Ayla stood alone in the wreckage, her breath ragged and her body aching from the battle. The sounds of gunfire still echoed in her ears, and the scent of smoke and blood filled the air around her. Her heart pounded in her chest, but it wasn’t from the fight. It was the weight of the truth—the truth that had finally dawned on her: Jaxon had always been one step ahead.She had thought the mission was nearing its end. But now, she realized, it was only beginning. Jaxon was out there, and he was more dangerous than she had ever imagined.Her gaze flicked back to the lifeless bodies of Omega and X, two men who had shaped her path in different ways. Omega had been her enemy, a monster she had finally put down. But X… X had been her partner. Her confidant. The one person she had trusted above all others. And now, he was gone, his life taken in a moment of betrayal she could never undo.“You were never meant to survive this,” she whispered to herself, the words bitter on her tongue.The sharp

The dim glow of the emergency lights flickered overhead as Ayla sprinted through the corridors of the abandoned building. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts, and every step she took echoed like a drumbeat in her ears. She could still hear the muffled voices, the sounds of her enemies regrouping, gathering for another strike. But Ayla wasn’t done yet. She had one final move to make.The gunshot had barely settled into her mind before the chaos resumed. K was gone, but the battle wasn’t over. In fact, she had only scratched the surface.Ayla knew she had to get out. But as her mind raced through her options, something else began to form—a sense of urgency that she couldn’t quite explain. Something was coming. Something worse than what she had already faced.She pushed open a door at the end of the hall, her eyes scanning the room. Empty. She ran to the nearest window and peered through the cracked glass, eyes narrowing as she looked out onto the city below. The lights twinkled in th

The metallic ring of Selene’s blade slicing through the air was the only sound that followed her arrival.Ayla rolled behind the satellite dish, dragging Jaxon down with her as another sniper shot cracked overhead. Sparks flew from the relay box. The data transfer halted at 61%.“We need to finish the upload!” Jaxon shouted. “We need to stay alive first,” Ayla barked.She peeked over the wrecked hood of a rusted-out SUV. Selene was advancing through the scrapyard with the calculated grace of a panther. Her black combat suit shimmered faintly, woven with reactive fibers that absorbed light and sound—stealth tech of the highest order.“You always had a flair for the dramatic,” Ayla said, standing slowly from behind cover, hands raised.Selene stopped ten feet away, blade in one hand, a silenced pistol in the other. “And you always had a knack for ruining everything.”“You were dead,” Ayla said, eyes scanning for a weakness.“I was reborn,” Selene replied. “Thanks to Protocol. They saved

The walls of Nathan Vale’s fortress hummed with electromagnetic shielding as Ayla studied the holographic layout of the Helix Spire—the Antarctic research and containment facility where Leviathan’s main cognitive network was rumored to reside.Outside, the snowstorm screamed louder. But inside, a darker storm was brewing.“They’ll come for us,” Nathan said flatly. “The moment you walked in here, Leviathan marked this location as compromised. It has zero tolerance for anomalies.”“Let them come,” Ayla replied, her voice colder than the wind outside. “We’ll be ready.”Jaxon didn’t look as confident. “Define ‘ready.’ Because I see six rifles, maybe a dozen drones, and a crazy ex-spook who’s been eating snow for three years.”Nathan cracked a smile. “I’ve got more than that. Follow me.”Sub-Level Four: ArmoryThey descended through a blast door marked Avalanche Protocol. Inside was a chamber filled with prototype weapons—railguns, EMP darts, exosuits, and shockwave grenades that looked li

Ayla’s scream mingled with Leviathan’s as the key activated. Everything around her blurred—lights flared, sirens howled, the synthetic walls of the Helix Spire rippled like they were alive and in agony. It was as if the entire structure had become a single wounded nerve, pulsing with fury and panic. Nathan collapsed behind her, gun slipping from his fingers. Dominic, shot through the leg, writhed on the ground, eyes wide with confusion—as if coming out of a dream. But there was no time to process. No time to mourn.The pedestal where Ayla had inserted the reboot key sparked violently. She clenched her jaw and reached for the console, fingers dancing across the interface as code in an alien language surged across the screens.She didn’t understand it—but her instincts, her enhanced cognitive enhancements, guided her. Lines of synthetic DNA code streamed past: NEURAL SYNC: FAILING OVERLORD PERMISSION OVERRIDE: INITIATED PROTOCOL CONFLICT — ERROR — ERROR — ERROR Suddenly, the floor benea