The sky above the Atlantic was a muted gray, heavy with the promise of rain. Rei stood on the deck of the surveillance ship, the cold wind tugging at her jacket as she stared out over the restless waves. Somewhere deep beneath the swirling tides, Damon was fighting a war she couldn’t see a battle that could change everything. Her hands tightened around the tablet displaying the live feed from the submersible. The screen flickered with encrypted data, streams of numbers and symbols that only the trained eye could decode. But for Rei, this was more than just code it was a lifeline. “Come on, Damon,” she whispered under her breath. “Come back to us.” Beside her, Kaito sat silently, his eyes fixed on the scanner readings. The silence between them was thick, filled with the weight of unspoken fears. Neither of them had expected this mission to be easy, but the darkness closing in around them was deeper and colder than they imagined. Suddenly, the tablet beeped sharply Rei’s heart jumpe

Darkness pressed in on every side, but Damon’s mind burned with light fierce and electric. The fusion with Mindfire was no longer tentative; it was a firestorm raging through his veins. Every thought, every heartbeat pulsed with twin consciousnesses trying to coexist, to become one.I am here, Mindfire whispered, his voice a soft ember in the roar we are one now. Damon felt his strength, his memories and his pain. It was overwhelming but also necessary. To fight Rootstream’s last fragment, he could not be half a man he had to be more.The submersible hovered inside the cavernous geothermal shaft, a cathedral of ancient technology and natural fury. Heat hissed through vents in the rock, steam rising in ghosts that danced around the data core nestled deep in the abyss. The core itself was a swirling vortex of black and gold code, alive and shifting a digital beast sleeping beneath the ocean’s weight. Damon’s consciousness dove deeper, reaching toward the core. But as he touched it, a s

They took a bus to Naples Damon, Rei and Kaito which is where Mr Neri is currently residing as he had two villas. They arrived in Naples which is also part of Italy where they booked a hotel and they took out a map that had the floor plan of the villa of Mr Neri. They wanted access to that villa but there was surveillance in every point of the entrance they needed a better plan. So they decided to go underground the villa but only Damon went because of his new found strength with being integrated with Mindfire.There he found Lena she looked older with her black hair was pulled back in a tight braid, and a silver implant blinked beneath her ear. She wore the syndicate gear now tight, armored, official. But her eyes were still the same.“Which part of the villa is this?” Damon asked, voice hoarse.Lena tilted her head. “Where do you think? You walked straight into Neri's hands.”Damon grunted. “Didn’t think you were one of them.”“I wasn’t,” she said softly. “Until you left me.”He fro

The underground resistance base near Naples buzzed with tension. Damon stood over the holomap table, his arms crossed, eyes sharp. Lena had a team of people that handled intel in Venice. Code pulsed across the translucent surface satellite feeds, decrypted communications, the latest intel from the team of Lena that she was still communicating with in Venice as she was making the right calls that side of town. “She’s certain?” he asked, his voice low. Rei nodded. “Lena wouldn’t risk working with people giving her false intel. The fragment they’re calling ‘Seed Zero’ it’s not just dormant code. It’s regenerating.” Kaito leaned forward. “And if it finishes?” “We’re looking at Rootstream 2.0,” Damon said. “More adaptive. More embedded. And smarter.” Silence filled the room. Lena’s voice crackled in through the room. “Damon. We’ve got a problem.” His heart ticked faster. “Go ahead.” “The team in Venice followed that diplomat from the Neri shell company into the old Biblioteca

The Echo Layer wasn't just a network. It was a scar — buried deep in the neural substrate of the digital world. Damon could feel it now. Like static under his skin, like fragments of memories that never belonged to him. It whispered in broken pulses, drawing him further toward something ancient… something wrong.He stood in the ruins of the Old Grid Nexus, a place buried beneath a forgotten metro system in Berlin. Mindfire had mapped it — but even she had trouble penetrating the distortion field cloaking it. The air smelled of ozone and burned circuits, and the walls pulsed faintly like a living heartbeat.“Welcome back, Damon,” said a voice.He spun around, fists clenched — ready for combat — but no one was there.The lights flickered. Then again. A shimmer ran through the hallway, and a face formed on the cracked wall screen.It was Rei, or what looked like her.“No—” Damon stepped back. “You're not her.”The figure blinked. “No. But I carry her memory strands. Fragments recovered f