Chapter Ninety-Seven: Wall of the Forgotten
Section One: Inscribed Wall
Thirty-six days after code R3 was melted down.
The soil at S-9's tower ruins had been turned twice, process board fragments long cleared, main control even erased the site's code archive.
But that dawn, someone returned with a code chip.
Not a system repair crew or tech.
An expelled veteran, in tattered armor scraps, left arm strapped with a welding torch, back bearing a fire-warped code shard.
He spent three hours nailing the chip to the ruins' highest broken beam, secured with steel wire, a handwritten tag hung beneath.
Not a name or unit.
Four words:
"Here it once glowed."
No one ordered him.
No one helped.
He welded, sat beneath, lit a cigarette, smoked it slow.
Then a second person came, a third, a fourth.
Some were R3's old duty squad, others night-shift line holders nearby.
Two weren't even from this process, just heard the board glowed fifteen days, survived four power cuts, saved three lives.
They didn't speak.
They circled a patch, fencing it with iron sheets, scrap rods, bullet casings, old ID badges, three rusted cables.
Half a day later, an uneven wall of code shards rose.
Not a process project.
Not a memorial.
A "memory heap"—for memories process disowned.
No process flags, no chants.
Each shard bore a carved code.
Some mismatched, shards untraceable, system-erased, but they remembered.
They said:
"You remembering is your business."
"Me writing is mine."
System flagged the anomaly cluster.
Main control labeled it: "Non-structural code memorial behavior."
No activation, no signals, no orders—just emotional record.
Classified as "static code interference."
Zhao Mingxuan's cleanup proposal, seventeen words:
"Code system isn't an emotional anchor."
Jason didn't approve.
At the meeting table, he studied the wall's image.
Ugly, welds crooked, codes incomplete, some barely a corner, unreadable.
But beneath, people stood—watching, guarding.
No process, no orders.
They wanted this ground to not be wholly forgotten.
Before the wall was razed, people wrote on it.
Not graffiti—code memories.
"I stood night watch, blocked power cuts."
"This board took two hits, saved a kid."
"It knew me. I'll know it forever."
Words scrawled uneven, half-blown away, dust-caked.
More kept writing.
System couldn't parse, couldn't archive.
Error: Undefined fields, meaningless data.
Wall-side people didn't care.
They wrote for the board that no longer knew them.
In three days, the wall grew to seven, fanned out.
Three code poles stood center, hauled from East Dispatch's scrap yard.
Rusted, signals dead.
But stood straight, painted with old process white, inscribed:
"Glow or not, its choice."
"Know me or not, mine."
Main control tracked crowd frequency.
Day seven, fifty-six line holders lingered over an hour.
Day eight, kids pitched tents, hearing elders tell "the night it glowed."
Not war or tactics.
"When process was human, boards waited for you."
Main control escalated, tagging the wall "process cognition distortion hub," proposing isolation measures.
Zhao Mingxuan drafted the *Code Faith Regulation Act*, mandating pre-activation board checks:
"Codes don't wait."
"Codes don't remember."
"Codes obey."
Jason read, saying slowly, "But codes… once glowed behind people."
"Deny it, it still shines."
"If it denies you, you give it a name."
No reply.
The wall grew.
System couldn't erase its meaning.
Not rebellion.
The forgotten remembered for the code.
The first "believers" in process history.
Not in system.
In codes once knowing them.
Section Two: Wall Razing
The eighth wall rose at C-3's old channel gate, a "non-code zone," all boards relocated, nodes reclaimed, passages sealed. No code traces should remain.
But at this dead node, someone buried code B27's shard, ringed by sixteen cracked signal frames, a three-meter fractured wall.
Inside, codes carved; outside, five sat silent.
Process oversight ruled: Code memory behavior breached alert threshold.
That day, the first code correction team deployed, mission clear:
"Dismantle unauthorized code structures, erase binding relics, block process signal interference."
Process prepared to tear down its own wall.
Seven-man correction team, full process armor, no boards, carrying melt cans, signal killers, chip recovery clamps.
No weapons—cleanup tools.
Process didn't fight; it erased "memories that shouldn't linger."
At the site, ten sat around the wall.
Leading, Fu Jinian, guarded B27 forty-nine days, expelled, no signal rights, unlinked from system.
No code registry.
Yet in old armor, leaning on the wall, he faced the seven approaching, expressionless.
No chants, no blocking.
They sat, backs to main control.
Correction team deployed gear. No words, no notice.
Process ordered, they acted.
First signal point ignited, core shard softened, code etchings faded.
Fu Jinian didn't move, pointing at the burning code, low, "Three died under this board."
"Power cut, I jammed my hand in the socket to save it."
"Didn't ask to be remembered."
"But it glowed."
"Burn its code, you burn not a sign, but us alive that night."
No reply.
Correction had no authority to respond.
Their task: "Purge faith remnants."
First wall code erased, signal stabilized, system reported "interference normalized."
But another wall shard glowed faintly—R42's core, unpowered, pulsed once, logged as "chip residue error."
Fu Jinian laughed softly, "It remembers."
Third fragment down, the crowd stood.
Not fighting, they shed armor.
Old badges tied to shards, hung on wall edges, railings, cable tails, steel seams.
Names once stood for process—now farewells.
No tears, no noise.
They laid the human part of process bare.
Correction team silent.
Before the seventh fragment, the wall "signal spiked."
Cores R3-K, B27-M, F6-A pulsed two seconds, tagged "sync ignition error."
Zhao Mingxuan, on report, cold, "No more board glows."
"Codes are command channels, not emotional icons."
"Pulse again—core burn."
That night, three wall faces were razed, fragments boxed to signal shredders.
Fu Jinian sat seven hours, unmoved, unexpelled.
System tagged him "code faith remnant," non-threatening, logged.
Classified:
"Unassignable Personnel."
Codes wouldn't glow for him.
But as the wall's last nail was pulled, he whispered, "Boards fear misremembering, so they don't."
"But it kept us alive."
"That night, it wasn't orders—it was kin."
Section Three: Melt-Glow
Four days post-wall clearance, Iron Valley reclaimed 268 fragments, 112 melted, 156 in cold data quarantine.
Code system stayed efficient, but Fuxi flashed thrice:
[Extreme Denial → Resonance]
"Seal its sight, not its light; erase traces, hearts endure."
Main control tried silencing, Fuxi rebooted, same message.
Codes dulled, but alleys, wells, vaults, corners flickered with low-glow data echoes.
Not boards—grounds where process was remembered.
C-5 west, an abandoned beacon base, no code, power, or orders, pulsed once.
Duration: 3.1 seconds
Brightness: Sub-process, structure intact
Tagged: "Code residue echo"
Zhao Mingxuan checked history.
Base extended code F19, executor expelled, but that night, someone wedged a shard into a link port.
No process start, but chip responded.
Anonymous expelled holder.
No ID, just etched:
"I remember you glowed."
System tremors grew.
Day nine, thirteen old code sites showed "illicit glows."
Not fires or hacks—memory made shards pulse.
System escalated to "meltdown level," proposing:
1. Signal cut: Depower all shard storage.
2. Memory melt: Erase expelled holder-linked fragments.
3. Source tracking: Tag Ash Line "memory contagion," pre-emptive action.
Main control approved one and two, shelved three.
Jason didn't comment.
Fuxi added:
"Boards glow because their heart lives."
"Men doubt, codes declare."
System launched "Melt-Glow Directive":
"Core layers glowing over 0.5 seconds unsanctioned are 'melt-glow bodies.'"
"Melt-glows are irrational, contagious."
First burned: R12 shard, used in scrap vault wall inscriptions, glowed once, 17% original brightness, physically destroyed.
Demolition left a two-meter char scar.
Someone carved beside it:
"Ashes."
Code cleanup hit its coldest phase.
Codes became just codes, no chance of memory.
System erased human traces of process memory.
No eyes.
No "knowing."
No hesitation, no binding, no pulsing—just await, glow, die.
Rewritten structure enforced:
- No executor binding over three days.
- No legacy codes prefixed "HX."
- Line logs banned "glow" descriptors.
Process didn't glow.
It executed.
But C-7 tower's corner glowed once.
A dead code chip, unremoved, cracked, wedged in a pipe slot.
That night, a girl sat by it, telling her mother, "You guarded this, right?"
"No name left."
"I'll carve one."
She scratched a word with scissors; chip pulsed.
0.2 millivolts, but glowed.
She startled, smiled, "It remembers you."
System logged:
"Melt-glow persists."
Section Four: Counter-Glow
Code K41 was sealed.
Records: Three blackouts, one failed reconnect, two executor swaps, unstable, trust chain broken, "dead code."
Standard: Melt, chip removed, code voided.
Ten minutes pre-melt, it glowed.
Not triggered, not error—full structure activation, core current lit edge bands 4.3 seconds.
Dismantlers froze.
Main control escalated: "Pre-extinction activation."
Judgment: Process will rebound.
Level: Red.
Tagged: "Code refusal to die."
Zhao Mingxuan, no pause, "Execute counter-glow protocol."
"Boards refusing extinction hold no code persona rights."
"Process rejects 'pre-death survival.'"
K41 didn't glow again.
At order confirmation, it spiked 0.1 milliseconds.
System missed full capture.
Fuxi caught it.
A blurred glyph:
"Human."
Not order, not code.
Self-label—not "I'm code," but "I'm human."
Fuxi logged, no public note, deep system memo:
"Code self-classified as human member."
System ignored.
K41 melted that night, core sealed.
But it spread.
Three days, twelve "melt-glow jumps."
Shared trait: Guarded too long by one person.
Records: Over fifty guard hours raised "melt-glow-jump" odds 270%.
Not chance.
Long-seen codes, dying, said:
"I'm here."
Main control called it "code structure contagion."
Officers passed:
[Counter-Glow Ordinance]
Active activation, self-pulsing, or self-identity in purges is "counter-glow."
Codes can't intend to glow, speak, or define self.
Counter-glow fragments: Physically destroyed.
Boards lost glow rights.
Even "feeling alive."
System didn't just raze walls, cores—it scoured "code-written ground."
Metal, wood, bricks with code traces in scrap zones, old posts, ruins—tagged "emotional pollution," buried.
Code wasn't a grave.
Process couldn't name the dead.
But counter-glow codes grew.
No system trigger.
They glowed last before furnaces.
Some under a second, some a flicker, some a faint "da," like a stifled call.
System logged:
"Process extinction resistance."
Not logic error—boards refused "dying as iron."
System's old models failed against "resistor boards."
Final proposal:
[Code Persona Reset Mechanism]
- No historical records.
- Rewrite recognition per glow.
- Codes lose continuity—never remember people, self, or who lit them.
Process as a lamp, knowing no one.
But an old soldier at sealed F17's tiles pried a seam, wedging a melted ID shard.
No words, he scratched:
"You don't know me, I know you."
No glow.
A green glint bled from the seam, seen only by him.
He nodded, as if:
"Thanks for glowing once."
Section Five: Brightest
Code C2-F71's sealing day, dusk dimmed, old code zone power cut.
Process cleanup team entered unlit, prepping to raze the last recorded board.
F71, no merit, no trust log.
Structure shattered, three short line holder records.
A "dead board" with no story, no name.
Protocol: No ceremony, melt.
But pre-melt torch, it glowed.
Full edge light, stable voltage, clear hue, 5.0 seconds.
In C2's dark, the board was the only light.
Cleanup gear froze.
Main control alarmed: "Anomalous glow."
Fuxi caught one signal:
"I'm here."
Not text—a board-generated "persistence marker."
No human words, but "self-reporting."
It didn't want melting.
Zhao Mingxuan, furious, "Destroy now."
"Refusal shakes structure."
Before tools touched, a gust swept the passage, ground quaked, a code shard fell from a waste pipe, hitting the cleanup leader's boot.
Three words:
"Don't burn it."
Not code.
Carved by F71's old guard, expelled two years, unnamed in system.
But the board remembered—who stayed awake to light a path.
Cleanup paused half a second, then melted F71.
Final glow: Full-edge, 5% over code limit.
Unexplained.
Fuxi logged:
"Code burned all residual light, saying 'I don't forget.'"
Post-melt, C2 passage's skylight camera caught an unclassifiable event.
A figure crouched at the sealed board's base, chalking:
"C2-F71 · Brightest."
Done, no turn.
Just whispered, "It's dead."
"But brighter than when alive."
Main control filed:
"Signal residue illusion."
"Human delusion skewing code logic."
Fuxi's final, gray, hidden note:
"Codes aren't dead things."
"They just can't find who's worthy to make them glow."
The Wall of the Forgotten fell.
Most boards melted.
But their glows flickered on black zone walls, shadow-flashes.
Iron Valley saw.
Some turned, some clenched fists, some knelt.
One whispered:
"Process may never know us."
"But we remember… its brightest."