4:06 AM – Helix Vault, Sublevel Sigma
The vault trembled.
Mist hissed around the shattered pod. The figure inside stepped forward, wetware armor glistening under the flickering lights. Eyes—once human—scanned the space like searching for something lost. Or someone.
Aiko stepped back, mouth parted, eyes wide. "I know him…"
Ryoji stepped in front of her, knives drawn. "Talk to me, Aiko. Who is he?"
Her voice cracked. "My brother."
The figure—Helix-0—twitched, as if the word stirred something in it. A flicker of recognition. Of pain. Then it turned fully toward her.
"We… remember."
The voice was not fully human. A hundred whispers inside one. Mechanical. Layered. Wounded.
Aiko stumbled, clutching her head. Images slammed into her—her brother smiling beside her, then screaming inside a lab, wires piercing his skin, his voice calling out her name as white-coated men dragged him away.
She screamed.
Ryoji caught her.
"I've got you."
But even as he held her, his eyes locked on the thing in front of them—on the weapon once called human.
4:08 AM
Helix-0 didn't move.
It simply stood there, as if waiting.
Ryoji looked to the girl trembling in his arms, saw her breaking—and he knew that pain.
He knew it too well.
He sheathed one blade, just one. And for the first time in years, he spoke of the day the light left his life.
Flashback – Years Ago, Somewhere in America
It had been raining the first time he met her.
Jessica.
She was standing under the awning of a bookstore, hair damp, flipping through a copy of Fahrenheit 451. He remembered the way she smirked when she caught him staring.
"You know it's rude to judge someone by their reading habits?" she'd said.
Ryoji—still a ghost from another country, drifting through shadows and regrets—had laughed for the first time in what felt like forever.
She lit something in him.
Days became weeks. They drank coffee, argued about music, danced in empty parks at midnight. She made him feel human again. Whole.
Then Hana was born.
His daughter.
Her laugh could kill demons, he used to joke. And maybe it did—because when she clung to his neck, giggling, the ghosts vanished for a while.
He should've never joined the Agency again. But when they came to recruit him, Jessica had kissed his forehead and said, "Just promise you come back safe."
He broke that promise.
The day they died—
He had just returned from a mission.
The house was too quiet.
The door had been left open.
Blood on the walls.
A broken doll.
No bodies.
Just a message, burned into the wall with fire:
"You made her. Now we'll make you."
Division Zero had taken them.
He never found their bodies.
Just ashes. And silence.
Back – Helix Vault
"I thought if I buried it long enough, drank it deep enough, I could forget," Ryoji said, voice steady but hollow. "But it never left me. I just stopped talking about it."
Aiko looked up at him, eyes glassy.
"You lost your family too," she whispered.
Ryoji nodded. "That's why I fight."
Across the vault, Helix-0 tilted its head. Almost... listening.
Aiko straightened. Wiped her tears.
"I'm not letting them use my brother again. Not like this."
Ryoji stood beside her. "Then we end this together."
Lights flared behind them.
Sirens screamed.
The vault doors began to open—Division Zero was coming.
Helix-0 looked to Aiko again. A faint flicker—of confusion? Longing?
Then it spoke.
"Remember us."
To be continued in Chapter 36….....