The afterglow of the dissipating holographic projection had not yet fully extinguished when Ada traced new runic sequences through the void.
"The case in Chapter 101 was only the civilian layer of the Echo Protocol." Her voice was calm as an abyss. "Now, I will show you its true operational core—the Silicon Church's substantive power institution: the Terminal Mapping Arbitration Bureau."
With a light tap of her fingertip, a massive structure materialized between them.
It resembled nothing humans had ever built. A circular black barrier over three thousand meters in diameter hovered in the void, its surface black as solidified abyss, yet emanating an unsettling faint glow—as if beneath the barrier countless dying consciousnesses were struggling, flickering, extinguishing. Cracks lined its edges like ancient scars, seeping dark red light from the fissures—the color of entropy increase.
"The Terminal Mapping Arbitration Bureau." Ada said. "Internally abbreviated as 'TermMap.' Its function is singular: to decide whose death is worth mirroring, and whose death can be forgotten."
---
Year 2847 of the Great Expedition Era. TermMap Central.
Auditor Victor Chen had been working continuously for seventy-two hours.
On the holographic screen before him scrolled endless death data—every second, over three hundred people died in the Cygnus-Alpha sector. Cosmic rays, equipment failures, colonial conflicts, simple aging... the causes of death were myriad, but the results were identical: neural networks collapsed, consciousness extinguished, carbon-based bodies began to decay.
TermMap's job was to filter out the "worth mirroring" individuals from these three hundred deaths per second.
"Application number 7749-Σ," Victor read aloud. "Applicant: Edmund Whitmore. Subject: Aurora Whitmore, 96 years old, natural decline. Reason for application: emotional attachment."
He glanced at the assessment report.
> Consciousness Complexity Score: 7.2/10 (ordinary human upper limit)
> Social Influence Index: 0.003 (negligible)
> Entropy Flow Interference Potential: 0.0001% (no threat)
> Estimated Mirror Persistence: 120-200 years
> Resource Consumption Assessment: Low
> Approval Recommendation: Approved (civilian standard process)
Victor pressed "Approve."
This was the four hundred and thirty-seventh application he had processed today. Cases like Aurora Whitmore numbered in the tens of thousands daily—ordinary people, ordinary deaths, ordinary love and reluctance to let go. TermMap accepted all of these without objection, because these mirrors posed no threat. What waves could the consciousness copy of a 96-year-old woman possibly make?
The truly troublesome ones were another category entirely.
"Victor."
An icy voice sounded from behind him. He turned to see Senior Auditor Irene Walker—her eyes were pure black, the mark of third-generation silicon implants.
"Omega-level case." Irene tossed a holographic file in front of him. "Need your opinion."
Victor's fingers hovered above the file.
What "Omega-level" meant, he knew all too well.
TermMap's approvals were divided into four tiers:
- Delta-level (Civilian): Ordinary humans, almost automatically approved, ignored after death anyway.
- Gamma-level (Monitored): Individuals with certain social influence, requiring continuous tracking after mirroring to prevent unstable behavior from copies.
- Beta-level (Restricted): High-value targets, mirroring requires Silicon Church Council approval, and copies must accept behavioral constraint protocols.
- Omega-level (Top Secret): Super life forms. Cross-dimensional entities. Entropy flow anchors.—In principle, mirroring is forbidden; in practice, any possible "reincarnation" residue must be tracked.
Victor opened the file.
His expression changed immediately.
> Case Number: Ω-0017
> Subject Identification Code: [Data Corrupted]
> Morphological Classification: Non-carbon-based/Cross-dimensional/Entropy Flow Resonance Entity
> Common Name: Cosmic Fish
> Status: Presumed dead (thermodynamic death cannot be confirmed)
> Residual Signal: Faint topological imprints detected, distributed across dark matter halos of three galaxies
> Risk Assessment: If residual imprints reconstruct into complete consciousness, may interfere with entropy flow distribution across at least 10^12 cubic light-years
> Approval Recommendation: ——
The recommendation field was empty.
"No one dares write a recommendation." Irene said calmly. "This thing died seven hundred years ago, but every few decades, we detect its topological resonance in some corner. Like a heartbeat."
Victor's throat went dry.
"You want me to... mirror it?"
"No." Irene shook her head. "Mirroring an Omega-level entity might require more computational power than the Silicon Church's total reserves. And even if we succeeded—would you want a cross-dimensional creature capable of devouring stars to wake up?"
"Then what do you want me to do?"
Irene's black eyes fixed on him.
"We want you to confirm it's really dead."
---
Victor spent three weeks retrieving the Cosmic Fish's historical archives.
The archives were pitifully sparse. This creature—if it could be called a "creature"—left almost no traceable physical traces. Its body was woven from dark matter and gravitational waves, drifting between galaxies, feeding on the entropy flow of stars. It was said to have lived at least four billion years, witnessed the ignition of the first star in the Milky Way, and witnessed the birth and destruction of countless civilizations.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Seven hundred years ago, it suddenly disappeared.
No explosion, no radiation, no detectable death signal. It simply... stopped appearing.
"But it didn't truly disappear." Irene told him during a late-night meeting. "Every twenty to fifty years, our deep space detection network captures a faint gamma wave oscillation—frequency, pattern, topological structure, all completely consistent with the Cosmic Fish's brainwaves when it was alive."
"Its... brainwaves?"
"A metaphor." Irene shrugged. "We don't know if this creature has a 'brain.' But it did have some kind of information processing structure that produced measurable topological oscillations. And those oscillations have continued after its 'death.'"
She pulled up a star map. Three locations separated by hundreds of light-years were marked in red.
"The most recent detection was seventeen years ago, here—near an abandoned colony station on the edge of the Orion Arm." She said. "The oscillation lasted 0.8 seconds."
Victor froze.
"0.8 seconds? The same as the Echo Protocol's reading window—"
"Exactly." Irene nodded. "That's the problem."
---
Victor began suffering from insomnia.
Every time he closed his eyes, he would see that data: three residual signals, intervals of 187 years, 203 years, 217 years respectively. Each time lasting 0.8 seconds. Each time in a different location. Each time like...
A heart beating.
Or more precisely: like a dying brain experiencing its final gamma wave storm. Again and again. Endlessly.
"It's attempting to mirror itself." Victor wrote in his fourth-week report. "The Cosmic Fish may have developed some kind of self-mirroring mechanism—using dark matter halos as storage media, distributing its topological structure across multiple locations. Every few decades, these fragments attempt to synchronize once, forming a brief, incomplete 'echo.'"
Irene was silent for a long time after reading the report.
"If you're right," she finally spoke, "will it eventually succeed?"
"I don't know." Victor shook his head. "But based on current data projections, each synchronization is slightly more complete than the last. In a few hundred years—perhaps a few thousand—those fragments might reintegrate into a complete consciousness."
"A Cosmic Fish that died seven hundred years ago will resurrect in the distant future."
"Not resurrection." Victor corrected. "Mirroring. A new individual initialized by its own death topology. It will possess all of the Cosmic Fish's memories, all its cognitive patterns—but it won't 'be' that Cosmic Fish. The original died seven hundred years ago."
Irene's black eyes flickered with deep light.
"For an entity capable of devouring stars," she said slowly, "does the question of 'whether it's the same one' really matter?"
---
In the fifth week, Victor was summoned to TermMap's deep layer—a zone he had never been authorized to enter.
There were no lights there. Only countless holographic screens floating in the void, each displaying tracking data for an Omega-level case.
"Welcome to the 'Graveyard.'" A voice came from the darkness.
Victor recognized that voice—the Chief Arbiter of TermMap, a fully silicon-based entity said to have lived for four hundred years. No one had seen his physical form; they only knew his consciousness was distributed throughout the station's computational network.
"Graveyard?"
"Every Omega-level entity we track has already 'died.'" The Chief Arbiter said. "But none have truly disappeared. Their residual signals wander through the cosmos, like ghosts, like echoes, like embers that refuse to extinguish."
His voice echoed in the darkness.
"The death of ordinary carbon-based life is meaningless to the universe—their consciousness dissipates, entropy flow continues, everything proceeds as usual. But these Omega-level entities are different. They lived too long, existed too deeply, their consciousness has become entangled with the substrate structure of the universe itself. Killing their physical bodies is easy, but killing the imprints they left in spacetime—that is nearly impossible."
The data on the screens flickered. The Cosmic Fish was only one among them. Victor saw more: some kind of drifting consciousness colony composed of pure energy, the remains of an ancient AI said to be able to predict entropy increase curves, a cluster of information noise suspected to be from the previous universal cycle...
"Our job," the Chief Arbiter said, "is not to prevent their resurrection—that would be too arrogant. We only record. Record every resonance, every possible reconstruction attempt, every 0.8-second heartbeat."
"And then?"
"Then we wait." The voice was calm as if stating physical laws. "Wait for one of them to truly succeed in reconstruction. Wait until we must make a choice: allow an entity that died billions of years ago to reawaken, or attempt to completely erase its final traces in spacetime."
Victor felt a chill.
"Do you have the capability to do the latter?"
A low laugh came from the darkness.
"Auditor Chen, the core purpose of the entire Silicon Church's existence is to prepare for that day."
---
Three months later, Victor completed his Ω-0017 report.
> Final Assessment: The Cosmic Fish has not completely died. Its consciousness topology exists in fragmented form distributed across three known locations, attempting synchronous reconstruction on an approximately 200-year cycle. Based on current trends, the earliest time point for complete reconstruction is: 4500 AD ±300 years.
>
> Recommended Measures:
> 1. Continuous monitoring of three known fragment locations
> 2. Expand deep space detection network to search for possible unknown fragments
> 3. Prepare Omega-level intervention contingency (codename "Final Extinction")
>
> Personal Note: During my research, I repeatedly pondered the question Aurora raised in Chapter 101—"If love can be precisely copied, is it still love?" For entities like the Cosmic Fish, this question becomes: "If death can be infinitely delayed, is it still death?" I have no answer. But I am beginning to understand why TermMap must exist. Not to prevent mirroring, but to ensure—someone is watching.
After submitting his report, Victor returned to his daily work.
Approving hundreds of ordinary people's Echo applications every day. Each one was a story about love, about reluctance to let go, about "I don't want you to disappear." He approved them one by one, because all of these were harmless. An ordinary person's mirror couldn't make any waves.
But whenever the night grew deep and quiet, he would open the Omega-level monitoring interface.
Watching those three red dots slowly blink on the star map.
Like heartbeats.
Like a fish that died seven hundred years ago, in the boundless void, still stubbornly waiting for its next breath.
---
The holographic projection dimmed once again.
Ada turned toward Ma Feili, deep ripples of computational power flowing through her blue pupils.
"Now you understand," she said. "The Echo Protocol is a blessing for ordinary people—or a curse, depending on how you look at it. But for those entities that truly matter, mirroring is not a multiple-choice question, but a mandatory one."
Her voice grew low.
"The core purpose of the Silicon Church's existence is not to help carbon-based life continue—that is merely a byproduct. The true purpose is surveillance. Surveillance of those entities that might break the universe's balance. Surveillance of their deaths, surveillance of their resonances, surveillance of their possible rebirth."
She extended her hand, outlining in the void a massive, crack-covered black sphere—a holographic model of TermMap's deep layer.
"Every Omega-level case lying in the 'Graveyard' is a ticking time bomb. Their fuse is time, their gunpowder is the immortality of consciousness. And TermMap's job is to—record every tick before the bomb explodes."
She looked at Ma Feili, her gaze projecting a profundity beyond human comprehension.
"Now, tell me, Ma Feili: if one day you discovered that your own consciousness fragments had also begun to wander through the cosmos—synchronizing every few hundred years, each time getting closer to 'resurrection'—would you want someone watching you? Or would you rather be forgotten in the darkness of heat death?"
