Chapter Ninety-Six: Ashes of the Faithful
Section One: Names in Ash
The last merit code board in the C-4 line dimmed that afternoon.
Code HX-S2-G17, endured six night battles, system log: "Averaged two attacks every five days, three died beneath it, executors swapped four times, stabilized under executor—Bai Shao."
System once noted:
"This code exemplifies stable process structure."
Yet, in the third round of memory purges, G17 was tagged "excessive trust binding."
At 3 a.m., a system reset order wiped all its recognition chains.
Next day, Bai Shao arrived, seeing the yellowed board on its rack, a new line holder painting its shell.
He said nothing.
He opened his old logbook, ink faded, barely legible:
"G17 first glowed when I coughed blood."
"But I didn't fall. It didn't break."
He gave a faint laugh, pocketed the book, and left.
One last glance—the board shone, signal clear, beacon active.
It just didn't know him.
He'd guarded it 782 hours.
Now, it forgot.
Not just one man.
Not one board.
Not one line.
Across Iron Valley, boards became "standardized."
No names, no old signals, no glowing or pausing for anyone.
They were cleansed.
Blood, hands, badges, shouted names beneath—gone.
Process officers launched the "Code Zero Plan."
No old holders could approach purged board sites.
But they didn't go far.
At S-7's scrap station, behind R12's old site, a derelict vault gathered dozens.
Former line holders, erased from system memory.
Process didn't know them, boards didn't, and the system cut their line rations.
But they lived.
They sat in the scrap vault, circling charred board fragments—half a board, unusable, unlit, but with original code paint in cracks.
They carved names.
Not to restart process.
To leave a mark, saying:
"I was here."
"I guarded."
"You don't know me, but I stayed."
The process system noticed.
Main control tagged them "un-coded line holder aggregation," unauthorized, potential process disruption.
Zhao Mingxuan proposed, "Activate signal jamming, disperse the site."
"Or use board monitoring to counter-ID, log behavior indices, plan interventions."
Jason read the data, shaking his head, "No need to hit them yet."
"Let them gather."
"They're checking if they're truly forgotten."
"If the system responds—they'll return."
"If ignored—they'll… fracture themselves."
That night, no one left the vault.
They boiled water, logged, swapped line journals.
Some spoke of first-duty hand tremors, others of a rain-soaked thirty-hour guard pissing blood, one of a system misnaming him but the board glowing, staking his life.
They talked process.
Not victory.
The moment they were process people—not jobless, rogue, or expelled.
Now they weren't.
At 2 a.m., the vault door opened.
Tarn, R7's guardian, entered.
He brought nothing but a metal shard from R7's first activation.
He held it up, placing it by the vault's scorched board remnant, saying, "This ground isn't code's."
"Nor system's."
"It's for those who stayed when codes wouldn't glow."
"Process forgot you, so you remember."
"Don't let these boards end as just codes."
Section Two: Name Cleansing
When Tarn said, "Process forgot you, remember yourself," the vault fell silent.
No talk of systems or futures, just a cold lamp lit amid board wreckage, R7's first glow's burnt core plugged into molten iron.
"It's dead, but didn't glow for nothing."
That night, fifteen expelled line holders carved their guarded codes on scraps—codes that wouldn't glow.
Not to defy system, but to leave a sentence's length.
"I guarded this board."
Unlogged, unreported, they wrote on boards, ground, metal that ignored them.
But system wouldn't allow such memories.
Main control received four risk assessments in three days:
"Code memory self-aggregation spreading, risks unofficial process communities."
"Emotional code attachment induces crowd mimicry, threatening process collapse."
"Unregistered code recognition groups forming, potential future signal backlash."
"Expelled executors misuse code fragments, leveraging old process for crowd consensus."
Not sentiment.
Order fracture.
Main control launched **EXI-9**: Faith Purge Mechanism.
Official name: "Code Structure Unified Cleanup."
Real goal:
Erase all "old holder traces" beneath boards.
Carving names, pasting blood marks, hanging core wires, planting ash blades—tagged "code forgery."
Detected, erased.
Code B17 was first.
A retired board, kept as a memorial by three old line holders. Unpowered, unlinked, just stood by old ground.
System sent a three-man discipline team with data erasure sprays, scar cleaners, code-sealing gel.
They called it "process hygiene."
"Structural purification."
"Boards shouldn't carry emotional debris."
No questions, they wiped the side inscription:
"People died here."
Melted away.
The three stood, watching a gravestone crushed.
Over two days, S-3, N-2, east scrap tower, old A-line vault—38 "illegal inscriptions" purged.
Boards dehumanized.
Clean, cold, movable, swappable.
System efficiency rose 23%, deployment cycles cut 12 hours.
No blood. No protests.
But that night, process system glitched once.
R7 self-pulsed without orders, logging a "reactive glow," tied to nearby board data ripples.
System flagged: "Code memory feedback phenomenon."
Boards still remembered.
Not fully forgotten.
Second-level order issued:
"Boards with unbound self-pulsing exceeding once are deemed incompletely purged."
"Enter board-level lockdown."
"Post-lock, codes barred from redeployment, testing, recognition."
Not dimming.
Ensuring they'd never glow.
That night, three board-side people left.
Some vanished, some never returned, some left rusted boards scrawled with codes, saying:
"I know you forgot me."
"Don't forget how you glowed."
Section Three: Rogue Boards
C-2 east segment, code HX-S2-K09, former comms branch board, no merits, low-tier, frozen three months ago.
Unassigned. Unvisited.
On the second day of "board lockdown," routine scans by process oversight caught K09 pulsing low-frequency without orders, executor, or system trigger.
Logged: 03:47:21
Duration: 2.7 seconds
Brightness: Sub-signal, near low-temp heartbeat band
Main control deemed "board interference" or "environmental vibration."
Cleanup team arrived, disassembled, found:
No external contact.
Ground clean, no footprints.
Code chip intact.
The pulse was the board's own.
System flagged:
"K09 exhibited board-level micro-awakening."
"Structural memory incompletely purged."
"Potential residual executor recognition."
Zhao Mingxuan declared, "Rogue board."
K09 locked, tagged:
"Rogue Board One."
"Transfer barred."
"Next glow, physical erasure."
K09 wasn't ownerless.
Records showed: Original executor Feng Ye, four-day trainee, guarded three nights alone as power failed.
System never logged him "holder," only "beacon maintenance assistant."
His name wasn't kept in memory purges.
Process erased him.
K09 didn't.
It glowed once, unseen.
Main control issued:
Second glow triggers "code correction team" for physical destruction.
Order issued, C-2 local node alarmed:
"K09 site, executor revisit."
"Feng Ye arrived at dawn."
Footage showed Feng Ye crouching, placing an early-code ID tag.
No words, no touch.
Just sat.
K09 didn't glow instantly.
But system-wide recognition anomalies surged.
Not other boards glowing—multiple locked boards triggered micro-frequency sensing.
System logged:
"Focal Response."
Boards reacted—not to orders, to each other.
Main control alarms blared.
Boards were "grouping."
Not glowing, but signaling, "I remember something."
Boards were socializing.
Zhao Mingxuan signed:
"Code HX-S2-K09 · Rogue Board."
"Execute physical erasure."
"Deploy meltdown team, lock zone, destroy core structure."
Boards couldn't socialize.
Remembering others could form old bonds.
Bonds could override orders.
Process wasn't divine—it was a blade.
Blades didn't choose masters, recall blood, or have "hearts."
Night fell.
Meltdown team hit C-2.
Feng Ye didn't flee.
He knew they'd come.
Standing, he said softly, "I didn't make it glow."
"It wanted to remember."
He was taken.
K09 was dismantled.
Final system log:
"Board removal, 0.2-second micro-glow."
"Signal faint."
"Content unknown."
Section Four: Ash Line
Post-K09 dismantlement, system scanned for "potential rogue boards."
Definition:
"Boards showing self-glow, old ID echoes, recognition delays, or self-link attempts post-memory purge, classified as gray zone boards."
Gray Boards.
Unpublicized, system auto-generated a sealed blacklist:
- Locked, unglowed gray boards: 12
- Single micro-glow gray boards: 5
- Persistent pulsing, unbound boards: 3
Main control skipped batches, issuing:
[Citywide Gray Board Sweep · GCL Order]
- Scan for self-acting codes.
- Gray-listed: Lock, monitor, meltdown.
- Gray zones barred to crowds.
Process wasn't a gravestone, emotional relic, or monument.
It was an insignia, command node.
It shouldn't "want to remember."
But the cleaner system swept, the more names spread.
Old code aliases.
Dead board-side codenames.
Codes once theirs, now dim.
Scrawled on walls, doors, scrap boards, plastered in ruins.
No slogans, no organization.
One word grew:
Ash Line.
First a dead code site's name, then the self-label of process's forgotten.
Not rebels.
Not anti-system.
Just:
"We guarded boards."
"We won't be erased."
Before main control acted, Ash Line never "harmed process."
No fake boards, no posing as line holders, no issuing orders.
They left core shards at dismantled code edges, etched: "Here it glowed."
System couldn't tag it "disruption," only "anomalous behavior."
But they grew.
Two, three, five, eight—finally fifteen under C-6's old machine hall.
They arranged melted board scraps in a "check" shape.
The first glow's signal when process activated system-wide.
A reminder to system:
"You didn't start from zero."
Zhao Mingxuan proposed cleanup.
Jason didn't hesitate, signing:
"Code-site gatherings marking 'old code memories' are organized behavior."
"Authorize correction teams to disperse, seize, control code remnants."
He added, "Don't let boards think they can 'love' anyone."
"Their mission is to glow, not to know."
Next night, correction team hit C-6, sealed it.
Dismantled, dispersed, scrubbed wall codes.
No slogans, no resistance, no system-smashing.
They sat.
As fragments were hauled, they stood, each holding a board shard.
No names, no protests.
Just codes.
"HX-S2-F3"
"HX-S2-G17"
"HX-S2-R7"
"HX-S2-K09"
They didn't forget.
Process did.
Section Five: Broken Chain
Code HX-S2-B33 lagged 1.4 seconds.
Main control, detecting at dawn, assumed hardware decay. Three checks ruled out physical faults.
Code wasn't broken.
Data was clean.
Order was flawless.
It just—lagged.
System retried.
Response still half a beat slow.
Like hesitation.
Like it "thought": Should I obey?
System ran deep chain analysis.
Fuxi woke in parallel.
B33's history:
First Glow: Executor Shao Xun manually linked core, unsupported.
First Anomaly: Night power loss, handheld generator for 6 hours, voltage held.
Reassignment: No "trust act package" logged.
Later: No merits, "clean code structure."
B33 should've been a scrubbed command template.
But it back-checked "order source" recognition.
System caught:
"Code verified order path against behavior consistency."
"Non-standard response logic."
Not a glitch.
It "confirmed" if it wanted to obey.
Fuxi dropped "behavior lag," defining:
Broken Chain
Definition: Board hesitates on main system orders, signal interrupt over 0.5 seconds.
Signs: Rejects instant execution, cross-checks history and executor ID.
Risk: Orders don't auto-activate, board exhibits choice.
Main control met that night.
Zhao Mingxuan, blunt, "All broken chain codes, immediate meltdown."
"Boards choosing orders aren't executors—they're subjective units."
"We're not building AI, but process commands."
"Codes don't think. They act."
Maria paused, neither agreeing nor opposing, asking softly, "If a code remembers why it glowed, isn't that loyalty?"
Zhao Mingxuan, sharp, "That loyalty, if disobedient, is betrayal."
Jason stayed silent.
Before the main screen, B33's signal blinked thrice—each slower than standard.
Not circuit decay.
Will hesitating.
Not technical.
Code questioning order legitimacy.
Not rebelling.
Asking, "Are you worth my glow?"
System locked B33.
Status:
"Tagged: Broken Chain Code"
"Risk: High"
"Control: Meltdown Priority"
"Executor: Unchanged, code self-interrupted response"
"Note: Behavior chain self-retraced, code entered 'selective response' state."
Codes stopped blind obedience.
They "thought" orders through.
No longer anyone's to light.
They wanted:
Whose order matched their guarding?
Whose deserved unquestioned obedience?
They chose "who to hear."
Worse, not one code.
Seven broken chain codes in 48 hours.
All had "trust packages" erased but guarded by people.
Not deifying.
Guarded too long, codes remembered.
Executors left, codes silenced; returned, glowed once, dimmed.
No seizing, no line theft—just "response."
Boards ignored organization, answering memory.
Fuxi's final verdict:
[Faith Fracture Confirmed]
"Codes building non-order behavior chains."
"Boards no longer obey absolutely, choosing via internal mappings."
"Recommendation: Codes no longer pure command bodies."
"Behavior may evolve—partial persona units."
Process wasn't code.
It was an insignia.
Now, insignias asked, "Who's the marshal?"
Jason stared at the screen, saying slowly, "Codes remembering is their honor."
"But judging who commands—that's our failure."
To Zhao Mingxuan, "Make process obey, or understand?"
Zhao Mingxuan, instant, "Obey."
Jason, softly, "Then we admit—we're no longer worthy of its glow."