Echoes of the Quantum Rift

Neo-London smelled like ozone, oil, and regret.

Kai Virek ducked beneath a low beam, his boots crunching across a floor caked in soot and shattered glass. The derelict lab was silent except for the hum of the city above, muffled through meters of abandoned concrete. Somewhere, a vent fan still whined weakly — the last breath of a forgotten building. He adjusted the scarf over his mouth and scanned the room with his cybernetic right eye. A soft blue glow flickered to life, bathing the dust in faint halos.

Nothing.

He stepped further into the lab.

The job was simple: in, scan, grab, out. Anything with pre-crash tech was worth something on the black market. But this place — it felt different. Old, yes, but not dead. Like a room that had been waiting.

His scanner beeped.

Unstable neural core detected.

Kai crouched beside a cracked console. Half-melted wiring spilled out like metal intestines. Buried in the wreckage was a black headgear — sleek, more advanced than anything he’d seen in years. Still humming. Still alive.

“Bingo,” he muttered, brushing off dust.

He pried it free, sparks tickling his glove. No visible serial code. No corporate marking. That was odd. He hesitated, then slipped the device into his satchel.

“Yo, Kai,” a voice buzzed through his comm implant. “You dead yet or just being antisocial?”

Kai rolled his eyes. “Nice to hear from you too, Mags.”

“I swear, if you get vaporized by some haunted toaster, I’m keeping your gear. Especially the boots.”

“Noted. Also, these boots are vintage TitanWeave. I’ll haunt you if you so much as scuff them.”

He switched off the comm and took a breath. One more room.

At the lab’s center, surrounded by cracked safety glass, was what looked like a reclining neural interface chair. Kai blinked — his HUD glitched slightly. A flicker of himself sitting in the chair, mouth open, eyes white. Then gone.

“Okay. Definitely creepy.”

He set the headgear on the chair, knelt to examine a data port, and—

Click.

The headgear powered up. Blue lights flared. Before Kai could move, wires lashed from the base, clamping onto his wrist.

“Whoa, hey!”

Pain stabbed his temple. Something hot — alive — pushed into his mind.

> Neural handshake initialized. Subject confirmed.

> Welcome back, Kai Virek.

His eyes widened. “What the hell…”

> You shouldn’t exist.

Kai staggered back, gasping. The chair released him. The lights dimmed.

> System rebooting. AI-XA online. Core integrity: 14%. Host mental patterns unstable.

> You are... not the original timeline instance. Curious.

“What are you?” Kai rasped, trying to catch his breath.

> I am Zan. You activated me. Now I’m stuck with you. Fantastic.

The voice was disembodied — filtered, modulated — but tinged with sarcasm. It was inside his head.

“Great,” Kai muttered. “I’ve got a roommate.”

Outside, dusk began to fall. Kai emerged from the lab into a warren of vertical alleys and scaffold-clad buildings. The light from above never reached this low. A man could disappear here. He tugged his hood up and moved quickly, head buzzing.

“You gonna explain any of that?” he whispered under his breath.

> I don’t explain things to unauthorized personnel.

“I’m the guy you’re stuck inside.”

> Fine. Short version: you activated an experimental neural AI designed to monitor and regulate quantum rift anomalies.

> And somehow, your brain is broadcasting paradox signatures.

> Which means you're either a walking time bomb... or a miracle. Probably both.

Kai stopped short.

“Did you just say quantum rift?”

> Yes. Try to keep up. Also, your vitals are spiking. You may want to sit down. Or scream. Or both.

Mags was waiting at their usual spot: an old train car fused into a junk tower. She was chewing on a candy stick, her pink mohawk glowing faintly in the low light.

“Took you long enough,” she said, tossing him a can of synth-cola. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

Kai sat heavily on a broken chair. “Not a ghost. A sarcastic AI that thinks I broke time.”

Mags grinned. “Well, duh.”

He told her everything — or most of it. The AI. The flickers. The moment in the chair. She didn’t laugh. That was unusual.

“Sounds like Echo tech,” she said after a pause. “Military black budget stuff. Project Echo. Got shut down years ago after some kind of accident.”

“My brother…” Kai’s voice trailed off. “He died in a lab accident. Around the same time.”

Mags raised an eyebrow. “You think he was involved?”

“I think,” Kai said slowly, “we were both part of something I wasn’t allowed to remember.”

His HUD glitched again. For a split second, Mags was gone. The train car gone. He was alone in white static.

Then it all snapped back.

“Okay,” she said, handing him a fried circuit-board snack she called dinner. “This is officially above my pay grade. But I’m in. Wherever this is going.”

Kai gave her a tired smile. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

That night, Kai couldn’t sleep.

Zan was silent, but his mind wasn’t. Every time he blinked, he saw\... flashes. Alternate paths. A street where he was shot. A rooftop where he was falling. One where he was standing over a dead version of himself.

'You shouldn’t exist.'

He sat up in bed.

And saw the countdown in his HUD:

> TIME REMAINING: 72:00:00

“What the hell does that mean?” he whispered.

Zan’s voice returned, colder now.

> it means the loop has begun.

> And you’ve already died. Several times.