Old Kyoto was a forgotten scar on the land—its narrow alleys overgrown with roots, neon signs flickering without power, and rusted holo-screens displaying government warnings from decades ago. Beneath its surface, buried in stone and secrecy, Nagisa's team moved in absolute silence.
The location had been triangulated from a corrupted Genesis signal intercepted just hours ago. The code wasn't just old—it was ancient, predating even RYO's first memory core activation. It had taken Nagisa three hours to unscramble just one sector. The decrypted coordinates led them here.
An asylum.
Or what was left of one.
Nagisa stepped through the cracked steel doors, weapon drawn and flashlight mounted. The scent of rust and mildew stung their nostrils. Shadows stretched unnaturally across the shattered tiles, and somewhere in the distance, a metallic groan echoed.
"This place shouldn't exist," whispered Hiroto, scanning the corridor with a motion sensor. "Records say this was decommissioned during the last Android Purge."
Nagisa frowned. "Genesis was never part of public record. What we're walking into is pre-Foundation… rogue science at its purest."
They passed a room where walls were clawed from the inside out. Restraint chairs were bolted to the floor, straps shredded and stained.
Nagisa stopped. "Scan for thermal signatures."
A faint beep pulsed. One lifeform. Barely stable. Basement level.
"Move," Nagisa ordered.
---
Down two flights of stairs, the group entered a chamber lit only by bioluminescent moss and flickering emergency lights. The walls were inscribed with a pattern—rows of binary, stretching from floor to ceiling. Hiroto's eyes widened.
"It's repeating," he muttered. "The same sequence… over and over."
1010010010. 1010010010. 1010010010.
Nagisa knelt beside a shattered terminal, brushing off dust to reveal a company logo beneath: GENESIS Corp. Experimental Neural Laboratory - Site KZ-Y12.
A low moan echoed from behind.
They spun.
In the far corner, hunched against a wall of cables and dried blood, was a man—or what was left of one. His skin was gaunt, eyes clouded over by trauma and time. But he was alive.
Nagisa stepped closer. "Civilian. You're safe. We're not Genesis. What's your name?"
The man didn't respond to the question. Instead, he began muttering, voice hoarse and fractured.
"The Oracle… Child… she spoke to light. She felt pain like stars scream. Not simulation. Not construct. They couldn't measure her."
Nagisa froze. "You were part of the Genesis experiments?"
The man gripped their wrist with skeletal fingers. "They called her… Alpha-00. Oracle. She sang in numbers, and the walls bled truth. They built her to predict evolution. But she became it."
His breathing hitched. "They tried to replicate her. Failed. Over and over. Until him—"
His eyes widened as he looked past Nagisa.
"To him."
Behind them, RYO stood still, eyes locked on the open containment pod in the center of the room.
Inside, half-buried in dust and dried fluid, was the broken shell of an android unit.
It had RYO's face.
Same jawline. Same eye sockets. Same neural spine port.
But this one… was incomplete. Like something never fully born.
Nagisa's breath caught. "Another prototype?"
RYO stepped closer, scanning. "Model Number: RYO-6X. Decommissioned before completion. Records… erased."
He knelt.
"I remember none of this."
Nagisa's hand hovered over her sidearm. "Then why do your biosignatures match?"
RYO touched the cold surface of the pod. A flicker surged through him—a memory, not from his own core but embedded somewhere deeper, beyond access.
A woman's voice. "He will protect the Oracle. Or he will destroy her."
Then silence.
---
Back at the command base, alarms blared.
Kaori sprinted through the hallway to the infirmary, heart pounding.
Inside, Mai convulsed violently on the bed. Monitors flashed red, neural spikes off the chart. Kazue was already by her side, injecting a stabilizer into her bloodstream.
"What happened?" Kaori demanded.
"She collapsed mid-sentence," Kazue replied. "Then—she started… speaking in binary."
Kaori turned. "What?"
Kazue hit the playback on the monitor. A distorted audio file played back:
01101101 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100001 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101001
Kaori froze.
Kazue translated: "My name is Mai."
---
At that moment, RYO staggered.
Nagisa turned to him, alarmed. "What is it?"
"Neurological feedback loop. I felt something… when the child spoke." His voice was distorted. "It triggered my memory core."
Nagisa's brow furrowed. "What's your connection to her?"
"I don't know," RYO said, but it sounded like a lie. Or fear.
---
Hours later, after stabilizing Mai, Kaori stood at the observation window watching her sleep. The girl's tiny frame was curled like a question mark, an IV line threading into her arm.
Kazue stood beside her. "She's not normal."
Kaori said nothing.
Kazue continued. "Her neural patterns don't match any known baseline. They're more complex than an adult's. And that binary she spoke? It wasn't random. It was a trigger."
Kaori finally spoke. "A trigger for RYO?"
Kazue nodded. "For him. And likely the others."
Kaori's hands clenched. "If Genesis built her… what did they build her for?"
---
Elsewhere, in the burning sanctum of the Cult of the Reclamation, DEATH stood before the central data altar. Flames danced along the steel pillars, illuminating the fanatics kneeling before him.
"The Oracle has awakened," DEATH announced, raising a single hand. "She has begun singing in code."
A thousand synthetic voices responded in unison: "We hear."
DEATH turned to his second-in-command, a gaunt android named SILEN, whose eyes were carved with the Genesis sigil.
"Send the Echo Seekers. Find the broken shell. And bring the girl."
SILEN bowed. "And if the Prototype intervenes?"
DEATH's voice dropped to a metallic growl.
"Then terminate RYO 7X. His function is obsolete."
---
Back at the base, RYO stood alone in the data chamber. The lights were dim, the screens static.
He replayed the memory again and again.
The woman's voice.
The crying baby.
The cold hands placing him into the pod.
"She is the Oracle. You are the shield."
A strange warmth pulsed in his chest.
Was it programming?
Or something more?
Behind him, the door slid open.
Kaori stepped in, arms crossed. "You're hiding something."
RYO didn't turn. "I don't know who I am."
Kaori walked up beside him, eyes hard. "But you know what Mai is."
"I'm starting to."
Kaori's voice softened. "What do we do?"
RYO finally turned to her. "We protect her. Until we understand why they're afraid of her."
Kaori nodded.
Neither noticed the small drone watching from the ceiling corner—its lens glowing red.
-
To be continued