The flash of cameras hit like gunfire. “Dr. Cole, any comment on the stolen prototype?”“Did you really cheat on your wife and your company?”Ethan didn’t flinch. The cold marble of the Manhattan courthouse gleamed under the rain, a cathedral for humiliation. He adjusted his tie, creased, not from neglect, but from hands that had trembled all morning.“Keep your head down,” muttered his attorney, a weary man named Dwyer. “Let them think you’re broken.”“I’m not broken,” Ethan said. “Just betrayed.”The courtroom doors opened. A dozen reporters surged forward before the bailiff barked them back. Inside, polished oak benches reflected the sterile glow of fluorescent lights.It smelled of paper, perfume, and judgment. At the front sat Vivian Sterling-Cole, the wife who’d once said genius doesn’t need wealth, it creates it.Today she didn’t look like someone who’d ever believed in him. Her silk suit was impeccable; her expression, a razor wrapped in calm.When she turned her head, their e

A low, rhythmic beep drilled through Ethan’s skull. Cold light pressed against his eyelids like interrogation lamps. He tried to move. His wrists didn’t follow. “Welcome back,” a voice said. smooth, clinical, female.Ethan opened his eyes. The ceiling was mirrored glass, fractured by white light panels. He was strapped to a medical bed, his veins mapped by wires, sensors crawling across his chest.A translucent wall separated him from the rest of the room, where shadowed figures moved behind tinted glass. He forced his throat to work. “Where”“Somewhere safe,” the voice replied.He turned his head , the speaker was a woman in a lab coat, her ID tag turned backward. Her expression was professionally blank. “Where’s Elara?” Ethan demanded.She glanced at her tablet. “Unconfirmed. Your vitals were unstable. We prioritized stabilization.”He strained against the cuffs. “Unstrap me. Now.”Her tone didn’t change. “You’ve been unconscious for six hours. Your blood shows traces of Nuroline.

The tunnel spun, bending like heat-warped metal. Ethan clutched the wall, gasping as something inside him clawed upward cold, calculating, awake. Maya backed away fast.“Ethan, you need to fight it!His voice came out layered his tone wrapped around a deeper, older echo. “Fight… what?”Me, the inner voice purred. The version of you they couldn’t control. Ethan’s breath hitched. “Get out of my head.”I was here before you, the voice said. You’re the shadow. I’m the original pattern the one they backed up when things started failing.Maya’s eyes widened. “He’s merging. Ethan, listen if it stabilizes, you won’t be able to tell which thoughts are yours.”“I already can’t,” he whispered, gripping his skull.Images slammed into him, Vivian crying behind a glass wall, Gregory Sterling signing off on a death order, a lab tech shouting, We’re losing him! memories that felt like drowning inside someone else’s life.“Stop!” Ethan yelled. The inner voice laughed softly. No. We’re just getting star

The undergrid was colder than the tunnels older, too. Air heavy with rust, damp concrete sweating beneath the faint glow of dying bulbs.Metal pipes groaned overhead like something alive. Vivian moved quickly, but Ethan kept slowing, listening.Every sound felt sharper now. Every vibration more distinct. Every echo mapped itself in his mind without effort. “Vivian,” he whispered, “there are three men above us. Two to the left. And”She stopped short. “You can hear that?”“I don’t hear it,” Ethan said, frustrated. “I sense it. Like…their weight presses through the ceiling.”Vivian exhaled shakily. “It’s happening faster than I expected.”“What’s happening?” Ethan demanded. “You keep dropping half-truths. Start talking.”Vivian turned down a rusted stairwell, her voice low. “If I explain in the open, we die. Keep moving.”“No.” Ethan grabbed her wrist. “Vivian, I’m done running blind.”She hesitated. “Ethan”“Tell me.”Vivian looked into his eyes a long, loaded beat and finally spoke. “

The darkness swallowed them whole. Vivian slid down the rusted ladder first, landing on a grated platform deep below the station.Ethan followed, boots hitting metal with a hollow clang. Somewhere above them, the rogue drones whirred like mechanical insects. “Keep moving,” Vivian whispered. “If they scan the shaft, we’re done.”Ethan’s voice was low, strained. “Where the hell are we going?”Vivian clicked on a small penlight. Its beam cut through dust like smoke. “An old research wing. Abandoned… mostly.”“Mostly?” Ethan repeated.“Meaning people stopped working here. The systems didn’t.”Ethan felt it again that subtle pressure behind his eyes, a prickling at the base of his skull. Like the darkness had weight. Like something inside it recognized him. He exhaled slowly. “Vivian… this place”“I know,” she said before he finished. “Just breathe. Your neural amplification is spiking because the infrastructure down here still runs.”He grabbed her arm. “What kind of infrastructure?”“The