The Echo storage facility was close to where they landed. It was housed in a repurposed hotel building near the Tokyo Tower. The area around their landing site flooded during the great floods in 2065. without humans to repair the damage, nature reshaped it according to its will. The grass seeds found their way into the cracks in the concrete filled with dirt during the flood. Ryan liked the tenacity of grass. It needed so little to flourish. Gray hare happily munched on the said grass without the worry in the world. It probably had never seen humans before, so it curiously observed them as they passed. The Black Virus was kind enough to target only humans, and animals got a free pass. The Black virus dethroned the former rulers of the Earth, and it was time for a new ruler to ascend, or maybe not if Ryan's mission went as planned.

  Ryan desperately tried not to look at the Filter health parameter he pinned to the HUD inside his helmet. He felt the hairs standing on his back while thinking about the Black Virus entering his suit and eating him from the inside.

  "Why did they even name it Black Virus?" Ryan asked Anya, who was looking around for a path that was least likely to kill them if they used it.

  "It dyed the blood of the infected black," she responded shortly, still mad at him.

  "I know that, but it sounds too ominous. Even the official name CDC gave it, the RV-54, sounds like a name for a military robot." Ryan responded and hurried after Anya, who wasn't in a cordial mood.

  "Ryan, we don't have time for this. We need to get you out of here as soon as possible. I don't want you to die just because you wanted to waste your time sharing your displeasure about how people named the most deadly organism in human history." Anya responded after an uncomfortable pause. Ryan looked at his HUD nervously. She was right. She was always right.

  They saw the first dead body when they arrived at the park that surrounded the Echo storage facility. The body was seated on the bench, hunched over. Years of exposure to the elements made it look like a skinny alien pretending to be human. Anya approached the body and scanned the ID chip still buried under what remained of the skin on the body's wrist.

  "Tokita Shinji," Anya said, then continued, "He was a police officer. He probably died in 2069. , like most of humanity. He still has his gun on him. Nambu M60 by the looks of it. It's a relic. You want it?" she asked and offered a gun to Ryan.

  "Sure. It's a little rusty, but I can fix it." Ryan said and took the gun. He tried to cock the hammer, but it was stuck as expected. He had to clean it properly after they got back home.

  "Ok, hurry up, Ryan, we're close," Anya called him. She got ahead again while he was playing with his new toy.

  ***

  The doors to the Echo storage facility were gone, and wild animals made themselves home in the lobby. The pack of wild dogs was reluctant to let the strangers into their den but had to give in after Anya threw the pieces of the reception desk at them, nearly hitting the alpha of the pack.

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  "I guess you're more of a cat person?" Ryan joked, but Anya didn't find his joke funny and just walked to what remained of the facility's computer. She fished the keyboard out of the rubble, connected it to the computer, pressed a few keys and buttons, and rolled her eyes in frustration.

  "Everything's dead, as we expected. We need to find our way into the server room and manually inspect every server rack. I hope they're labeled correctly and that the one we need survived the earthquake. " she said, then dropped the keyboard back into the rubble.

  "Lead the way," Ryan responded and waved toward the door that led deeper inside the facility.

  ***

  Aside from a few animals they saw in the lobby, the facility was completely desolate. Hallways and ceilings cracked during the earthquake and decayed over years of neglect. Ryan hoped the facility was not dead enough so the whole building would come down on their heads. He tried as much as possible not to disturb any pieces of the building that protruded or hung in ways that screamed touch to trigger the collapse.

  "Here," Anya called from the cloud of dust and flashlight glare in front of him. She stood inside the door frame of the server room. Beyond it, the small partially collapsed hallway opened to a cavernous room with server racks packed full of computers that backed up the memories of thousands of people. And it was just the first floor. The building had 30 floors more.

  "Dear Lord, there are so many," Ryan complained. He pointed his flashlight at the closest server rack. He wiped the dust from the sticker glued to the server rack. It had Japanese characters written on it.

  "Can you read it?" he asked Anya, then searched for her around the room with his flashlight. She frowned when he shone the light into her eyes. It was nice seeing his new optical sensors working as well as they did while mimicking the human eyes.

  "It says: Server rack number one," she translated the text while dragging her finger over the dusty paper.

  "Well, that's not very helpful," Ryan said defeatedly.

  "Wait, didn't the Japanese switch to Yoso as their main memory echo scanning company a few months before the earthquake? Yoso sold the home memory echo scanners, so if you know Maya's home address, we might find the local copy stored on her home scanner." Anya said from inside the darkness of the server room. Ryan grinned so hard that his facial muscles hurt. He remembered one of the messages Maya sent to Nicolas before he boarded the flight to Tokyo. The message said: If I can't come and pick you up at the airport, come to this address. Ryan couldn't remember the exact street name, but Maya detailedly described the building and said it was close to the Tokyo Tower. It was close to where they were. Lady Luck had their backs. They could pull this off.

  "Anya, you're a genius. Let's go." Ryan exclaimed and hurried to the exit.

  ***

  "Oh, this is very weird," Ryan said while watching the dead body of Nicolas Ferguson lying on a bed in the bedroom. He was still wearing the same clothes he had on him in the memory echo Ryan dove in.

  "Yeah, this is so wrong," Ryan added, then turned toward Anya and continued, "And you're sure it's him?".

  "Yes, his ID chip says so. He probably caught the Black Virus at the airport. The memory echo you dove in was probably his last upload before he died." Anya responded, then continued, "Something happened to Maya. I scanned the smart lock on the door. She left after bringing Nicolas here, and she never returned home. Her last memory echo upload was on that very morning. Do you want to copy it? You realize she could still somehow be alive, and using her memory echo for what we have planned would mean breaking the Human individuality agreement. There are no authorities that can legally punish us, but ethically, it feels wrong."

  "Yes, do it. We can't back up now." Ryan responded and approached the home memory echo scanner. His suit recognized the new device and connected to it. Anya guided Ryan through the device's menus until he found the file. He copied the file and looked at Anya, who had a disappointed look on her face, and then he spoke.

  "Let's go home. I hope the Old Bat won't pester me too much because I lied to him about the true goal of our mission."