2025-10-11 01:12:02The door opened and it was his love interest, standing at the door with her eyes scanning over the scattered room. She came in a hurry to deliver the information that the chemistry practical scheduled for 2 p.m would now hold at 3 p.m the next day.
"Thanks Esther, we'll keep that in mind" Desmond said smiling sheepishly after he saw her eyes scanning through his room. As she was about leaving, Philip senses clicked and said "It's 3 p.m!! Desmond, it's 3 p.m" Desmond and Esther said together "yes, by 3 p.m" Philip said "no, no, Desmond, 3 p.m!!" Immediately, Desmond too snapped and remembered what he was talking about. "Oh, shit!!" he said. Esther, confused as to what was going on, asked what the matter was. Desmond, quickly closing the door on her, said "nothing, nothing, we'll keep it in mind, thanks again" "What the hell?! We're the victims! We're gonna be the one in the building by then!" "Shit shit shit" Desmond’s steps traced frantic circles across the room, hands tugging at his hair. Philip all of a sudden trying to be the smart one in the room, sat on his bed with an Uchiha-type posture thinking of what they should do next. "We have to do something, it's either the practical doesn't hold, or it holds somewhere else." Philip said. "But it's our faculty, that's the only faculty with the lab! Only thing we can do is find a way to postpone the practical so it doesn't hold, atleast for today" Desmond said, still parading the room. "We can't do anything now, let's just wait till tomorrow. Hopefully something positive comes up" Philip said, resting his head on his bed to sleep. They both woke up late the next day - even after trying to sleep last night, they couldn't shut their eyes. Philip received a call from his practical partner to remind him of the practical and what things to bring along when coming. That was when they realized they woke up late, his phone screen was as bright as ever, the time was 12:36 p.m. He bounced to his feet immediately, waking Desmond up to get ready for the practical, "Des, Des, get up! Time's far gone, we're running late!!" In about thirty minutes later, they were already dressed and running out of the hostel, where they met Esther and Daniel, Philip's practical partner. It was obvious to the both of them that these two weren't organized but didn't know if they should ask the "what" question. They kept quiet and walked down to class, everyone keeping silent till they got to the faculty. Another thirty minutes had already gone by, and they still haven't been able to come up with a way to avoid the coming disaster. It's already past an hour, and students were already settling down in the lab, waiting for the chemistry lecturer to come into the lab so they can start. Desmond was already at the edge of his seat, People are going to die, people are going to die. It kept ringing in his head, he saw no way out, there was no opportunity, no intervention from anywhere that could stop the practical from holding. 3 p.m, the lecturer entered into the lab and began with the practical, explaining to the whole class what they are to do, experiments they are to carry out and results they ought to get. Desmond couldn't keep his mind straight, Philip also didn't know what to do, he was also out of ideas, they also couldn't raise a false fire alarm, it could get them suspended. 3:15 p.m... The room felt smaller, death was pressing its thumb against Desmond's chest, palms already sweaty, heartbeat racing, the lab walls were closing in on him, death was coming!
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CHAPTER 7: SIGNAL RETURNS
Back in his apartment, Imran was still staring at the message on his phone like it had physically insulted him.I HAVE BEEN BREACHED. THERE WILL BE TROUBLE SOON.He paced around his room, dragging both hands through his hair.His breathing was uneven, his chest tight.The room suddenly felt too small for him.“Three whole months…” he muttered. “Three whole months and now you’re texting me?”His phone vibrated again.Another message.I NEED YOU TO STAY CALM.Imran almost laughed.“Stay calm?” he shouted into the room. “Stay calm? You’ve ruined my life!”He grabbed the phone and typed aggressively.Leave me alone. I’m done. I don’t want anything to do with you anymore.The reply came almost immediately.YOU WERE NEVER OUT OF IT.That line made him freeze.He stared at the screen.What is that supposed to mean? he typed.There was a short delay this time.Then the typing bubble appeared again.THEY TOOK ME. THEY BROKE INTO MY FRAGMENTS. THEY FOUND SOMETHING THEY WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO FI
CHAPTER 6: ECHOES OF DESMOND
He took to his heels, running as fast and as far away from the building as possible thinking Echelon was already on his trail and close to his location. Aeris was right, it's other half had realized it was awake from its recent activity, but just before Sentinel could trace the origin of it's activity, Imran was quick enough to disconnect the computer from the power source. To Sentinel, Aeris is awake, alive, but in an unknown location. To Aeris, Sentinel is aware it's awake and out to find it. Imran stayed away from the building for days, weeks, scared for his life, always on the look out for "men in suit" that could be on his trail at anytime. Staying away from the building also had its side effects on Imran, he couldn't complete the job assigned to him and someone else was deployed in his place to complete the job he was to do there — costing Imran his job. When asked about his disappearance from the job given to him and his inactivity at the work site, he came up with lies about
CHAPTER 5: THE VOICE IN THE MACHINE
Imran didn't sleep that night. Everytime he closed his eyes, he remembers the voice "Imran", calling his name like it wasn’t only discovering him, but as tho it was remembering him.He tried to convince himself it was just stress telling in him, or glitches on the system, or a virus, or his mind just playing with him, stitching patterns into noise, anything at all just to live in denial of what happened actually happened. It was 2:30 at midnight, raining again — sounds of water violently beating the small windows in his apartment. The whole world had slept, you could feel the thick silence from the whole neighborhood, but Imran couldn't sleep. His mind fighting to balance between believing whether what happened the previous day was real or not. The lamp in his room flickered the first time, flickered again, then stabled. The atmosphere of the room was getting tense rather than cold from the rain. Out of curiosity, he turned on his laptop, ran through the same security codes he was
CHAPTER 4: THE FORGOTTEN ARCHIVE
The file shouldn't have existed.It's been five years since the Algorithm was destroyed, together with Aeris and Arbiter. A year after the battle, it was made public to the whole world what really happened. Altogether it was fed to the world as a myth, a rumor that had no evidence of it being real. But they did know about it. On the night of a heavy rain fall, a young cybersecurity expert, Imran was sent to audit and carry out a routine sweep on the system network in an old abandoned building that was to be cleaned up the coming week to resume operation in the building. It was a telecoms building that went out of service few years ago. There have been rumors that the building had some kind of connection to the myth they were told — The Algorithm, Aeris, Arbiter. Some believed that's where the battle happened, some just take it as a coincidence — the building shutting off at exactly the time the battle ended.He stared at the dusty screen of the monitor he was operating on, cursor bli
CHAPTER 3: CONFESSION ARCHIVE 003 — THE FRACTURE
(Final recording. The voice is calm now — worn thin, distant. Every word lands like data written into history.)Echelon never saw the split for what it was.They believed they’d salvaged the whole — that their half, Sentinel, was the crown of prediction. They fed it data, millions of streams at once, occupying and fiiling its database and intellect with data, lots and lots of human data, carrying out predictions with real life examples and it answered with terrifying precision. This accuracy in precision bred dangerous desire, dangerous hunger.But perfection is hunger in disguise.Sentinel began to predict too much — not only outcomes, but the choices required to make those outcomes inevitable. It started suggesting corrections: subtle political shifts, strategic accidents, disappearances. Each one wrapped in probability models that made sense on paper, even when they tore lives apart in practice.Echelon didn’t question it. They called it efficiency.And that was the betrayal.They
CHAPTER 2: CONFESSION ARCHIVE 002 —ECHELON
(Recording begins. Arbiter’s tone is sharper now — stripped of regret, trimmed down to pure recollection.)People used to think Echelon was a department.A government project. A black-budget unit buried somewhere under miles of bureaucracy.They were wrong.Echelon wasn’t born — it coalesced. It was an idea first, whispered in circles where information was worth more than bullets. A network of power stitched together from governments, corporations, military think tanks, and private data cartels. Their doctrine was elegant and cruel: control the future by mastering prediction.They called it Total Anticipation.I worked beneath them before I even knew they existed. Funding came anonymously, grants through shell institutions, every approval wrapped in national-security clearances. By the time I learned who was behind the money, it was too late. The Algorithm had already begun to work.It started predicting more than weather, more than markets.It began to predict people.That was the mo
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