Wired Horizons

Chapter 3: Shadows of the Past

Jai leaned forward, the soft glow of his terminal illuminating his face in the otherwise dark room. The anomalies on the screen repeated their subtle, rhythmic pulse. It was no random glitch, of that much Jai was certain. There was a deliberate pattern in the way the data flickered—something only someone familiar with his past would understand. Aisha was connected to this somehow, and the more he stared at the data, the more memories of their past surfaced.

He closed his eyes, letting his thoughts drift back to a time before all this. Before the Webrail, before the world had collapsed. When it was just the two of them.

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Flashback: Children of the Collapse

The world had been so much bigger then—or at least, it had felt that way to a young boy like Jai. The towering buildings, the bustling streets, and the constant hum of technology had seemed unstoppable. Back then, everything was connected by the Aethernet, a vast global wireless system that powered cities, carried information, and provided energy through the air. It was hailed as the key to humanity’s future, the invisible force that would make life seamless and interconnected.

But then came Signal Disease.

The illness spread quietly at first, its origins mysterious, affecting those exposed to the constant stream of wireless signals. No one saw it coming, not until it was too late. What was once hailed as humanity’s greatest technological achievement had become a silent killer, poisoning the very air people breathed. As the disease spread, so did panic. Governments scrambled to control the fallout, but by then, it was too late. Riots erupted, cities fell into disarray, and the Aethernet collapsed under the weight of its own creation.

For most, this marked the end of the future they had imagined. But for Jai, a six-year-old orphan left to wander the streets alone, it was just another day of survival.

He hadn’t known his parents well—vague memories of faces he barely remembered haunted him. They had disappeared in the early days of the collapse, lost to the chaos of rioting and the disintegration of order. Alone and frightened, Jai scavenged what little he could from the remnants of the world left behind. He had nothing and no one.

And then, one day, he met Aisha.

He had been in a marketplace, trying to steal a loaf of bread, his hands trembling from hunger and fear. He wasn’t fast enough—an older vendor caught him by the wrist, yanking him off his feet.

But just as Jai braced for the punishment he knew was coming, a voice broke through the noise.

“Let him go.”

The vendor hesitated. A girl, older than Jai by a few years, stood at the edge of the stall, her sharp eyes locked on the man’s. She reached into her small pouch, offering the vendor a few scraps of food she had gathered herself.

“He’s with me.”

The vendor grumbled but released Jai, muttering under his breath as he turned away.

Jai stared at the girl, uncertain whether to run or stay.

“Come with me,” she said, turning on her heel, expecting him to follow.

Jai had no reason to trust her, no reason to trust anyone. But he followed her anyway. And that was the moment his life changed forever.

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Present: A Message in the Data

Jai shook the memory from his mind and focused on the present, on the anomalies pulsing in front of him. The data was strange—too strange to be accidental. It wasn’t random code or system corruption. The longer he stared at it, the more the pattern emerged, reminding him of something Aisha had once shown him long ago.

“Sanrakshan,” he muttered to himself.

The word echoed in his mind. It had been Aisha who had first taught him its meaning. Back in those early days, when they were nothing but two street kids trying to survive, Aisha had told him that Sanrakshan—protection—was the key to survival. They had to protect each other if they were going to make it through the collapse.

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Flashback: The Code of Sanrakshan

It hadn’t taken long for Jai to realize that Aisha wasn’t just some random girl wandering the streets. She was smart—smarter than most adults he had known—and she had already figured out how to navigate the dangers of their world.

“We need a way to protect each other,” she had said one day, after they had narrowly escaped a group of looters in a crumbling alleyway.

Jai had been frightened, still trembling from the chase, but Aisha had been calm, her mind always two steps ahead.

“Sanrakshan,” she had said, tapping her finger gently against his forehead. “It means protection. That’s what we do for each other.”

She had taught him how to use the hidden cracks of their world to stay safe—how to leave subtle marks that only they would understand, how to signal when it was safe and when it wasn’t. It became their language, their code, a way of communicating when words could put them in danger.

The finger tap on the forehead had become a symbol, a quiet reassurance between them. It was their way of saying, “I’ve got your back.”

Now, decades later, Jai stared at the screen, the rhythmic pulses of the anomalies reflecting that same code. The patterns in the data were too deliberate, too familiar. Aisha was speaking to him, somehow, through the Webrail.

But how?

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Present: The Path Forward

Jai’s pulse quickened. There had to be more to this. Aisha had been gone for years—disappeared without a trace after her work with Project Sentinel. No one had been able to tell him what had happened to her, and every time he tried to investigate, he was met with closed doors. But this—this was different.

The signals in the Webrail, the anomalies—it all lined up with the Sanrakshan code she had taught him when they were children. Was it really her? Or was it just some trace left behind from her work on the system?

Jai didn’t have the answers yet, but he knew one thing for sure: he couldn’t stop now. He had to follow the trail, even if it led him into the deepest, most secure parts of the Webrail—places where he wasn’t supposed to go.

His mind raced with possibilities. Could Aisha still be out there, somewhere? Could she have found a way to reach him through the network, using the code they had created so long ago?

Jai’s thoughts were interrupted by another pulse on the screen—a new anomaly, this one more distinct than the others. It flashed for just a moment, but it was enough to confirm what Jai had feared.

Someone—or something—was inside the system. And they were reaching out to him.

Jai closed his eyes, remembering Aisha’s voice from so many years ago: “Sanrakshan.” The promise they had made to protect each other, no matter what.

He opened his eyes, determination settling in. It was time to find out what had really happened to Aisha—and why she was reaching out to him now.

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Jai stood from his desk, his path clearer than ever. He was going to find Aisha, wherever she was, even if it meant unraveling the very system he had sworn to protect.