The Archivists of Aftertime

Chapter 2: Echo Protocol

Mnēma interceptor did not descend in fire or the crunch of pushed air. It exhaled gently. As if the ship itself didn't want to be remembered.

Jacob Wilder paced at the entrance of the ruined bunker, half-closed lids guarding against the premature twilight. He could see the silhouette of the ship through the haze—a sleek black crescent that radiated synthetic memory plating. It distorted the light around it, bending even the dust as it traversed.

He felt the ship before he was able to hear it. Pressure in the back of the eyes. A chill flash in his molars. Mnēma tech always did that to him—it whispered to the brain, slipping between synapses with clinical intimacy.

A voice resounded within him before the ship arrived:

"Compliance is the first memory."

Jacob spat on the ground.

He knew who would come. Not a soldier. Not a scout. Mnēma sent only a Curator to breaches of this sort—individuals wrapped in quiet power, memory-proofed, tied to procedure. Individuals such as Claire Monroe.

Provided she was still Claire Monroe.

The hatch on the ship swung open along the center like an eye winking on. A ramp extended silently. A figure walked into darkness—tall, precise, wrapped in memory-dampening fabric that glowed with mnemonic protection.

Jacob stepped back, light shadows on the console wall behind him. He explored the side panel of the bunker, fingers tracing a concealed space.

A gun? No. Something more valuable.

A raw reel. Untouched.

Uncatalogued.

Untruth.

He slipped it into his coat.

The Curator approached slowly, reverent. Memory waves rippled around them—data ghosts distorting the air.

"Jacob Wilder," they said, voice flat. Not Claire.

Relief burned like salt.

"Breach of Mnēma Directive 9.13. Unauthorized excavation of unverifiable memory. Refusal to be erased. You will be taken into custody for mental purification and clarity adjustment."

Jacob smiled. "Reading from the same script, still, I see."

The Curator did not blink. "Echo Protocol engaged. Your existence here is cause of existential danger to the Archive."

He slowly unfolded his hands, emerging from the bunker.

"Have it. Take me in."

But his mind was already counting. Calculating.

Six seconds took the command to acquire and neural sync.

He went to a three.

---

Dust exploded. Jacob stumbled, rolled, hurled the raw reel like a flare into the underbelly of the ship. It burst in an explosion of reflected memory. The Curator staggered.

Jacob ran.

He sprinted across the Memory Field, vaulting the charred beam, his boots over scuffed bones and trash plastic. The reel's overflow behind him broke concentrated time. Birds recoiled in sky-wound spirals.

He did not look back.

Claire was still alive.

He could feel it.

And then somewhere within the breach. Or beyond it. And if Mnēma existed, then she or her shadow did too.

He reached the western bluff, lungs burned with cold fire. His fingers found the embedded code node in the cliff wall—a somatic reminder of an earlier era before optical encryption.

He pressed.

A hidden door swung open, and he caught a glimpse of a beam of pale light and a scent of old ozone.

He descended.

---

The room beneath was an unused wing of Mnēma's first core—a room known to him and one other alone.

Claire.

It had once been a refuge for insurgents—Archivists who believed memory was to be observed, not commanded. Who considered forgetting not peace, but theft.

He illuminated the console. The hum was different—older. Honest.

Files spun to life.

Real ones.

Unedited.

A face flickered on screen.

Claire Monroe.

Her voice, recorded and unreleased:

"If you're hearing this, I failed."

Jacob leaned forward.

But if I failed, that means you didn't. You found the crack. The leak. The Mnemolith knows you, Jacob. You made it possible. You are the unwritten thread. Which is why they will hunt you. Because you remember the version of the world they tried to unwrite."

He swallowed. Memory ached in his ribs.

"Claire," he whispered.

Her voice continued:

"There's a girl. Story. She's the hinge. She bears memories that never happened. Find her. Guard her. Or everything becomes fiction."

The file was concluded.

Jacob reclined. Walls closing in on him thrummed with ancient circuitry.

"Story…"

He remembered the name. Child born in the Redacted Zones. No citizen tag. No Mnēma registration. Her existence was hypothetical.

And yet…

He had seen her face.

Smiling amidst the ash.

---

A shiver swept through the annex.

The Curator had found him.

He pocketed the final reels, stuffed them into a worn satchel. The building darkened, lights flashing farewell like spent stars.

He traveled up the shaft into the moonlight.

The Field was not quiet.

Three Mnēma scouts patrolled by the ridge. One unfolded a collapsible net of drones, weaving memory strings like silk in the air.

Jacob ducked, rolled into a frayed trench, and crawled toward an old car—one of the ancient bone-carts they'd once used during the reclamation years.

He sparked it.

Nothing.

Again.

A flash.

It roared to life.

Jacob jammed the throttle, tearing across the field as the memory net chased behind, shredding old echoes with light.

"Claire," he muttered. "Where are you?"

He did not see the girl until she stepped into his path.

She threw up her hand.

Time froze.

The vehicle froze mid-motion, pixels of reality tearing off the tires. Jacob couldn’t move. Couldn’t blink

.

She walked toward him.

Small.

No older than ten.

Eyes that shimmered like film caught between reels.

“You’re late,” she said.

And then the world split.

—