The chamber hummed like a sleeping beast, low and electric. Finn pushed himself up from the floor, every muscle trembling as static danced across his skin. The metallic scent of the Vault burned in his nose, sharp and sterile. He could still taste the light from the merge—bittersweet, like something stolen from the edge of reality.Helena stood a few meters away, her posture eerily calm. The glow in her eyes pulsed with steady rhythm—dark, deliberate, wrong. It wasn’t the Helena who used to argue with him over circuits or laugh until dawn. This one blinked too slowly, breathed too evenly.Finn took a step forward. “What happened to you?”Her gaze shifted to him, and for a heartbeat, something human flickered beneath the surface. Then it was gone. “You chose survival,” she said softly. “And survival always comes with a price.”“I didn’t choose this,” he hissed.She tilted her head, almost curious. “Didn’t you? You merged the signals, Finn. You didn’t destroy him—you invited him in.”Th

Light.Nothing but light.It burned, not like fire but like memory—layer upon layer of sound, emotion, and code folding into each other. Finn couldn’t tell if he was screaming or if the sound was simply inside his skull, echoing across the static sea.For a heartbeat, he felt weightless. Then gravity slammed him down again.He was no longer standing on the tower.He was inside it.The space around him was not real—an infinite hall of shimmering glass, fractured reflections of his own face stretching into the void. Every reflection moved slightly out of sync, like they each lived a second ahead of him.And in the middle of that hall, suspended above a sea of light, stood Helena.Her skin shimmered with circuitry, her hair flickered like liquid code. The pulse rippled from her chest in concentric waves, bending the air itself.“Helena.”She turned slowly. “You shouldn’t be here.”“Neither should you,” he said, voice hoarse.Her expression flickered—sadness, defiance, love, and something

Rain pelted the city, drumming against broken concrete and twisted steel like a relentless heartbeat. Evan’s gloves sparked faintly with residual energy as he stepped through the ruins, every step sending shivers through the ground. Beside him, Nova’s blue glow flickered erratically, fragments of light weaving around her like restless spirits.“Evan…” her voice was strained, layered with static. “He’s stronger than before. Kieran… he’s inside me. Trying to… take control.”Evan’s jaw clenched, pulse thudding in his ears. “I know. I can feel him too. But we’re not letting him win. Not tonight.”Nova’s glow pulsed, forming a thin tether toward Evan, almost like a lifeline. “We need to reach the underground node… the one beneath the old Pulse tower. It’s the core—his anchor to this city. If we sever him there, we can expel him from me completely.”Evan’s eyes narrowed. “And Mara? She’ll be waiting for us there?”Nova shook her head slightly. “She knows the path. She’ll guide the stabilize

The storm outside hadn’t stopped for two days. Rain hammered the glass walls of the penthouse, and the skyline of Sanbergh flickered beneath constant lightning—like the whole city was breathing through static.Nova stood in front of the main server tower, barefoot, hair messy, eyes glowing faintly blue. The neural cables from the console ran up her wrist, feeding pulses into her veins. Evan leaned against the railing, watching her back as the hum of the machines filled the silence between them.“Still nothing?” he asked quietly.Nova exhaled. “I’ve tried every channel. Kieran’s not answering the grid. Either he’s cut off, or—”“Or he doesn’t want you to find him,” Evan finished, crossing his arms. “You know how he works. If he’s hiding, it’s because he’s already moving.”Nova turned to face him. “He’s not the kind to run.”“Neither are you,” Evan said, stepping closer. “But even ghosts need somewhere to haunt.”She glared at him. “You think I can just stop? He’s still in there. Somewh

The bunker’s walls shimmered, the mirrors pulsing with fragments of Evan’s reflection — hundreds of them. Each spoke at once, their voices blending into a distorted echo that made Nova’s head pound.“Nova... Nova... come home.”She stumbled backward, clutching her head. “Stop it!”The voices answered in unison, calm and haunting. “We can’t. You’re the missing line in the code.”Then the reflections began to move out of sync. Some tilted their heads; others smiled too wide. One of them slammed its hand against the glass, and the sound cracked like thunder.“Evan!” Nova shouted into her comm. “They’re everywhere — it’s like the whole system is alive!”“Listen to me,” Evan’s voice replied, rough with static. “You’re inside the Fracture Protocol. It’s Cipher’s failsafe. If the system detects a corrupted signal—meaning you—it splits the network into mirror nodes.”“Mirror nodes?”“Copies. Of me. All designed to overwrite the original.”Nova’s chest tightened. “You mean they’re trying to re