Page 43 of Lost Echoes
The words hit like a blow. My hands hover over the keyboard, trembling. Innocent kids going through all of that right now, this very moment.
Luke swears under his breath. “They’re not just covering tracks, they’re cleaning house.”
Phoenix sends another message:
If they know we’re collecting, they’ll come for us next. But the deletions aren’t random. They’re targeting specific dates, specific profiles. I think… I think they’re erasing evidence of active sites.
The cursor blinks.
Phoenix again:
Which means kids are still in those sites. Right now.
The room tilts, my throat closes. “I can’t believe that’s still happening. Why hasn’t anyone stopped it?”
Luke squeezes my hand, gaze locked on the screen. “I have no idea, but it’s exactly what we’ve been circling. They never stopped. They just go to greater lengths to hide it.”
GhostNode:
We need to move fast. I can hold a few deletions, but the server’s aggressive—automated wipes every fifteen minutes. If we don’t mirror now, entire pieces vanish forever.
Phoenix:
They know we’re here. The others?—
The message cuts off.
Another line appears, jagged, unfinished.
They’re onto?—
And then nothing.
Silence.
The chat room hangs, each username still lit but no one typing. The empty space feels like a held breath before the crash of something we can’t outrun.
Luke’s voice is barely a whisper. “If they’re on to Phoenix, then they’re on to all of us.”
I can’t stop staring at the screen, waiting for the next line.
But it doesn’t come.
“Don’t freeze.” Luke’s fingers blur across the keys, firing up the backup systems we set after Phoenix’s first warning. “We’ve got fifteen minutes, maybe less, before the server clears everything Ghost held.”
I snap back into motion, routing the mirror chains through the secondary accounts. The screen fills with strings of code and filenames, like lifeboats being thrown into the water.
GhostNode’s message bursts onto the thread:
Holding four directories—medical, intake logs, financial ledgers, and one labeled “Project E.” Need redundancy NOW.
“I’ll do intake,” I mutter, downloading chunks into encrypted slices. My throat’s so dry I can barely breathe. “Luke, grab financials. They’ll tie to the grants we found.”
“On it.”
The progress bars crawl like molasses. Every second feels like a countdown to obliteration.
Compass14:
