The discrepancy appeared at 0300 hours.
Yuki found it during the night shift audit. A minor fluctuation in the energy output of the prototype machine. It wasn't a failure. It was a signature. A biological residue embedded in the crystal lattice.
She called me immediately. I arrived in the control room still tying the belt of my robe. The screens glowed in the dark room. Yuki pointed to a spectral analysis graph.
"See this peak?" she asked. "It matches Ash's resonance frequency."
"I thought we scrubbed the data," I said.
"We scrubbed the logs. We didn't scrub the hardware."
I looked at the crate. It sat in the corner, silent and dark. "The crystals absorbed him."
"During the test," Yuki said. "They memorized the frequency. Now they are replaying it."
"Can we erase it?"
"No. It's ba
