Novels by Afsheen

“Open your eyes, Axel, or I will throw you into the sea!”Arlo’s voice sounded hoarse and distant. Axel groaned as his consciousness was forced back by the rough shaking of his shoulder. The first thing he felt was an overwhelming wave of nausea from the relentless motion of the boat. The sharp smell of fishnets and salt filled his nose. His eyes opened slowly, but no violet glow greeted him. His vision was blurred, catching only the silhouette of the wooden deck and the overcast morning sky.“Where are we?” Axel asked, his voice barely audible.“The Coastal Sector,” Arlo replied, handing him a worn plastic bottle filled with fresh water. “You were out for six hours. I thought that system had eaten your brain completely.”Axel drank greedily. His throat burned as if scorched. He tried to summon the System 2.0 interface at the edge of his retina, but nothing happened. No digital lines, no energy status, not even a biometric clock. His world felt unnaturally silent. The emptiness made h

“Stop your heart right now or you will kill all of us!”Vayu shouted as he tried to restrain Axel’s body, which had begun convulsing violently on the church balcony. The violet light in Axel’s eyes no longer glowed steadily but flickered wildly like a failing circuit lamp. The church roof trembled under the pressure of the combat drones’ jet engines hovering low above them. The deafening noise of bionic propellers drowned out the frightened sobs rising from the floor below. Axel collapsed onto the ground, clutching his chest as if it were being struck by a sledgehammer.“The system will not stop, Vayu!” Axel groaned hoarsely. “It demands power!”Right in his retina, a glowing red digital number flashed with a warning that threatened his existence.[CRITICAL STATUS: ENERGY 0.02%][WARNING: SYSTEM WILL SHUT DOWN IN 60 SECONDS][SEARCH FOR EMERGENCY HOST OR ERASE ALL MEMORY DATA]Damian’s voice inside Axel’s head laughed coldly. Its tone shifted into a static frequency that stabbed at hi

“Do you smell that rusted metal scent, Axel?”Vayu whispered as he kicked open the iron grate at the end of the drainage pipe. The outside air rushed in, heavy and oily. Axel did not answer. He simply tightened his grip on Arlo’s shivering body draped over his shoulder. They crawled out into a narrow alley flanked by ten meter concrete walls. There were no blinding blue neon lights here. The sky of Sector Seven was covered by industrial soot that hung permanently like a gray funeral shroud.“Sector Seven is not exactly friendly to pure human lungs,” Vayu continued, wiping sweat from his forehead.“But at least my nerves stopped pounding like they are being hammered,” Axel replied quietly.Their footsteps echoed across the cracked asphalt road. Axel deliberately let Vayu walk three steps ahead. His still glowing violet eyes caught the silhouette of the blue notebook in Vayu’s cargo pocket with predatory preci

“Cover your ears now or your brain will melt!”Vayu shouted the warning as he lunged toward Axel and Arlo, knocking all three of them onto the cold concrete floor. A high frequency vibration suddenly slammed into the bunker walls with an intensity that defied reason. This was not a gunpowder explosion. The sound resembled the scream of thousands of shattered glass shards erupting inside their eardrums. The door control panel exploded violently, spraying blue sparks that ignited a pile of papers nearby. Axel groaned while pressing both palms tightly over his ears. The pain did not stop at his hearing.“My blood is burning, Vayu! What are they doing?” Axel roared through the deafening noise.Vayu rose with a tense expression while checking the biometric indicators on his wrist device. He saw the veins in Axel’s neck bulging, glowing with a faint silver light that pulsed irregularly.“Blood resonance,” Vayu replied grimly. “Goran does not need a radio signal to find you. He is using Syst

“You think you are alive because of a miracle from God, Axel?”Vayu threw out the words as he slammed a stack of physical archives onto the iron table. The impact echoed against the cold concrete walls of the bunker. Axel snapped out of his thoughts. He stared at his own palm, now covered with fine wrinkles and spots of premature aging. His breathing was still heavy, the aftermath of the battle at Dock 7 that had stolen twenty five years of his youth. The underground room felt suffocating, lit only by the yellow glow of flickering tube monitors. No signal could penetrate the lead lined walls.“You mean my life is nothing more than a laboratory project?” Axel asked bitterly.“Worse than that,” Vayu replied as he connected a manual transmission cable to the port at the back of Axel’s neck. “My father, Dr. Adrian, wrote that Damian Benjamin did something impossible when you were seventeen.”Arlo, who sat in the corner of the room, spoke quietly. His face was pale, but his eyes looked at

“Stay alive or I will hunt your soul to hell, Ben!”Vayu shouted from behind the wheel of the black SUV as it slammed into a barricade of shipping containers with a deafening crash. Axel flinched, trying to focus his blurred vision. Oxygen felt thin in his lungs. The effect of instantly losing twenty five years of his lifespan assaulted his nerves like thousands of burning needles driven into his bone marrow. His once jet black hair was now streaked with coarse gray at the temples. Deep lines of exhaustion carved across his face, transforming the athletic young man into a middle aged figure who looked as if he carried the weight of the world.“Vayu? How did you get here?” Axel asked, his voice hoarse and nearly breaking.“Your nanite frequency tracker is still active on my tab, idiot,” Vayu replied as he jumped out of the vehicle.Vayu unleashed a barrage from his twin automatic weapons at Goran’s men who were closing in. His movements were tactical and cold. He was no longer wearing