Code Name: Echo

Chapter 4 - The Protocol Key

The next morning, Aria was different.

Not visibly. She still limped slightly from sparring drills. She still avoided eye contact in the cafeteria, where trainees eyed each other like rival wolves. But inside, something had changed.

She knew now.

Her mother hadn't abandoned her.

She had built something - something hidden in code, buried in silence, waiting for Aria to unlock.

---

Simulation Lab, Tier Zero

Rhea watched from the upper deck as Aria entered the VR vault again, this time with full equipment. Her stress responses were already below regulation levels. Most recruits took months to stabilize after that kind of trauma.

Aria had taken a week.

"She's adapting," a technician whispered beside Rhea.

"No," Rhea murmured. "She's remembering."

The simulation started.

A rainy alley. A black van. Three hostiles.

Aria didn't hesitate this time. She moved like smoke. Precise. Fast. She subdued the first attacker with a disarm taught only in Level Four training - something she was never supposed to know.

When the test ended, the trainer looked up at Rhea, confused. "She just accessed a Tier Three combat route."

"Without being cleared for it," another muttered.

Rhea only smiled faintly.

"She's Evelyn's daughter."

---

Later That Night

Aria sat on the metal floor of her room, staring at the microchip again. The tablet screen now glowed with static patterns - not random, but rhythmic, like pulses. Every few hours it unlocked a fragment:

> E.L.N. = Evelyn Lane Neural

She wasn't just her daughter.

She was the backup.

Aria was born with modified memory encryption - designed to store intelligence Evelyn couldn't risk uploading to any system. It was why her childhood had felt off. Why she had headaches every time someone mentioned her mother's work. Evelyn had programmed her - not to be a weapon, but to carry the blueprint of something called Echo.

The file decrypted further:

> Echo isn't a program. It's a plan.

> Phase One: Recruit the inheritor.
Phase Two: Unlock the key.
Phase Three: Break the mirror.

---

Training Field - Three Days Later

Kade watched Aria from across the obstacle course, his expression unreadable. He had seen her fail, bleed, cry in silence. But now?

She was clean, focused, calculating. No more wasted motion. No more doubt.

"You're hiding something," he said during partner drills.

"Everyone is," she answered.

They fought. He pressed her hard, and for the first time, she struck back like she wanted to win - not survive.

When she pinned him, his breath hitched. Her eyes were fire now. And for a second, the room faded. It was just the two of them. No cameras. No code. Just breath and distance.

He smiled slightly. "You're not afraid anymore."

"No," she said. "Now I'm angry."

---

Final Scene - Underground Archive

At midnight, Aria crept through the auxiliary tunnel, bypassing motion sensors and camera feeds. The memory in her blood told her where to go - down three levels, through the restricted vault marked ARCHIVE B13.

She used her fingerprint.

Then her voice.

Then the fragment chip.

The door opened.

Inside was a room of glass walls and silver machines, humming with quiet life. A massive server in the center bore her mother's name.

A final message blinked onto the nearest console:

> Aria, if you're seeing this... Phase Two has begun. Echo was never about revenge. It's about rebuilding. But to do that... you have to destroy what made you.
- E

Aria's reflection stared back at her in the black glass.

For the first time, she didn't look like a child anymore.

She looked like a threat.

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