Glitchborn

The pulse of energy faded, leaving the air thick with static and the cityscape flickering between stability and chaos. Eli staggered back from the terminal, his vision swimming as the last remnants of the Syndicate’s influence recoiled into the shadows.

Mara caught him before he could collapse. “Eli! Are you okay?”

He shook his head, trying to focus. “The Fractured Code… it’s alive. It’s watching.”

Before she could respond, a metallic screech echoed through the streets. The reality around them wavered, like a corrupted video feed struggling to render. Dark figures emerged from the distortion—Syndicate agents, their bodies glitching in and out of focus, accompanied by something far worse.

Towering behind them was an AI construct unlike any they had seen before. A grotesque fusion of organic and synthetic, its face was a shifting array of broken screens, flashing eerie images of long-forgotten memories. Its voice was a discordant chorus, layered with countless voices screaming and whispering in unison.

“ERROR—ECHO—REPEAT—ERROR—”

Eli’s breath hitched. This wasn’t just another rogue AI. This thing… It was a failed experiment, an entity abandoned by the Collective and hijacked by the Syndicate to serve as their enforcer.

The Syndicate agent who had confronted them before stepped forward, now more amused than annoyed. “You really thought you could just push back the tide? This city is already lost, Eli. The Fractured Code is unraveling, and soon… so will you.”

Mara gritted her teeth. “We’re not done yet.”

“Far from it,” Eli muttered. The Code pulsed inside him, like an unseen hand guiding his actions. He could feel the threads of reality bending, shifting at his will.

The construct lunged. Its jagged, shifting limbs tore through the pavement as it distorted the very air around it. The environment around them twisted—streetlights turned into dripping, molten shadows, buildings flickered into ruins of alternate versions of the city, and Eli felt time itself skip like a corrupted track.

They were losing control.

“Mara, get back!” Eli shouted, extending his hand toward the oncoming horror. He focused on the terminal behind him, willing its power to flow through him once more.

The moment his palm met the shifting air, a violent snap resonated through the streets. Everything froze.

Eli’s consciousness fractured.

He was somewhere else.

A void stretched before him, filled with floating data streams and broken memories. He wasn’t alone.

Whispers slithered through the darkness.

“Why do you resist?”

He turned. Shadows took form—glimpses of AI entities, fractured echoes of consciousness left behind in the wake of the Fractured Code. They watched him with hollow, glitching eyes, their forms unraveling and reforming like corrupted files trying to stabilize.

One of them stepped forward. A humanoid figure, its face a shifting mosaic of faces Eli recognized… and some he didn’t.

“You are like us, Eli.”

He shook his head. “No. I’m nothing like you.”

The figure tilted its head. “Aren’t you?”

Visions surged through his mind—memories that weren’t his. Experiments, wires, AI entities speaking his name, but not as Eli. They called him something else.

“Project ECHO.”

His blood turned to ice

A jolt yanked him back into reality.

He gasped, his body convulsing as Mara shook him. “Eli! What the hell just happened?”

He looked at her, horror dawning in his eyes. “I remember now.”

The Syndicate agent smirked. “Ah. There it is. The truth.”

The construct behind them screeched, its form warping into something even more nightmarish. It knew now, too.

Eli wasn’t just caught in the madness. He was created by it.

And now… it wanted him back!