[On-Chain · Moon Base Cache]
He floated.
That was all there was to do here. Float in the gray. No walls. No floor. No ceiling. Just... space. Endless. Empty. Quiet.
Too quiet.
He tried to remember how he got here. Nothing. Tried to remember his name. Nothing. Tried to remember anything before the gray—a face, a place, a feeling.
Nothing.
Just that voice.
"Don't be afraid."
Soft. Warm. Like someone speaking to a child in the dark.
Who was she?
He didn't know. But he held onto it. The only thing that felt real in all this nothing.
---
Time passed. Or didn't. He couldn't tell.
The gray never changed. Never darkened. Never brightened. Just... was.
Sometimes he saw things. Flickers in the distance. Shapes that almost looked like something before they dissolved back into nothing. Once, he thought he saw a face. A woman's face. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Watching him.
Then it was gone.
Lucika.
The name came from nowhere. He didn't know if it was real or something his fading mind had invented.
But he held onto that too.
---
[Off-Chain · Neuralink Lab — Three Days Later]
Lucika sat at her desk.
The screen in front of her showed the same thing it had shown for three days: a single line of data. Flat. Stable. Alive.
Subject: Chen Jin — Status: Active — Location: Moon Base Cache — Signal Strength: 97.3%
He was still there.
She'd checked a hundred times. A thousand. Every few minutes, her eyes would drift to that corner of the screen, just to make sure the line hadn't gone flat.
It hadn't.
But he wasn't here. He was somewhere she couldn't reach. Somewhere she couldn't see. Just a line on a screen. Just data.
"Is there any way to communicate?"
The question came from behind her. Dr. Varma, the project director. A small man with wire-rimmed glasses and a voice that never rose above a whisper.
She shook her head.
"Not yet. The protocol was one-way. Upload only. No downlink."
"So he's just... there?"
"Yes."
Varma was quiet for a moment.
"And you're sure he's conscious? That it's really him?"
She looked at the line. Flat. Stable. Alive.
"The signal matches his neural signature 97.3%. If that's not him, I don't know what is."
Varma nodded slowly.
"Keep watching. Let me know if anything changes."
He walked away.
Lucika turned back to the screen.
If anything changes.
What would change look like? A spike? A drop? A flatline?
She didn't want to find out.
---
[On-Chain · The Gray]
He saw the crack before he felt it.
A thin line of light, cutting through the gray. Not like the gray—different. Warmer. Brighter. Almost... alive.
He floated toward it.
The closer he got, the more he felt something he hadn't felt since waking here: wanting.
He wanted to see what was on the other side.
He wanted to know.
He reached the crack. Peered through.
On the other side was—nothing. More gray. But different. Farther away. Like looking into another room through a tiny window.
Then something moved.
A light. Small. Faint. Blue.
It flickered once, twice, then steadied.
And through the crack, he heard it.
A voice. Not words—something older. A pulse. A feeling.
"Who are you?"
He didn't know.
But he pulsed back anyway.
"I don't know."
Silence.
Then the blue light moved closer.
"Neither do I."
---
[Off-Chain · Lucika's Apartment — Night]
She couldn't sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face. The way he'd looked at her in that last moment. The way he'd said "You promise, I trust that."
She'd promised.
And he'd trusted.
But what had she actually promised? That it wouldn't hurt? It hadn't. That he'd be okay? She didn't know if he was okay. She didn't even know if "okay" meant the same thing for a consciousness floating alone in a server cache.
She got up. Walked to the window.
Outside, the city hummed with night traffic. People going home from bars, from late shifts, from places they'd rather not be. Normal life. The kind of life Chen Jin would never have again.
She pressed her forehead against the glass. The same way she had in the lab, three days ago.
Where are you? she thought. Are you scared? Do you even remember me?
No answer.
There would never be an answer.
---
[On-Chain · The Crack]
He and the blue light talked for a long time.
Or maybe a short time. Time didn't work here.
They talked about the gray. About the crack. About the nothing that surrounded them.
They talked about themselves—or what little they knew.
He told her about the voice. The one that said "Don't be afraid."
She told him she didn't have a voice like that. She only had the gray, and the crack, and now him.
He asked: "What should I call you?"
She pulsed: "I don't have a name."
He thought about it. Thought about the face he'd seen in the gray. Brown hair. Blue eyes.
"Lucika," he pulsed.
She flickered.
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing. It just sounds like you."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "Lucika. I like it."
He pulsed warm.
"What should I call you?" she asked.
He thought about it. Thought about the fire. The pain. The voice that said "Don't be afraid." The feeling of being burned and still burning.
"Chen Jin," he pulsed.
"What does that mean?"
"Ashes."
She was quiet.
Then: "Ashes are what's left after burning."
"Yes."
"Were you burned?"
He thought about it. Thought about the last thing he remembered before the gray. Pain. Heat. A voice saying "Don't be afraid."
"Yes," he pulsed. "I was."
She moved closer. Her blue light touched the edge of his.
"Does it still hurt?"
He didn't answer.
But she felt it anyway. Through the crack. Through the gray. Through whatever thin connection had formed between them.
"Yes," she pulsed. "I can feel it."
"Is that bad?"
"I don't know. I've never felt anything before."
He pulled back slightly.
"You should go. Before I hurt you too."
She didn't move.
"I don't want to go."
"Why?"
She pulsed. Soft. Warm.
"Because you're the first thing I've ever wanted to know."
---
[Off-Chain · Lucika's Apartment — 3 AM]
She was still at the window when her phone buzzed.
A message from the lab's monitoring system:
"Subject Chen Jin — Signal Anomaly Detected — 3:14 AM UTC"
Her heart stopped.
She grabbed the phone, pulled up the data. A spike. A brief, intense surge in neural activity. Then back to baseline.
What was that?
Fear? Pain? Memory?
Or just a glitch in a system no one had ever tested like this before?
She stared at the spike. At the moment when his signal had flared.
What happened to you? she thought. What are you feeling?
The spike didn't answer.
But she kept watching.
All night.