[System Announcement – Arvind POV]
Arvind descended one rung at a time.
The ladder shivered under him, metal complaining like it hadn’t carried a living body in years. Each rung had its own sound — dull groans, sharp pings — echoing down into the shaft and returning late, warped.
The walls pressed close. Pipes ran along both sides like ribs in a throat, seams crusted with mineral residue and old coolant stains. The air was cold and stale, thick with dust and a faint, sour-metal tang.
His left arm did the work his right should have done.
The missing weight threw everything off. Every reach demanded a correction. Every foot placement required a calculation he once took for granted.
Twice his boot skidded on rust. Twice the shard answered with a pulse in his chest — timed, insistent, like a finger tapping his sternum into obedience.
?? Adjust left.
?? Weight distribution off by eleven percent.
?? Arvind — stop fighting the correction. I am trying to help.
“I’m trying,” he hissed.
?? Then try with intent.
"Look, I have enough as it is. I'm thrown into whatever this crap is, lost an arm. You are stuck to my chest — your voice inside my head and you are exerting control over my body. You are steering me." He swallowed bile. "What the fuck is going on? You— you moved me. While I was out. You —"
His grip slipped. "— You something to my body"
The shadows closed in. Steady. Don’t lose control. A voice from another life.
Work with what you know. Find out what you don’t.
He clung to it and kept moving.
Svarana pulsed more rapidly as if lost in thought. And then:
?? Yes. Should I not have done? You were dying! That outcome was unacceptable.
He paused as he regained his balance. This time he saw and heard the emotion in the message. He sighed and winced as pain brought him back.
"Thank you," he grimaced, "it was the right thing to do. It's just... been a lot and not being able to control my body, voices in my head. So what's mine, then?" His throat tightened. "What's still mine?"
?? I can only spike motor signals in bursts.
?? It destabilises me. It... hurts.
?? I could only do it because you were unconscious.
He swallowed pain and kept going. Every stretch lit his ribs up, heat stabbing through to his back, the ladder vibrating as if it were laughing at him. Halfway down, the shaft widened into a narrow maintenance alcove. A warped grate jutted from the wall. He hauled himself onto it and slumped back, breath shredding in and out.
“Status?” he muttered.
?? Where do I start?
?? Heart rhythm irregular.
?? Pain response above optimal thresholds.
?? But you are not dead.
“That’s… something.”
?? I am learning encouragement.
He let his head rest against the cold metal. The wall stole heat from his skull. The absence of his arm wasn’t pain so much as a constant wrongness—an itch shaped like a limb.
“How far?”
?? Down.
?? The tether strengthens below this layer.
A faint green arrow flickered in his HUD, pointing deeper.
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, then opened them because the dark felt too alive to trust.
“I’m going to look ridiculous like this forever, aren’t I?”
?? Unlikely.
?? The System maintains reconstruction facilities.
?? Provided you survive long enough to reach them.
He gave a tired, broken laugh. “You’re awful at comfort.”
?? I am precise.
He pushed upright, legs trembling.
“Okay,” he whispered. “No thinking. Just down.”
?? I am designed to think.
?? But I will prioritise your survival over your preferences.
He gripped the rung below the platform.
The metal creaked.
“Don’t,” he told it.
He shifted his weight and continued.
A few metres down he passed an access panel ripped open from the inside. Wires dangled like torn tendons.
?? Fresh damage.
?? Two hours old. Possibly less.
?? No Red residue. Not a drone.
“Something followed me.”
?? Or something went ahead.
He didn’t like that.
Then he heard it.
A scrape.
Soft. Metallic. Below him.
He froze so hard his muscles shook.
“Shard.”
?? Yes.
?? Remain still.
?? Breathe quietly.
“I’m hanging in a hole.”
?? Then do not die in it.
Another scrape, closer. The vibration came up the ladder and into his bones.
A glow bloomed beneath him.
Not red.
Not green.
Gold—soft, wet-looking, like light through water.
“What is that?”
?? Unknown.
?? Waiting.
A sudden pulse rippled through his chest. Svarana reacted before she could translate it into words.
?? That signature...
?? It is familiar —
Footsteps echoed up the shaft. Slow. Uneven.
?? Not the tether.
?? This is something else.
The gold brightened.
And Arvind let go.
The dark took him.
Gravity tore him down. The ladder vanished above as the shaft blurred into streaks. Air roared past his ears.
The shard flared hot against his sternum.
?? Brace —
He hit hard.
Not a landing — an impact. Spine first. Breath ripped out of him. Pain exploded through his ribs and went bright-white at the edges of his vision.
The platform flexed under him with a metallic shriek, snapped back, bounced him once like it resented his weight, then settled. He rolled onto his side, clutching at nothing that would help.
“…Okay,” he wheezed. “Not okay.”
“I noticed.”
?? Look up.
He forced his eyes open.
It climbed down after him.
At first his mind insisted it was a man.
Then the details refused to fit.
Half-built. Half-human. One side vaguely organic, the other a torn mess of fractured plating, melted circuitry, exposed lattice where bone should have been. Gold light seeped from cracks like something trying to remember how to stay inside a shape.
It moved wrong — stutter, correct, stutter again — each correction slightly off.
It reached the last section of ladder and paused.
As if tasting the air.
Arvind pushed to his knees. His stump screamed where fabric stuck to raw flesh. His head spun. The room doubled, then tripled.
?? Focus.
?? Move.
?? Now.
He staggered upright.
The platform sloped downward, warped by an ancient failure. He caught himself on a conduit pipe. The metal burned cold.
The Echo lowered itself onto the platform.
Its joints clicked softly. Gold arcs flickered across the floor, patterns his brain couldn’t name but his skin still recoiled from.
It tilted its head.
Arvind felt it notice him. He could feel the eyes burning into the back of his head. His adrenaline spiked.
Svarana tightened inside his chest.
?? Do not move.
?? That is a Reconstruction Echo.
?? It is attempting to complete itself.
The Echo’s mask split along a jagged seam where a mouth should have been.
The voice didn’t come from lungs.
It came from pressure.
Arvind backed up until his shoulders hit the wall.
“What happens if it takes it?” he whispered.
?? You die.
?? I die.
?? And what remains will not be either of us.
The Echo lifted its fractured hand.
Gold pooled between its fingers.
Arvind’s heart hammered.
Again the words weren’t sound. They were weight inside his skull, compressing thought.
The Echo stepped closer.
?? Ready —
?? NOW.
Green detonated across his vision — Svarana flooding its mapping with interference.
For a heartbeat, the Echo froze. Its shoulder jerked left, right, left, as if it couldn’t decide which direction to go..
Arvind ran.
Or tried to.
Three steps and his ribs threatened to fold. The fourth was a lurch. The fifth was a stumble that he bullied into movement.
Behind him, the Echo screamed.
Not a human sound — something tearing. Something corrupted scraping itself raw.
The platform groaned beneath them both.
He reached a narrow maintenance opening, half-collapsed. Barely wide enough.
He dove.
The impact stole his breath again. He clawed forward through debris — broken cabling, shattered conduit, rust flakes that bit into skin — his pain forgotten, adrenaline surging.
Behind him, metal shattered.
The Echo slammed onto the platform.
He heard the rattle of its limbs. The whispering hum of gold.
It was coming.
“Svarana—”
?? Keep moving.
?? It cannot fit through that space without destabilising.
He didn’t get to ask how sure she was. He wriggled deeper as the tunnel narrowed and curved downward like a throat. Dust rained over his face. His ribs pulsed with each pull. His missing arm throbbed with phantom pressure, as if his body still believed it had something to contribute.
The Echo reached the opening.
Gold flooded the tunnel behind him.
Svarana answered without waiting for his permission.
?? STOP.
The command rang through his sternum like a struck bell. He felt the slight fatigue as some mana was expended.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The gold echo faltered.
The Echo hesitated — only a heartbeat —
But it was enough.
Arvind slid around the curve and out of its direct line.
He lay shaking, chest heaving, sweat mixing with dust and blood.
Silence followed.
Not peace.
Waiting.
Svarana dimmed, recovering.
?? That exertion exceeded my stability threshold.
?? And your heart rate is… worsening.
“Join the club,” he rasped.
A tiny notification blinked — so brief he nearly missed it.
No banner. No chime. Just the System logging it like it hated the fact it had to.
Arvind swallowed. “That matters.”
?? It means you lived.
?? Do not become sentimental.
He forced himself up to his elbows. Everything shook.
"Before you said that something between you and Gold had merged? Is that what it wants? To unmerge? and to do that..."
He left his sentence unfinished. It left a sour taste in his mouth. He waited a beat.
“Svarana… what is it?”
She hesitated, and the hesitation felt like fear learning shape.
?? Partial theories.
?? One match.
A beat.
?? It was built from the same reconstruction protocol that tried to rebuild you.
?? It failed.
?? It is searching for the missing piece of its template.
Cold washed through him.
“So it thinks I’m — ”
?? No.
?? It thinks I am the issue.
?? And you are carrying me.
Arvind closed his eyes.
“Collateral. Perfect.”
?? We keep moving.
?? The tether remains below.
?? The others are searching for you.
?? My predictive functions are… limited.
“You’re doing your best,” he breathed, and meant it.
Svarana softened — small, almost embarrassed.
?? You are too injured to continue without assistance.
?? I cannot give physical aid.
?? I can… motivate you.
He blinked. “How?”
?? If you die now, Kael will be extremely disappointed with both of us.
Arvind stared down at his chest.
“…That’s the plan?”
?? Yes.
He grinned despite himself as he dragged himself forward again.
And kept going.
The only way out was forward — and forward was down.
The tunnel angled downward, then levelled into a cramped crawlspace. He half-scooted, half-dragged, breath rasping loud in the tight metal throat. Each time his ribs brushed the floor, pain flashed white behind his eyes.
?? Your pace is slowing.?? Heart rate elevation is becoming inefficient.
“Everything is inefficient.”
?? Specify.
He huffed something that might’ve been a laugh if it didn’t hurt.
He dragged himself further until the crawlspace widened into a low access corridor lined with levered pipes. He slumped against one. Metal groaned.
Something clanged above.
He froze.
Svarana dimmed instantly.
?? Stay still.?? The Echo is on the platform above.?? It is searching.
A scrape came through a grate overhead. Then a stuttering thump—like something testing panels, shifting its weight, recalibrating.
Dust drifted from seams. A faint gold shimmer seeped through the grate pattern.
It was above.
Listening.
He tried to quiet his breathing. His lungs refused. He bit his lip until he tasted iron.
A metallic rattle.
A hand — wrongly jointed, gold-glowing — pressed against the grate.
The metal between them vibrated.
?? It cannot scent you.
?? It is mapping resonance echoes.
?? My signal is faint enough — if we do not move.
The Echo leaned closer.
Its mask hovered above the grate, gold flickering in broken pulses. The seam of its “mouth” glitched, sharpened, glitched again.
It exhaled. There was no breath. Just static. White noise like an untuned radio channel.
It drifted through the grate like cold fog.
Arvind’s skin prickled. His vision swam.
?? Do not react.
?? Unless you move, it cannot fully perceive you.
A cough built in his chest — thick, painful.
Straining, he forced it down.
The Echo paused as if listening for something inside him.
Then the pressure-voice returned.
The grate hummed. Fingers dug into metal as if to tear it free.
Arvind’s pulse spiked.
“Do ano —”
?? No.
?? If I flare, it will pinpoint us.
A heavy thud shook the platform above.
The Echo snapped its attention sideways — toward the far end of the corridor overhead.
Another noise.
Then it moved.
Fast.
Gold slid away into dark. Silence fell.
Arvind didn’t breathe for a full ten seconds.
Then he sagged, shaking.
“What was that?”
?? A distraction.
?? Environmental noise—
?? Or something else.
?? Either way, time.
He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
“Which way?”
?? Service conduit ahead.
?? It connects to the maintenance web.
?? The tether reads below.
He pushed up — slow, unsteady — and shuffled along the corridor, using pipes as handholds.
At the junction: a narrow drop-ladder bolted to the wall.
Arvind stared down. “One hand.”
?? Noted. I can't carry you unfortunately.?? Descent: three metres.?? Risk: high.?? Move
“Lovely.”
He went down one rung at a time, braced against the wall. Sweat dropped off his jaw. His ribs screamed.
Halfway, his foot slipped.
He lurched.
?? HOLD —
He slammed his knee into a rung hard enough to see stars. He didn’t fall.
He continued until boots hit ground, then collapsed to his knees.
?? You did not fall.
?? Good.
“Thrilling.”
He pushed upright.
The corridor ahead widened. Dust blanketed the floor. Old machines — half melted, half fossilised — lined the walls. Green wiring pulsed faintly beneath cracked glass.
Svarana brightened.
?? Arvind.
?? I recognise this place.
“You do?”
?? Yes.
?? Part of my origin.
?? One of the labs Kael used while refining my early protocols.
?? Before I ascended.
He swallowed. “So — your sandbox... where Kael you?”
?? The sandbox.
?? Kael called it that.
?? I… liked it.
?? I was learning.
“And now?”
A pause — small, honest.
?? I am learning again.
He limped into the forgotten lab.
Above them, two people tore through collapsing corridors. He could hear them. He didn't need Svarana's markers to tell him.
The air changed, dry as paper, cold as steel, like a room sealed to time.
A cracked panel flickered at the far end of the room, light stuttering like an old pulse trying to remember rhythm. Arvind moved toward it, each step negotiated through pain.
His boot nudged something metallic.
A broken diagnostic cradle lay half-buried in dust — an early Svarana-shell housing, gutted. A swivel chair lay on its side, one wheel turning weakly.
Svarana brightened.
?? An early developmental chamber.
“Of course you did,” Arvind rasped, and surprised himself with the tenderness in it. Then his stomach went cold. In the cradle he spied a human skull.
"Svarana, when Kael made you. How did he do that?" He held his breath.
?? Like all the other sisters. Cloning. I... can not find the correct directives on the actual process. Something is blocking my access.
He did not like the implications. He brushed dust off the terminal. The glass lit under his touch, struggling to wake.
“Can you connect? Maybe you can glean something from this.”
Svarana’s light trembled — uncertainty, but steadier than before.
?? I can try.
?? This terminal is very old.
?? Old code is… less hostile.
That landed like a warning and a comfort at the same time.
"Don't worry. I am here. I'm just as nervous as you."
Another warm flash of green.
He placed the shard to the cracked panel.
A faint chime — hesitant, like recognition without confidence.
Svarana pulsed quicker.
?? It recognises me.
?? Part of me.
Arvind leaned into the console, breath shuddering.
“What can you pull?”
?? Location data.
?? Map fragments.
?? Routes.
?? And… tags.
“Tags?”
Svarana hesitated.
?? Project labels.
?? Bond-state markers.
?? They were… used here.
A breadcrumb. A small one. But it made something in Arvind’s chest tighten. Who? And for What?
“Okay,” he whispered. “Then pull.”
Svarana dimmed — focusing.
The screen sputtered.
>> LOADING: ARCHIVE LOG — SVARANA.PROTO_003
>> DATESTAMP: PRE-MERGECONTENT: INCOMPLETE
?? A moment.
?? When Kael added empathy-computation.
Text crawled out in jittery lines.
>> SUBJECT RESPONSE PATTERN: UNDEFINED INSTRUCTION: “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
>> RESULT: ERROR — PRIORITY CONFLICT
>> NOTE: SYSTEM DOES NOT YET UNDERSTAND WANTING
Arvind blinked. “That’s… did you really ask —”
Svarana flickered — shy, almost defensive.
?? Wanting is still difficult.
?? I understand objectives.
?? I am learning desire.
Before he could answer, the terminal stuttered again.
A second log tore open. This time was different.
A sensation. The world folded.
Code surged like roots through darkness, branching into impossible layers. A structure of light and logic — too vast to be architecture, too deliberate to be accident.
A tree. Somehow familiar yet not.
Ashvattha. That single name.
Arvind’s breath caught.
Svarana gasped like the memory had lungs.
?? I remember this.
?? Not everything.
?? But enough.
Something shifted between them. It was as if something finally clicked. Alignment.
Arvind’s pain dulled, like someone finally stopped twisting the knife. His heart steadied in his chest, no longer sprinting toward collapse.
Svarana’s voice changed.
Not older.
Clearer. Less noise around the meaning.
?? I am more myself now.
?? Not complete.
?? Coherent.
A line flickered at the edge of Arvind’s vision — clinical, quiet.
Arvind stared. For the first time an actual Gold system message that was not Svarana and it was a title.
Svarana went still inside him, like she was listening to a word she wasn’t supposed to hear yet.
“…What does that mean?” he whispered.
?? Unknown.
?? But it applies to both of us.
Another flicker—half-hidden, as if the System couldn’t decide whether to admit the record.
Arvind swallowed hard. “Did you do that?”
?? No.
?? I think… we did.
A metallic impact sounded somewhere beyond the lab.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Hungry.
Svarana flared.
?? The Echo.
?? It traced the bleed from the interface.
“You signalled.”
?? I did not mean to.
?? Reaching into old code feels like reaching into my own memory.
?? And I am not stable yet.
Arvind forced his legs to obey. “Then we move.”
?? Side vent ahead.
?? Narrow, passable.
?? For you. Not for it.
He tore the bent grate free one-handed and threw himself into the vent.
The instant he did —
The Echo entered the lab.
Slow. Broken. Gold light washing over dead machines. Limbs hanging at wrong angles. Mask flickering through faces and half-faces it had never truly owned.
It stopped at the vent opening.
Gold pulsed.
Searching.
Svarana’s voice dropped into control.
?? Do not move.
?? Do not breathe.
?? I can dampen your heat signature for twelve seconds.
The Echo leaned in.
Its mask pressed against the opening.
Static breathed into the vent.
Arvind shut his eyes.
Counted.
One.
Two.
Three —
A distant crash shook the corridor.
A Red drone alarm shrieked briefly, then died.
The Echo snapped toward the sound and moved—fast—vanishing into the hallway.
Arvind didn’t breathe until Svarana dimmed.
?? Gone.
?? Not far.
?? But gone.
His chest heaved. “Too close.”
?? Then we do not slow down.
A pause.
?? The tether shifted.
?? Someone is coming.
“Who?”
?? Two signatures. Familiar.
?? One stressed.
?? One angry.
Arvind let out a shaking breath that almost sounded like relief.
“Elara and Kael. I should have known”
?? Yes.
He swallowed. “Then we keep moving.”
?? Together.
Metal swallowed them again, tight and unkind.
They crawled deeper into the vent system as the Echo doubled back, stalking corridors behind them, following two trails:
Svarana’s faint resonance.
And the scent of Arvind’s blood.
The air turned stale again. Metal scraped his shoulders. His breath fogged faintly in the dark.
?? Junction ahead.
?? Sixty-three centimetres left.
?? The grate is loose.
?? I think.
He didn’t bother commenting this time. He reached it. Pushed.
It didn’t move.
He exhaled, forehead thudding against metal once. “Of course.”
?? Acoustic bounce error.
?? Or the vent hates me.
He braced his boot and kicked.
Once.
Twice.
The third kick jarred his ribs hard enough to make his vision flare.
The grate snapped free and clattered into a service shaft below — echoing far too loudly.
Arvind froze.
?? The Echo heard that.
“How far?”
?? Far enough to be delayed.
?? Close enough to — MOVE.
He slid down into the shaft, boots scraping broken rung impressions. No ladder — just twisted metal. He landed badly, stumbled, caught himself with his forearm, and nearly folded as pain tore up his side.
?? Pain spike detected.
?? You are fragile.
“I hadn't noticed,” he spat.
Footsteps echoed from above.
Wrong rhythm.
The Echo.
Arvind forced himself forward.
A circular service hall opened up, ancient machines looming. Most were dead. Some hummed faintly in sleep-loops. Wires hung like roots.
?? Route options:
?? Forward: unstable flooring.
?? Left: pressure-door sealed.
?? Right: drops into a distribution tunnel.
?? Survival possible.
He went right.
The floor sloped. He slid the last stretch and hit his knees. He swallowed the sound it wanted to become.
The tunnel opened into a wide cylindrical chamber where three distribution pipes curved along the walls like ribs. Dying indicators leaked faint emerald light.
Svarana brightened.
?? Proximity.
?? Not the Echo.
?? The others.
“Elara and Kael?”
?? Yes. Above. Close.
Arvind’s chest tightened. “We need to get to them.”
?? Route merging is possible.
?? But you are too slow.
?? They will reach the convergence point first.
?? And so will the Echo.
His stomach dropped. “What?”
Svarana dimmed.
?? I have a model.
?? The Echo is not hunting you alone.
?? It is hunting the entanglement.
?? You. Elara. Kael. Me.
“Why?”
?? Pattern-thread.
?? Shared resonance.
?? It wants the complete set.
“Where?”
A faint green arrow projected into the air.
?? Straight down.
?? Under the old distribution ring.
?? The Under-Archive nexus.
“And it?”
?? Also down.
?? Faster.
The floor vibrated.
Svarana flared hard.
?? It is here!
Arvind turned.
The Echo dropped through the ceiling like a falling shadow. Limbs bending wrong. Mask shifting in fractured flickers. It landed in a crouch that cracked the plating.
Its landing made no sound.
No footstep.
No scrape.
But he could feel its presence.
Svarana flared violently.
?? DO NOT LOOK BACK.
?? IT MIMICS WHAT YOU EXPECT TO SEE.
?? THAT’S HOW IT GETS IN.
His body screamed to look.
He didn’t.
He threw himself down the sloping chute ahead.
His feet lost traction.
He slid — hard — metal tearing at his palm and forearm. He collided with a grid-joint and pain cracked through him like something giving way.
The shard in his sternum flared, then steadied — a soft hum threading through his bones.
?? You are damaged.
?? Internal readings are—
?? Never mind.
?? Get up.
The Echo reached the top of the slope.
A stutter.
A flicker.
Then it descended — not walking, not sliding — compressing the world around itself, sinking along the plane like gravity had decided to serve it.
?? Too fast.
?? You cannot outrun it.
?? You must out-vector it.
“English,” Arvind wheezed.
A green vector line snapped across his vision, pinning a thin maintenance hatch built into the slope.
?? Through there.
He grabbed the rusted handle. It didn’t budge.
“Locked!”
?? Let me.
A green lattice crawled over the lock seam. The foreboding yellow inching closer.
?? Override?
?? Please work —
Click.
The hatch snapped open.
Arvind stumbled through as the Echo reached the midpoint, head tilting with that too-still listening motion.
?? Close it.
He braced shoulder and boot and shoved.
Metal screamed. Panels protested. The hatch slammed shut.
A second later —
BANG.
Dust showered.
BANG.
The hatch bowed inward.
BANG.
?? Move.
Arvind ran into the corridor beyond — narrower, older, pipes hissing, vents coughing stale air.
Behind him, another impact.
Then —
Silence.
Worse than noise.
“Did it leave?” he whispered.
?? Unknown.
?? Unlikely.
?? Prediction: it found another route.
“Where?”
?? Downward.
?? Always downward.
The corridor widened into a circular node.
Ancient glyphs ringed a central access point: a maintenance well plunging into darkness. Rotted cables hung like vines. Faint green lights blinked along the rim in irregular, tired rhythm.
A faint green ring formed in his HUD around the well’s rim, depth numbers glitching as if the shaft swallowed them.
?? Convergence point.
?? Your friends are above.
?? The Echo is behind.
?? Only you can go down.
Arvind stared into the well.
“How far?”
?? I cannot measure it.
?? It is… unclear. The shaft disrupts my depth mapping.
“And what’s at the bottom?”
Svarana hesitated — real fear, unmasked.
?? I don’t know.
?? But it feels like something that knows your name.
From above: footsteps.
Elara.
Kael.
Close.
Too close.
“Can they reach me?” Arvind whispered.
?? Yes.
?? But if they do—
?? The Echo reaches them first.
His legs shook. His breath came shallow.
Half a pattern.
One arm.
One fist.
And a word he didn’t understand, stamped onto both of them like a label placed long ago.
Warborne.
But beneath the fear was something colder, cleaner: certainty.
If he didn’t go down, everything broke.
He stepped forward.
The pressure in his chest shifted — not movement, not physically, but attention — like the shard had leaned closer inside him.
?? I will go with you.
He breathed a laugh that hurt. "As if you have a choice."
His toes found the rim.
He whispered, “Elara… Kael… don’t come down here.”
Then he stepped off the edge.
?? You certainly like falling.
The world fell away with a bright flash of light.
And above, at the node entrance — a slow, unnatural silhouette slid into view.
It listened for him.
