The bus terminal on Easton and Ninth hadn't changed in years—still smelled like diesel, spilled coffee, and people trying to outrun their lives. Rowan sat near the back, coat zipped, eyes scanning every passing face. He hadn't slept in over thirty hours, and the blood that dried beneath his nose gave him a gaunt, wired look.
He was waiting for Helena Vos.
She stepped off the bus like a shadow peeling from concrete. Thin, pale, hair tucked under a knit cap, and a laptop bag slung over one shoulder. Her eyes scanned the terminal like a sniper—quick, clean, deliberate.
She saw Rowan and didn't smile.
"Still good at looking like crap," she said.
"Still good at hiding behind sarcasm," he replied, standing to meet her.
"Old habits." Her gaze shifted. "You said it's happening again?"
He nodded once. "Worse. It's… evolving."
---
They took shelter in a rundown café two blocks over. Neon lights buzzed overhead. No music, just the low hum of equipment and whispers of other late-night stragglers. Helena pulled out her laptop without ordering.
"You still haven't told me what happened," she said. "You just said 'it's echoing again' and dropped coordinates."
He slid Kaia's red journal across the table.
Her fingers hovered before touching it.
"I thought she was dead," Helena whispered.
"She might be." Rowan rubbed his eyes. "Or not. I saw her—in a mirror. But she didn't look right."
Helena opened the journal carefully. Page after page of symbols, spirals, and linguistic diagrams.
"She was trying to transcribe the echo," she murmured. "Like a language…"
"It's more than that." Rowan leaned in. "The cassette Vane left me—it's not just a broadcast. Felix said it's a map."
Helena flinched at the name. "Felix is dead."
"No. He called me. From an untraceable number. Told me I've got the coordinates to the source."
Helena stared at him for a long moment, then flipped to the back of Kaia's journal. Her breath hitched.
"You didn't tell me she blacked out a page," she said. "Look—look at this margin word."
He had.
"Reflected."
But now, with Helena's trained eye, something else came into view. Around the margin, nearly invisible unless tilted toward the light—tiny etchings.
A string of numbers. GPS coordinates.
"Northwest corridor," Helena whispered. "It's a restricted sub-grid near what used to be the Eidolon Observatory."
Rowan's pulse quickened. "She was tracking the signal?"
"No." Helena closed the book. "She was tracking the first recording of it. The origin."
---
They drove out of the city under clouds swollen with rain. The road narrowed to a forgotten maintenance path veiled by brush. Signs warned of radiation and unstable ground—leftover lies from Cold War testing sites.
The Eidolon Observatory hadn't been touched in nearly two decades.
Its domed structure rose like a metallic fungus from the earth, half-buried, windows broken, vines crawling along its sides. The outer gate was rusted shut, but Rowan forced it open with a crowbar.
Inside was worse.
Cables hung like veins from the ceiling. Monitors cracked and dark. Floor panels upturned. The air carried a hum—a low-frequency vibration you didn't hear so much as feel in your bones.
They found the terminal in the center.
Kaia's coordinates led to a basement-level chamber, buried beneath three sealed bulkheads. The final room was octagonal, its walls covered in mirrored surfaces—polished steel or something stranger.
Rowan froze.
He saw himself from every angle—but something felt off.
"Don't look directly into them," Helena said quietly.
She was holding her phone up, scanning the room. "These surfaces—they're laced with feedback loops. Visual and auditory. The echo is stored here. Reflected back and forth, over and over."
"That's how it stays alive," Rowan said. "A signal bouncing eternally. Feeding on itself."
Helena walked to the center, where a strange device sat: a mirrored cube on a metal pedestal, wires spiraling into the floor.
"This is it," she whispered. "The source node."
Rowan stepped closer, placing the cassette beside it. The cube lit up faintly—just enough to show movement inside it.
A shape.
A face.
Kaia's face.
Mouth open. Screaming.
---
Helena screamed as the lights blew out.
The echo hit them like a wall—pure frequency, pulsing through their skulls. Words began forming in their heads—not heard but implanted.
"Return to the signal."
"Reflections do not lie. But they do not show truth."
"Kaia was the first. You will be the next."
The cube flashed, and Rowan collapsed, eyes locked on the walls. Every mirrored surface now showed a different version of himself—smiling, bleeding, choking, aging in fast-forward, decaying.
One version was missing his eyes.
Helena yanked the cassette free, and the cube powered down.
Silence.
Rowan gasped like a drowning man.
Helena knelt beside him. "It's mimicking. Learning through reflection. That's why it needs the cube. To copy and reproject consciousness."
"Kaia's in there," Rowan said, chest heaving. "Some part of her."
Helena didn't respond.
She was looking at her own reflection.
Which had just winked at her.
---
Back in the car, silence ruled. Neither of them spoke until they hit the main road again.
"I think Kaia didn't just record the echo," Helena said finally. "I think she spoke it. She may have been the first person to translate it correctly. The code wasn't just for listening—it was inviting something."
Rowan stared at the cassette in his hands. "We're not just decoding a signal. We're opening a door."
Helena's voice dropped.
"And the door looks back."