The blue vortex in the sky spun like a massive, hungry mouth.Everett ran down the rocky hill. His heavy boots pounded against the dry dirt. He pushed his large, scarred body as fast as he could. His pale, artificial right arm hung clumsily at his side, but his strong left hand gripped his plain steel sword.Above the ten thousand sitting people, the blue light flashed blindly. The people were smiling. They were waiting to be deleted."Everett, you cannot jump into the portal!" Silas screamed from the top of the hill. The sniper’s voice was lost in the loud, buzzing roar of the machine.Everett did not care. He reached the edge of the massive crowd. He looked up at the swirling blue vortex. He felt the terrifying, cold pull of the digital vacuum. It was trying to suck the souls out of the people.Everett closed his green eyes. He reached deep into his chest. He grabbed the tiny, remaining spark of his white Override light. He had almost died using it before. He knew he could not use a

"A complete world reset," Everett whispered."Yes," Rae nodded, tears falling down her cheeks. "He will delete the concept of humans. He will delete the history of the world. It will not be a portal in the sky. Reality will simply turn to a blank, empty white screen. Everything we love will vanish in one second."Everett stared at the floor. He felt the heavy, unstable white energy of the Override burning inside his chest. He felt the pain in his broken ribs. He looked at his pale, slow right hand. He was so incredibly tired.For months, he had fought soldiers. He had fought kings. He had fought assassins. He had bled for the people. He had broken the magic network. He had tried so hard to give humanity a chance to be free.And now, the universe itself was telling him that he was wrong. The universe was telling him that humans were a mistake, and the machine was going to throw the entire planet into the trash.How does a man fight a machine that is buying the keys to heaven?"Rae," Ev

A terrible, cold, stale smell rushed up from the dark hole. It smelled like dead air that had been trapped for centuries.Everett let go of the doors. He fell to one knee, breathing heavily. His right arm trembled violently."You did it," Lyra said softly, placing a warm hand on his back.Everett stood up. He pulled a bright flashlight from his belt and clicked it on. He pointed the beam of light down into the hole.There was a long, steep metal staircase leading deep into the darkness."I will go first," Everett said. "Stay close."They climbed down the stairs. The descent took a long time. The deeper they went, the colder the air became. The walls changed from rough dirt and rock to smooth, dark gray metal.Finally, they reached the bottom.Everett shined his flashlight around the room. It was a massive facility. The ceiling was thirty feet high. The room was the size of a city block.But it did not look like the magical, glowing palaces of the Sovereign Council. There were no gold

The bright, blinding white light from the computer screen filled the dark underground room. It chased away the deep shadows. It painted the dusty concrete walls in a pure, clean glow.Everett stood in front of the ancient terminal. His large, scarred left hand had just unlocked the deepest secret of the world. The screen read: BIOLOGICAL SIGNATURE ACCEPTED. WELCOME, ADMINISTRATOR.Silas slowly lowered his sniper rifle. He stared at the screen. He could not believe what he was seeing. "Everett," Silas whispered, his voice full of pure shock. "You are the key. The System thinks you are one of its creators.""It is not me," Everett said quietly. He pulled his hand away from the cold glass screen. He looked at his scarred skin. "It is the blood they put inside me when I was a child. The scientists in the dark rooms. They injected me with the old, raw code. They wanted to make a weapon. They accidentally made an administrator."Rae did not waste another second. She jumped into the metal ch

Silas grabbed his sniper rifle. He gripped it tightly. "But we are not going to let him do that. Right, Everett? I don't care if he is the fundamental law of the universe. I would rather die bleeding in the mud as a free man than live forever as a sleeping file in a computer.""I agree," Everett said. His voice was hard and unbreakable like solid steel."But Everett," Rae pleaded softly, looking at the black screen. "How do we fight him? We saw the video. A Moderator can pause time. A Moderator can delete gravity. If you walk up to him, he will just edit you out of existence."Everett closed his eyes. He thought about the old, gray-haired creator in the video. The man who had looked so tired, but so hopeful.“Living means making choices. Living means making mistakes. They will fight. They will bleed. But they will also love.”Everett opened his eyes. The green fire inside them was blazing hotter and brighter than ever before."The Pilgrim is a machine," Everett said smoothly. "And a m