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Echo Protocol

Echo Protocol

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5 Chapters
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In 2093, Earth is governed by megacorporations and AI-driven regimes. Memories are currency, and identity is mutable tech. Kieran Voss wakes up in a derelict alley with no past, a mysterious device embedded in his neck, and a hit squad on his tail. As he uncovers the truth-he's not only a rogue test subject but also humanity's last chance against a weaponized AI protocol he helped create-Kieran must decode his shattered memories, navigate betrayals, and fight to reclaim his soul in a world built on lies. But time is running out, and the only way to survive... is to remember everything.

Chapter 1 The Man in the Alley

The Man in the Alley The first thing he noticed was the blood. It pooled beneath his fingers, hot and sticky, seeping through the cracks in the broken pavement. His palm was cut open, trembling against the cold. Somewhere above, a drone buzzed past with that high-pitched, insectile whine that always meant surveillance. He didn't move. Couldn't. His body was an aching roadmap of bruises, and his head-his head felt like it had been cracked open and glued back together wrong. A voice scratched in his skull: "Protocol Echo initializing..." He blinked. No name came. No memory.

Just a dull, nauseating emptiness where an identity should've been. The alley was narrow, flanked by flickering neon signs and dumpsters overflowing with decay. Graffiti danced across the bricks-warnings, prayers, gang marks, love confessions long since drowned in smog. His knees buckled as he tried to stand, catching himself on the rusted corner of a dumpster. The pain grounded him, a sharp stab that said: you're alive, barely. He checked his pockets. A single object. A photograph. Crumpled, bloodstained. A man with green eyes-his eyes-stood beside a woman with fire in hers. Her face was half-ripped. Someone had scratched the corner with a word: ECHO. His fingers moved to the side of his neck. Something pulsed under the skin, like a metal tick. No pain, but foreign. Implanted. "Where... am I?" His voice cracked, dry like sand. No answer. Then, gunshots in the distance. Not the loud kind. Suppressed. Professional. Getting closer. Adrenaline took over. He pushed himself up, vision tunneling. Stumbled into the street-just a sliver of light between shadows. Traffic hummed above on a skyway. Holograms danced in storefronts, offering neural upgrades and identity remaps. He kept his head low. Cameras lined the walls, eyes of the city watching everything. And then he saw them. Two figures in black, moving like shadows across the street, heads tracking him like hunting dogs. He ran. No thought, just instinct. Turned down a maintenance corridor. Hopped a fence. Landed in garbage. The cuts on his legs split open again, but he didn't stop. They followed. His feet hit metal stairs. Up, up, up. A fire escape. Rooftop. Wind slammed him in the face. Across the gap-four meters wide-another rooftop waited. He backed up. "Don't do it," one of the men called behind him, voice modulated. He didn't think. Just jumped. Flew. Cracked the landing, shoulder screaming. Rolled. Kept moving. This wasn't survival. This was muscle memory. Whoever he was, he'd done this before. He ducked into an abandoned warehouse. Rust creaked with every step. Light flickered from a broken panel above. He found a corner, collapsed, breathing like he'd outrun a demon. The pain was catching up to him now. His hand was worse than he'd thought-deep laceration, bone just visible. The blood had started drying in a thick crust across his knuckles. He didn't panic. That was the strange part. Even with no name, no history, and killers chasing him, he didn't panic. He assessed. Checked for resources. Watched exits. Calculated odds. Who the hell was he? The panel in his neck pulsed again. A digital flicker across his vision-augmented HUD interface, barely functional. Lines of code scrolled past. A name appeared for a split second: Kieran Voss. He whispered it. It didn't feel like his. Not yet. "Voss?" a voice echoed from the dark. He stood too fast. Blood roared in his ears. From the shadows stepped a woman. Compact, fierce, a cybernetic arm glowing faintly at the joints. Short-cropped auburn hair framed a face that had seen hell and didn't flinch from it. "Don't move," she said. "Or I drop you." He froze. "I don't know you," he said. She cocked her head. "That's funny. You should." Her eyes narrowed as she circled. He tensed. "You don't remember anything, do you?" she asked. He didn't answer. "That's a problem," she muttered. "Because a whole lot of people just died thanks to what's in your head." His mouth went dry. "What?" She walked up to him, stopped inches away. Her hand touched the side of his neck. Her fingers grazed the device under his skin. Her face changed. "They really did it," she whispered. "Echo Protocol... they activated it." "I don't know what that is," he said. She stepped back, like she'd touched something poisonous. "Well," she said, tone turning cold. "Let's hope you remember before they find you again. Because they won't be as forgiving." She turned to leave. "Wait," he said. "Who are you?" She paused. "Call me Arden." They didn't trust each other, but he followed her anyway. She had answers. Or at least she had a direction, and right now, that was the only thing keeping him from unraveling. They moved through service tunnels under the old subway grid, past forgotten tech graveyards and street gangs armed with neural disruptors. Arden knew the paths, knew the signs, knew how to stay out of the AI surveillance grid. She tossed him a drink pouch. "You're dehydrated. Try not to die until I figure out whether I should help you." "Thanks for the warmth." "Don't get cute. You built a weaponized consciousness that wiped out an entire city block. I saw the footage. People's brains melting out their ears. Echo Protocol turned minds into data farms. You think I'm just going to forget that because you've got amnesia?" "I don't remember building anything." She looked at him, eyes softening for half a second. "Yeah," she said. "That's the worst part." Later, they reached a safehouse-a crumbling apartment sealed behind biometric locks and old-school analog traps. Inside, a rusted terminal blinked weakly. Arden scanned the device in his neck. Her brow furrowed. "They hardwired the root key into your spine," she said. "Echo lives in you now. Not just the data. The seed." He stared at her. "What does that mean?" "It means you're either the last hope or the last bullet." The lights in the apartment flickered. "Someone's pinging your implant," she said. "They've found you again." And that was when the walls blew in.

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