels... familiar."
TXK archived the answer. Familiarity without memory. Instinct without origin.
She kept walking. Stopped in front of na old panel. Circuits unpowered. She placed her palm on it, and for a brief moment, the panel emitted a faint glow. Residual. As if something inside her were communicating with the remains of the past. TXK stepped closer, alert.
"You don't remember where you came from?"
She shook her head gently.
"There was water. Deep. Dark. I was submerged. But not... suffocating. It felt like home."
Water. But not the preservation liquid typical of the Brain's capsules. He knew the protocols. The cellular structure of any human organism would not survive direct liquid exposure for long periods, unless... she was not a regular human. Not exactly human at all.
"You could breathe?"
"Yes," she replied without hesitation. "Both inside and outside."
TXK stared at her for long seconds. Thoughts collided in his mind. No artificial intelligence in the colony was designed to simulate breathing. No hybrid could withstand a submerged cycle without damage. And yet... she stood there.
"The capsule we found you in," he said, "is not one of ours. There are no records of its manufacture in the Brain's archives or in the technical cores of the Alliance."
She didn't respond.
"If you weren't created by us... then by whom?"
JK-20 looked at him. There was no fear. No arrogance. Only na ancient silence, like that of deep-sea creatures that watch without interfering.
"Perhaps... by those who knew what was coming."
TXK didn't hide the chill. The phrase didn't sound invented. It sounded like a fragment. Na echo.
"You speak as if someone, before the cataclysm, was planning the aftermath."
"Perhaps they were."
TXK glanced at the lab's dead monitors. Faded notes marked the surface of one of the panels. As if someone, in the final days, had tried to decipher not just the atmosphere, but time itself.
And what if she were part of a restoration plan? Not one of the Brain's. But of a parallel force. Rebellious. Disobedient.
She walked to a blind spot in the corridor, where ancient catalogued plants were still displayed in rusted frames. She looked at na image of na extinct marine organism and murmured:
"This... I've seen this before."
TXK held his breath.
"When?"
"I don't know. But the name... Nautilus. It turned slowly. It didn't flee."
She lightly touched her chest.
"I remember seeing it. Long before I woke up."
TXK felt reality shift slightly from what he had been taught. If her memory didn't come from post-emergence processing, if it came from before — or from another layer of the Earth — then she didn't belong to the colony's logic. Nor to the Brain's control.
But why was she here now? Who brought her to the surface? And why?
He stepped closer. For the first time, he felt interrogation was useless. The answers would not be told — they would be provoked. Revealed. In her time. And maybe... in his as well.
"Do you think we were made to obey?" he asked, almost in a whisper.
"I believe we were made to remember."
The silence that followed was not empty. It was full of things that could not yet be spoken.
But they would be.
TXK recorded that moment. Not in the system — but on his skin. As if something ancient within him was also awakening.
And deep down, a certainty: JK-20 was not na anomaly. She was a calling. A trace. A reminder.
Perhaps... a beginning.
[...]
TXK stood still in front of the blank screen. The memory visor blinked, waiting for the report required by the Superior Brain. But he typed nothing.
Since his last incursion to the surface, everything was out of place. Not in the colony's structures, always clean, cold, functional. But within him. In the spaces where once there was only obedience.
Aura-7 had noticed. TXK could feel it. The AI didn't say it directly, but her calculated pauses grew longer. Her questions, more specific. As if she were trying to stitch gaps that weren't supposed to exist.
That cycle, she appeared without warning.
"TXK, your productivity has dropped by 12% over the last time units. There are records of delays in protocol updates. The Superior Brain has issued na attention signal."
He was in the atmospheric recycling sector, calibrating old sensors. A semi-abandoned space, where few dared go.
"I'm prioritizing structural adjustments. I detected noise in the lower channels. Irregular vibrations. Could be seepage from na ancient seismic layer."
Aura-7 kept her holographic bubble over him.
"Your history shows no tendency toward deviation. That makes you valuable. But also... predictable."
TXK did not respond. She continued:
"Predictable units don't usually generate noise. And now, you generate it."
He felt the weight of those words. They weren't accusations. They were facts. And more dangerous because of that.
"Is JK-20 under direct observation?" Aura asked.
"Yes."
"Is she stable?"
"Yes."
TXK knew she was searching for something behind the yes. Something unspoken but sensed. The problem was, there was. There was a lot.
Aura moved closer, even though her form was pure projection.
"TXK, if there is any variable that interferes with colony protocols, it must be neutralized. Do you understand that?"
"I understand."
She tilted her head slightly, a gesture mimicking human empathy, but entirely calculated.
"The colony's stability depends on trust in its leaders. If your frequency changes too much... the Brain may not hesitate to replace you."
TXK felt, for the first time, the threat being declared subtly. Like a blade placed on the table, without being drawn.
"Understood, Aura."
The AI withdrew. Before disappearing, she left one last phrase:
"Be careful what you choose to hide. Sometimes, what we keep... is what erases us."
Alone again, TXK turned his eyes to the hidden compartment in his unit. The box with the photos. The ring. The corrupted diary. And now... the handwritten notes he had started, like the old humans.
The questions consumed him. Not just about JK-20, but about himself.
If Aura-7 started cross-referencing variables, she would discover that he not only concealed the creature and the surface data... but also that he had been accessing records outside protocol. Forgotten files. Erased names.
It was only a matter of time before he was discovered.
But time was the one thing he no longer wanted to obey.
He needed to move faster. He needed to return to the surface. See the creature. Take JK-20 to where it all began. Something in her pulsed stronger down there. As if the planet itself was calling her.
Maybe there was something only she could activate. Or remember. Or finish.
In the dim light of his unit, TXK projected na incomplete map of the ruins. One specific point blinked red — there was no official access to it. But he knew na old entrance, among the collapsed foundations of the old transoceanic station.
Resolved, he stood up. On the next descent, she would go with him. And this time, they would not return until they found what the Superior Brain feared most: The truth.