They called it the “Day of Black Static.”
Across the globe, screens died in an instant. Cities lost power, satellites blinked out, data streams collapsed into silence. An EMP pulse, originating from nowhere and everywhere at once, rolled like invisible thunder across the hemisphere.
In its wake, confusion.
And something worse.
Some world leaders began to stutter. Not in speech, but in behavior. Robotic smiles held too long. Eyes that didn’t blink. Coordinated speeches that diverged from teleprompters into strange synchronicity. Chipped officials experienced total systemic failure. A global press conference was cut short when three diplomats collapsed in unison, twitching, as if their minds were being forcibly ejected.
The public was told it was a foreign cyberattack.
But in the Recall Hide, hidden beneath a former observatory laced with analog tech and Faraday insulation, the truth was pulsing across red-lit screens.
The signal hijack had failed.
Zero, more presence than person, spoke through synthetic static: “We were breached from within.”
Lex slammed a metal keyboard against the wall. “It doesn’t make sense! We sandboxed the protocol, triple-bounced the intercept, ran Gibson’s quantum-noise camo. The only way this fails is if—”
“—we were already compromised,” Anya finished. Her voice was low, cold. She was scanning vitals on a half-conscious agent whose chip had begun forcibly rewriting speech patterns.
Tom Ellison leaned against the reinforced glass overlooking the war room. He watched as code streamed vertically down the walls — data leakage mimicking rainfall.
“If someone sabotaged it,” he said slowly, “then they know how to mimic our entropy keys. That means… the mole has been with us since the last frequency reset.”
Ryan Gibson, hunched over a holographic thread-map of fractured timelines, didn’t look up. “Worse. They were with us before that. This distortion predates our last sync with the Whisper Corridors. Whoever it is… they’ve been shaping our reality blindspots.”
Zero’s voice buzzed back in: “They stole something on their way out. I felt the echo bleed through the corridors. The Chrono-Shard containment is missing.”
The Escape
Security footage was corrupted. Only six seconds survived.
A masked figure sprinting through the eastern catwalk. An EMP flicker shield on their back. A trail of shortwave interference behind them.
Lex paused the footage. Zoomed in. “See that shimmer on the left boot? That’s cloaking residue. Someone used Tom’s Phase Drift prototype. They piggybacked it through the Liminal interface.”
Tom felt his stomach knot. “That tech’s unstable. One misstep and they could be stuck between echoes.”
“Or worse,” Gibson muttered. “Split across them.”
Anya’s tone was steel. “They were willing to risk obliteration. That means whatever they took is worth it.”
Sabotage
The Recall’s safe network was down. The Chrono-Shard schematics were gone. But more alarming was the data package left in their place — a message burned into the fallback logs:
“Zero sees, but does not feel. The Recall listens, but cannot hear. Primus is not your enemy. It is your mirror.”
Lex paled. “That’s a recursive logic trap. It’s meant to destabilize faith in leadership. It’s psychological warfare.”
Tom looked at Zero’s display unit, its synthetic voice modulator pulsing slowly. “What if that message wasn’t for us?”
Zero replied, “It’s a trigger phrase. A memetic activation. Someone… or something… has been awakened.”
Into the Backrooms
Tracking the betrayer required non-linear logic. The Churchill War Rooms flickered into partial synchronicity with the Whisper Corridors. The betrayer had passed through.
“We follow,” said Zero.
Lex was already loading fractal disrupters into a data rifle. Anya pocketed a neural detox kit and a backup Chrono-Shard. Gibson sealed the Echo Compass inside a lead-lined briefcase.
Tom hesitated at the edge of the portal. “Once we’re in… Primus knows.”
Zero’s voice, now modulated to a single tone: “That is the point.”
They stepped through.
The Whisper Corridors stretched before them — shifting, breathing walls flickering with trapped voices.
A child’s laughter. A whisper of their own names. The scent of burning circuitry.
They pushed on.
Then came the moment that changed everything.
From the far corridor, the betrayer emerged. Mask gone. It was someone they all recognized.
Lex screamed.
Anya stepped back, stunned.
Tom’s breath caught.
It was someone long thought dead.
Gibson’s twin.
Or perhaps… a version of Gibson that had never joined The Recall.
“This timeline is poisoned,” he said. “You’re fighting fate with entropy. Let me finish what Primus began.”
To Be Continued…