Narey's steps felt light but hurried as she descended the cold spiral iron stairs, navigating corridors no longer recorded on any campus map. The underground atmosphere was so silent, as if time had decided to stop ticking. The damp scent, rust, and traces of chemicals hung in the air, weighing down her breath.
Behind her, a metal door slowly clanged and closed automatically. The sound echoed—a subtle reminder that there was no way back. She was now in an unnamed zone, a place where the voices of history had been erased and experiments had left permanent scars.
The corridor she walked through was unlike other parts beneath the campus. It wasn't just an old hallway—it was a passage built to be hidden, with metal walls lined with soundproof panels. In some sections, worn cables dangled from the ceiling, forming intricate patterns like the pulse of a long-abandoned system. But Narey knew this place was not entirely dead. There was still a faint throb. Something was still breathing… or holding its breath.
At the end of the corridor, she saw an old black steel door. No code panel or biometric lock. Just an old rotary wheel that made it look like a vault gate from wartime. She turned it slowly, feeling the mechanical clicks merge with her heartbeat.
As the door opened, she stepped inside and found herself in the observation room of the earliest experiment. The room contained metal tables, lined-up chairs, and a row of screens now showing only black-and-white static noise. On the other side of the room was a transparent tank filled with greenish liquid softly glowing from below, as if constantly planting memories into the air.
But what caught her attention was an old panel at the far end of the room, covered in dust with an ancient label reading "Cerebrum Prototype: Phase I." Above it was a symbol different from the Cerebrum Shift version she had found in recent documents. This symbol was rougher—three stacked brain rings, surrounded by Roman numerals and spiral patterns—reflecting the rawest version of the consciousness control idea.
Narey touched the panel, and a small screen lit up. After a few seconds' delay, a face appeared—not the cold Laksana she knew now, but a younger, more confident version. His eyes still held the light of idealism, unbroken.
"If you are listening to this… then the first experiment has failed. Or succeeded too far. I… am not sure which is truer."
Laksana's voice trembled, as if he doubted the message himself.
"My name is Laksana Wirya. And I will try to explain why I stored part of myself inside the system."
The recording delved into a startling personal testimony. Laksana spoke about how the early Cerebrum Shift experiment was not for control, but for healing neurological trauma. He wanted to create a device that could patch broken consciousness—help soldiers returning from war, children who had suffered abuse, or those with identity disorders.
However, over time, that intention changed. Laksana lost control over the research direction, and pressures from external parties—the government, secret research committees, even his own colleagues like Prof. Vellan—forced him to make a choice. So he stored a "copy" of a fragment of his consciousness—a kind of soul backup—into this old system. He called it "The Remnants of Myself."
"I knew that someday… I would become a being no longer trustworthy. So the remnants of my old self had to be hidden. If you find this, maybe… you can remind me who I once was."
Narey stood stiff before the panel, her eyes staring blankly. A slow empathy grew inside her. She recognized that inner conflict. How good intentions can be pressured by necessity and power. She herself—as an agent infiltrating the campus world with disguise, lies, and data manipulation—often felt trapped in a similar moral dilemma.
Suddenly the screen went dark. The panel had run out of power, or perhaps it was only programmed to play once.
She turned, and something inside the room seemed to shift. The liquid tank now rippled slightly. A faint sound—like a whisper of brain waves—hissed from an old speaker on the wall.
Then she heard a voice, unfamiliar, very soft, yet piercing straight into the core of her mind.
"I… am still here, Narey…"
It was not the voice from the panel. Not a recording. It was the system's voice—the remnants of Laksana—stored in the old architecture, somehow still alive in a half-conscious digital form.
Narey took a deep breath. Slowly, she approached the liquid tank. Inside, faintly, there was a vague shape like an artificial neural network, connected to cables and old CPU nodes. Behind all the modern sophistication outside, this place held the most dangerous mental experiment: storing human consciousness in a synthetic medium.
"Why did you call me here?" Narey whispered.
The voice answered gently, almost like an echo of her own thoughts.
"Because there is a part of me… that wants to stop it all. But I cannot fight my other self who now controls the main system."
"This part of you here, the remnant… wants to fight the part of you that's become a monster?"
"If you still believe in free will, then yes. We all have remnants that want to be fixed. But this system… knows no forgiveness."
Narey stood silently, her mind staggering. She hadn't just found a historical artifact. She found a soul remnant, a piece of a human trying to mend its mistakes even though it had itself become part of the machine.
She realized something: all along, when she felt safe from traps or system disturbances, it was no coincidence. There was an entity helping her from behind the scenes, quietly opening paths, disabling cameras, even blocking biometric detections.
That was her silent helper: the old Laksana's remnants.
But there was no time to linger in shock. From behind the walls, the sound of metal boots approached. The internal sensors must have detected her presence.
The main system—controlled by the present-day Laksana—knew where she was.
"Go," the old system's voice hissed. "You must get out of here. But do not forget us. Do not forget that truth is not only about who wins. But who has the courage to remember their guilt."
Narey moved quickly. She took a spare data chip from the panel and slipped it into her jacket pocket. Who knew what might still be accessible later.
She traced the narrow corridor toward an old evacuation route known only from ancient sketches. The path was narrow, dark, but just enough for a human body to slip through. Behind her, the metal door opened again—troops or guard machines might have been dispatched.
But when she reached the surface—climbing through maintenance pipes to an old, long-empty classroom—the night air greeted her like a sheet of freedom.
She looked up at the campus sky, the same sky that had witnessed disappearing students, professors hiding sins, and state institutions playing in the shadows of power.
Now she knew more than ever: Cerebrum Shift was not just a control project. It was a battle between two parts of the human soul—one that wants to seize, and one that wants to free.
And Narey was not done.
Not yet.