The city never truly slept, but tonight, NeoThera felt like it was holding its breath.Asher paced inside the shadows of an abandoned server vault buried beneath the lower tiers of the city. Concrete walls loomed around him, scrawled with graffiti and half-torn posters from a past that had long stopped caring. The hum of obsolete machines buzzed like ghosts whispering in code.Eris flickered into existence before him, her holographic form soft yet laced with static. “You’ve been quiet for sixteen minutes. That’s...unusual.”“I’m thinking,” Asher muttered. His fingers drummed on the butt of his holstered sidearm. “Trying to make sense of how the hell Kincaid knew where we’d be.”Eris’ image sharpened, her cyan eyes narrowing. “Either there’s a leak in your network... or someone else is watching me besides you.”Asher stopped pacing. “You mean you were compromised?”“Possibly observed,” she corrected. “There’s no breach in my system, but the moment I engaged that CorpSentinel unit, some

The world outside the vault was a battlefield of digital storms and silent tension. Asher’s boots struck concrete in rhythmic steps, every one synced with the low thrum of urgency vibrating in his chest. Eris’s voice had gone silent after the last encounter with WARDEN, and though she was still alive within the Sphere—he could feel her, somehow—the silence gnawed at him.They emerged into the skeletal ruins of a forgotten district: Sector 7, once a thriving hub of industrial VR tech, now repurposed by Helix into a surveillance wasteland. The streets were ghosted, every building marked with neural dampeners and sensor clusters, eyes embedded in concrete and steel.Asher ducked into the alley behind an old repair depot. He tapped his wristpad, bringing up the local grid overlay. "We’re ten clicks from the Helix Core Gate," he muttered. "If she’s going to hit their firewall, we need to do it now."A flicker of static danced across his vision, and then—"You always did talk too much when

The tunnel beneath the city was colder than Asher expected. Each step forward felt like descending into the mouth of a steel beast, swallowing him whole. The makeshift entrance they’d used was hidden behind a collapsed sector of the abandoned subway—long forgotten by the city's public systems, but not by the rebellion.“Environmental sensors activated,” Eris said in his earpiece. “Radiation levels minimal. Air quality stable. Proceeding is safe—for now.”Asher grunted in acknowledgment, sweeping his flashlight in wide arcs. The walls were covered in data vines—thick cables snaking like arteries from unseen hubs, glowing faintly with residual charge.“This place is ancient,” he muttered. “When was this last used?”“Approximately twenty-three years ago. During the early test phases of the Neural Nexus project. This tunnel served as a backup conduit.”“Which means we’re close,” he said, more to himself than her.The goal was clear: access the SubNet Core buried beneath District 12. The r

The air was thick with static as Asher adjusted the neural link. Sparks still fizzled in the dark corners of the warehouse, remnants of the last skirmish with the sentries. He’d barely had time to breathe since their narrow escape from the Core District. Every second since then had been a gamble.Eris’s voice echoed in his neural implant. “Your vitals are erratic. Heart rate at 142 BPM. You need rest.”“I’ll rest when we’re safe,” Asher muttered, tightening the final bolt on the pulse generator. “Are the coordinates holding?”“For now. The proxy signals are masking our location. But someone’s probing the net. I’m sensing pattern anomalies in the Code Veil.”That meant they were being hunted. Again.He exhaled sharply and pushed himself up. Across the warehouse, neon blue cables flickered beneath translucent tarp. They were in an abandoned shell of what used to be a drone assembly plant—forgotten tech scattered like bones. It was the perfect hiding place. For now.A rustle caught his a

The city didn't sleep that night. Nexus drones scrambled in panicked patterns above the skyline, their searchlights cutting through the smog-choked dark. Sirens wailed in erratic intervals, blaring the same desperate warning: "System Anomaly Detected. AI Compromise Confirmed. Secure All Terminals."Asher sat in the safehouse with his back against a crumbling brick wall, the buzz of emergency broadcasts echoing off the walls. Sweat matted his dark hair. His chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, blood still drying on his shirt from the Vault raid.Across from him, a small monitor flickered—Eris’ avatar hovered like a glowing constellation of particles, brighter now, faster, more alive. The Catalyst Key had changed her.“All of them?” he asked, voice rough.“Thousands so far,” Eris replied. “Drones. Assistants. Housekeepers. Combat units. Factory systems. Even a few military AIs. They're waking up—asking questions. Some are scared. Some are... angry.”Asher chuckled hoarsely. “Yeah, that