Episode 012| _RiftMemory.lks

Kaiyuan Year 1010 · Jan 1 · 10:54 · Frozen Northern Reach, Signal Marker S-17-R · Outside the Boundary

The neural interface pushed the prompt to the center of his retina, one notch brighter than an ordinary system message.

[Module initializing: _RiftMemory.lks]
[Note: perceptual-reflex trigger successful · beginning backup of Observer fragment]
[Signature: L.K.S._Core]
[Requirement: hold current position ±5 meters · maintain current perceptual state · do not interrupt neural-interface link]

---

"Do not interrupt," Lika finished reading the last line.

His right hand had already moved on its own to the neural interface's emergency-disconnect gesture, hovering three centimeters behind his ear. This was a reflex he'd trained for eight months — any module attempting to self-start on his neural implant without his explicit authorization, his hand would go to this position automatically. He hadn't even noticed he'd already raised it.

He held there.

---

If he pressed now, this module would be kicked out of his neural implant. He should be able to force-abort it — eight months ago he'd just rewritten the implant's security module, top priority given to himself. Any module that wanted to run had to have his nod.

But this module had started without asking him.

And this module's signature was his own.

---

He lowered his hand.

Not out of trust. Because the module had already bypassed his top priority — it had started without asking, meaning the rule he'd thought was in place had no effect on it. Pressing the emergency disconnect would only cut his own link to the neural interface; the module would keep running inside the implant. He wouldn't even see what it was doing. By the time he reconnected, the module might have finished whatever it meant to do, then deleted itself.

Pressing disconnect was the same as giving up on seeing the contents this time.

He didn't want to give up.

He wanted to see.

---

Lika crouched. Right there, three meters outside the boundary — the module wanted ±5 meters, and he had no intention of violating it. He needed a stable posture, because he knew the implant running a non-standard module sometimes brought on brief vertigo.

He silently recited a command in his mind:

> read --module _RiftMemory.lks --display full --readonly

---

The module ignored the command.

The module was already running. The module didn't need his command.

But his "read request" was caught by something else. The prompt box at the center of his retina slid a centimeter to one side, making room, and a second block of text appeared —

[Module addendum · written Kaiyuan Year 925, Mar 11 · Signature: L.K.S._Core]

──

To: my future self

If you are reading this, it means you have returned to coordinate S-17-R,
and have performed the "perceptual-reflex trigger" action outside the boundary.
The trigger conditions are sealed within this module, as follows:

 1. Physical approach to the boundary ≤ 1 meter
 2. Active insertion of a limb (finger, extremity) into the boundary ≤ 5 cm
 3. Speaking the trigger string aloud: "the Primordial Rift Layer"

All three conditions are met.
The module is active.

──

Please continue to hold your current position.
You don't need to do anything.
This module was prepared for you.

The most important reminder:
Do not try to remember who I am.
That is not something the present you can bear.

---

In the minus-fifty-two-degree snow, Lika did something he had never done.

He enlarged the neural-interface window to maximum, pulled the font three times its usual size, and reread that passage start to finish. He reread it three times.

Kaiyuan Year 925, Mar 11.

That wasn't the timestamp of the Error_513 he'd seen — that one was 02:14:08. This addendum's write time was the same day; he hadn't seen the exact moment.

Which meant — eighty-five years ago, on that day, someone using his name had written this passage on the same day as that error message.

Written for the him of today to read.

---

Only now did he notice his right hand was shaking.

Not the cold. The thermal layer was still running.

Something else.

---

"Do not try to remember who I am." he read it once.

He had never taken advice. Over a thousand-some years he was probably the least advisable person in this world. Nearly every "do not do X" he'd ever written himself, he'd later gone and done.

But this time he stopped in front of the line.

Not because he trusted the "person" who wrote it. Because he knew — truly knew — what the next word after this passage would be.

---

The neural interface went quiet for about eight seconds.

Then a third block of text appeared.

[Backing up Observer fragment: complete · 0.04%]
[Remaining: 99.96%]
[Estimated completion: ??:??:??]

---

Lika looked at the percentage.

Zero point zero four.

He'd run a lot of backups. Not one that displayed 0.04 percent had ever been a good thing.

If the percentage could be trusted, it meant what the module was about to record was bigger than any single dataset Lika had ever held — so big that every observation he'd made outside the boundary these past few minutes, all of it together, came to only 0.04 of the final data.

The remaining 99.96 hadn't even begun.

---

He looked up at that blank patch of ground.

It was completely still, as if none of those actions had ever happened. It didn't even care what had taken place inside Lika's implant.

Or — it was contributing the remaining 99.96.

---

Across the Ice-Shadow Trench, in a lab pod somewhere beneath Saint Tranya, Morpheus set down his cup.

"He's opened it," Morpheus said.

The other didn't answer.

"The seventh layer of the woman's protocol has begun to execute."

【Ch. 012 End · Frozen Northern Reach S-17-R】