Part 1 Riko's POV Shadow entry
The key wasn't in a pocket. It was a phrase.
"Storms echo where silence breaks."
Riko whispered it into the stone mouth carved behind the eastern statue. A faint pulse triggered the magnetic gate, and the wall opened—not with grandeur, but with the quiet of secrets.
She entered.
The academy beneath Virelia wasn't on any map. Dim halls, hidden stairwells, sealed doors. She knew it well. She was trained to.
Riko's mission was simple: integrate, observe, and destabilize Neo Mojaki before his cognition matured. The order came from a Directorate known only in cipher. But she had her own motive now—curiosity.
Neo wasn't like the others.
He didn't rebel. He didn't comply. He moved like a second ghost through a system built to devour minds.
**He wasn't playing their game. He was watching it unravel.**
She uploaded surveillance footage to the internal drive: Neo bypassing a restricted sector. No alarm. No trace. She slowed the video frame by frame. He moved before cameras turned. Before sensors blinked.
He had no power on record. And yet...
He left patterns behind.
**Black Knight. Window ledge. Section Delta. 3rd floor. Repeated placement.**
A message? A warning?
Riko clenched her hand. "He knows we're watching."
In the chamber's darkness, she activated her embedded tech: **Black Echo.**
A sonic burst of memory distortion. If she couldn't break Neo's body, maybe she could fracture his mind.
"Begin infiltration," the interface blinked.
Riko stepped back into the academy, where Neo had already started rewriting the rules.
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#### **Part II – Elin Raye's POV: "The Sleeper Wakes"**
Neo Mojaki didn't speak much. But Elin Raye heard him loudest when he was silent.
She had been a shadow on the board—placed early, hidden deep. A sleeper agent. A student in name, a weapon in purpose. Her true memories were tucked away behind neural locks, waiting for activation.
But then Neo had spoken to her.
Only once.
"You ever feel like your memories aren't yours?" he asked during a class break. His tone was casual. But his eyes—sharp, precise—were anything but.
She had smiled. Played it off. Laughed lightly. It was what her protocol dictated.
But something shifted.
That night, she dreamed in fragments: static-choked flashbacks of sterile labs, handler voices, and shadow briefings. A sealed file. A name: **Target – Mojaki. Status: Echo Unknown. Risk: Cognitive Contagion.**
The term made her shiver. Cognitive contagion. Like thought itself could be viral.
Neo didn't fit the mold. He avoided alliances, but built loyalty. He exposed nothing, yet understood everything.