The Last Archivist - Chapters 10 through 12
The Last Archivist - Chapters 10 through 12
Chapter 10
Kaine didn’t chase. He didn’t have to.
The floor shifted. Panels slid open. Drones dropped from the ceiling—small, black, fast. Their lenses glowed blue.
“DOWN!” Rowan yelled. A beam fired. Elias dove. The beam sliced through a memory cylinder behind him—
It exploded. Instantly, the air filled with voices. Screams. Laughter. A thousand stolen moments breaking loose at once.
Elias covered his ears. “What is that?!”
“Loose memories!” Rowan shouted. “Don’t let them hit you—they’ll flood your mind!”
Another drone fired. Rowan grabbed Elias and dragged him through a side door just as the beam hit. They slammed into the control room. Doors sealed behind them.
Silence. Sweet silence.
Elias gasped for air.
“That—what—”
“No time,” Rowan said. “This is it.”
At the center of the room— A massive column of light pulsed upward through the ceiling. Streams of data flowed into it like rivers.
“The Core,” Rowan said. “You wanted to get here. Now, what’s your plan?”
Elias stared. “This controls everything?”
Rowan nodded. “Every scan. Every stored memory. Every deletion. What’s the plan?”
Elias, “I’m working on it.” Rowan sputtered, then launched into a string of colorful curses.
Elias stepped closer. The light hummed—louder than anything else in the Archive. He reached out.
“Wait—!” Rowan started.
Too late. Rowan shook his head. He was certain it would overload Elias’s mind.
Elias touched it. The world shattered. He saw everything. People laughing— Then those moments cut short. A child crying— then memory erased. A man standing up to speak— His courage deleted.
Thousands.
Millions.
Memories separated from the ones chosen for preservation.
Curated.
Controlled.
Elias staggered back.
“They’re rewriting everyone,” Elias whispered. “Everyone.”
Rowan nodded. “Now you understand.”
The door behind them exploded open.
Kaine walked in. Still calm. Still perfect.
“You shouldn’t have touched that,” Kaine said. Officers flooded in behind him. Drones hovered above.
No escape. “Step away from the Core,” Kaine said.
Elias looked at Rowan. Rowan shook his head once. No surrender.
Elias turned back to the Core.
“You can’t stop us,” Kaine said.
Elias smiled. “Maybe not,” he said. He placed both hands on the Core.
Kaine’s voice sharpened. “STOP HIM!”
Chapter 11
Officers rushed forward. Elias closed his eyes. And let go. Not just one memory.
Not just fear. Everything. Every stored thought they could track. Every piece of himself the system could read—Gone.
The Core flickered.
⸻
Error.
⸻
Error.
⸻
ERROR.
⸻
The system screamed. Glass shattered, drones dropped. The Archive shifted into emergency containment mode. A clear wall slammed into place before the officers could reach them. The boys were trapped inside with the Core.
And the Core was failing, but still in control.
Elias was still standing. Still touching it.
Rowan stared at the failing Core.
“Elias…what did you do?”
The light inside the Core flickered wildly—like it couldn’t decide what it was anymore. Streams of memory data stuttered, froze… then reversed.
Elias didn’t answer right away. Because he could still feel it.
“It’s trying to read me,” he said.
Rowan stared at him.
“What?”
“The Core works by scanning minds,” Elias said quickly. “It copies memories, tracks patterns, stores everything people think and feel.”
“Most people hold onto things,” Elias said. “Something embarrassing. Something painful. Something important.”
“Their minds replay it. Attach emotion to it. The memory gets stronger.” He looked at the Core.
“But I learned to let things go. Something happens, and I don’t keep feeding it.”
“The memory fades before the system can lock onto it.”
Another surge of light blasted outward.
Kaine staggered on the other side of the glass structure, but stayed upright. For the first time, the calm mask was gone. Rage burned in Kaine’s eyes.
“So?” Rowan said.
Elias looked down at his hands. “They built it to collect memories,” he said. “But it needs something to lock onto.”
Rowan blinked.
“A mind,” he said slowly.
Elias nodded. “When I touched it with one hand,” Elias continued, “it showed me stored memories.”
He swallowed. “But when I used both…”
The Core screamed—high-pitched, unstable. “I became the source.”
Kaine’s eyes widened. "No!” he screamed, “That’s not possible!”
Elias looked at him.
“You said it yourself,” Elias said. “The system reads people.”
“And I'm the anomaly."
He lifted his hands slightly—but didn’t let go.
“It tried to read me,” he said. “And there was nothing to read.”
Silence.
Rowan understood first.
“You gave it… nothing,” Rowan said.
Elias nodded. “I didn’t just hide my memories,” he said. “I let them go.”
Chapter 12
The Core pulsed violently. “Every time it tried to scan me, it couldn’t find anything stable,” Elias said.
“No fear. No regret. No recorded thought it could store or control.”
The light fractured, splitting into wild, uncontrolled streams.
“So it broke,” Rowan said.
Elias shook his head. “Not exactly.”
He looked back at the Core. “It tried to fix itself.”
The energy surged again—stronger this time.
“It reached out,” Elias said. “To everything else it had stored.”
Rowan’s eyes widened. “All the memories,” he whispered.
Elias nodded.
“It's trying to stabilize by using them,” Elias said. “But without a control pattern… without something to organize them…”
The Core erupted in blinding light.
“They weren’t stored anymore,” Elias said.
The Core collapsed inward and exploded outward. Cylinders cracked apart, sending tremors through endless rows of shelves.
“What did you DO?!” Kaine shouted. "You can't shut this down! Listen to me! If the system collapses, people will drown in what they’ve forgotten!”
Elias opened his eyes. Calm.
“You said it yourself,” Elias said. “You can’t control what you can’t see. People have the right to figure out their past. Control is not the perfect answer.”
The Core surged again.
Containment failed.
Control failed.
One by one, then all at once, the cylinders shattered.
Light erupted from every broken cylinder.
Memories flooded out. The force knocked everyone back.
Elias hit the ground—
Hard—
But laughing.
Rowan grabbed him.
“MOVE!” he shouted. "The doors are opening, we need out NOW!"
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