2025-08-11 03:48:27Frank Ashford’s fingers hovered above the terminal in his temporary office. His mind wasn’t just racing—it was strategizing. Fast.
Seven days.
That was all the time he had left according to IRIS- seven days until termination. A quiet death masked as a systems glitch. A purge, He wasn’t just caught in a corporate war, He was the target, And no one survived the Ashfall Protocol.
He pulled out a small notepad paper, not digital. Something untraceable.
Step one: Track who in the building had access to IRIS in the last 90 days.
Step three: Identify who placed him on the promotion list.
He already had one name: Jonathan Dale. But Dale was fading, an old man surrounded by sharks. If Frank wanted to win, he needed more than sympathy, He needed leverage.
Meanwhile, on the 38th floor…
Ella Morgan stared down at the company directory on her stolen tablet. It was heavily encrypted, but her father had taught her how to find the seams in the system.
She wasn’t looking for just any file, She was looking for Project Ashfall’s architect, Richard Morgan hadn’t designed it. He’d tried to hide it. Which meant someone else had built it under his nose.
She paused. A name caught her attention: Victor Rhine. Former Chief of Behavioral AI. Terminated. No public records.
No termination file either, Ella’s pulse quickened, She dug deeper, Victor hadn’t been terminated. He’d been erased.
Back at MorganTech Security HQ…
Frank stepped out of his office and immediately noticed something off, Two new interns stood near the elevators. Tall. Fit. Dressed in corporate-casual, but with posture that screamed military.
Private security.
His promotion had come with a leash, He took a sharp turn, down into the utility corridor he knew like the back of his hand. No cameras. No ears.
He ducked into the access closet, pulled out a comms chip from his old mop handle. Not standard issue, modified. “Ella,” he said into the chip. “You there?”
Her voice crackled through. “I’m here.”
“They’ve planted watchers. Possibly ex-special forces. They want me to feel powerful, but I’m under a microscope.”
“That’s not all,” she said. “I found the name Victor Rhine. I think he was the original architect of Ashfall. Or at least part of it. But his record’s been wiped.”
“Wiped?”
“Like he never existed.”
Frank was silent for a beat. “Then maybe we find the man who was erased.”
Meanwhile…
Cassidy Trent moved through the sub-levels beneath MorganTech, where access badges didn’t work and no security cameras were allowed.
In front of her stood a vault door. She pressed her hand to the biometric pad. It scanned. Clicked, The door opened with a hiss.
Inside: rows of containment modules. Not servers. Not files. People.
At least a dozen suspended individuals, deep cryostasis, In front of one pod: Victor Rhine. Alive, Frozen, A digital label blinked above his head:
VICTOR RHINE – 0411 — STATUS: CONTAINED — ORDERED BY: G.B.
Cassidy stared at his lifeless body, If Frank and Ella ever got this far, they'd learn the truth, They’d learn that Richard Morgan’s biggest sin wasn’t creating IRIS. It was trying to bury it.
The next day…
Frank entered the boardroom, where he was summoned to “report” on system vulnerabilities. It was a setup, he knew. They wanted to test his control. To catch him slipping.
Grant Bishop smiled coolly at him. “Mr. Ashford,” he said, “your file indicates a history of… instability. Would you care to comment on that?”
Frank met his eyes without blinking.
“My file also shows a 98.7% pattern recognition rating,” he said. “Would you like me to share what patterns I’ve found in the board’s encrypted activity logs?”
A hush. Bishop’s smile twitched. “I suggest we cooperate, Mr. Bishop,” Frank added. “Because I’m not the janitor anymore. I’m the system’s last warning before it crashes.”
Outside the boardroom…
Ella stepped out of the elevator, her heart pounding. She had what she needed, a list of secret files tied to Project Ashfall. But as she turned the corner, Someone grabbed her.
A black glove. A cloth soaked in something sweet and sharp, She gasped, Eyes rolled back, Darkness.
Inside the vault below MorganTech…
Cassidy received a message on her tablet.
SUBJECT 02 ACQUIRED: E.M.
She stared at it a long time, Then walked toward the second cryostasis pod, And began preparing it.
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Chapter Sixty-Nine — The Choicewire
The voice on the speakers was calm and infuriatingly polite, as if it were apologizing for the apocalypse it had just begun.System (measured, artificial): “Authorization request received, subject: Frank Ashford, pending biometric confirmation.”Frank’s hand hovered over the key as if it belonged to someone else the console’s white letters reflected in his eyes. Mason’s fingers dug into his arm, Derek’s smile had gone very small and very sharp.Frank (hoarse): “No, no, I won’t”Derek (soft): “You will. We agreed to honest decisions.”Frank (snapping): “You don’t get to phrase it that way.”Mason (urgent): “Frank this is not a drill. The system is probing if it authenticates you, it will link to Ella deeper. If not”Ella (a whisper from across the room, torn): “If you don’t he kills me. If you do, the world bends.”The tinnitus of alarms vibrated at the base of Frank’s skull. He could feel the code like heat under his skin, patient and hungry. The lab was a pressure chamber, every soun
Chapter Sixty- Eight- The Living Code (Expanded)
The lab smelled of ozone and iron. Every surface hummed, a low, clinical pulse that seemed to sync with Ella’s breathing. Frank’s boots made no sound on the metal grating; his hands trembled in a way that had nothing to do with the stitches still knotted under his skin.Ella stood in the center of the room like a crucible. The glow under her skin threaded up her arms and into her face, little filaments of light that rose and vanished like fireflies. When she moved, the screens around them flareddata rippling outward, cascading like a waterfall that took the light with it.Frank didn’t know how to approach her. Every step felt like a promise and a threat.“Ella,” he said, voice raw. “Ella, I’m here.”She turned for a single impossible second, he saw the woman he loved not the code, not the experiment. A quiet tilt of the head, the half-smile he remembered. Then the light crept back into her eyes and she looked strangely beautiful, disturbingly other.“Frank,” she said the syllable was
Chapter Sixty- Seven – The Living Code
The silence after Derek’s voice was suffocating.Frank’s chest tightened as Ella stepped forward into the pale, humming light. Her figure was the same her posture, her frame, the shape of her shoulders, but her eyes burned unnaturally, glowing with a faint sapphire shimmer, as if electricity pulsed through her veins. Mason’s breath caught.Mason (whispering): “Ella…” She stopped a few feet away, her expression unreadable, lips parted as though she wanted to speak but couldn’t.Frank (hoarse, stepping closer): “Ella it’s me, It’s Frank.”Her gaze shifted to him, and for a heartbeat just a heartbeat, something human flickered behind the glow. Recognition. Pain. Then it vanished, replaced by a stillness that froze Frank’s blood.A speaker crackled, Derek’s voice filled the corridor, smooth, calculated, venom-laced.Derek (mocking): “Beautiful, isn’t she? Not just alive but perfected.”Mason whirled, fury snapping through him.Mason (shouting at the walls): “What the hell did you do to he
Chapter Sixty- Six – The Hourglass Shatters
The alarms blared like a chorus of demons. Crimson light stuttered across the abandoned data center, painting Frank’s face in jagged strokes of blood-red. The countdown clock burned on the terminal: 00:59:46Frank’s pulse thundered in his ears. His throat felt raw, his breath harsh as he gripped the edge of the desk. Every instinct screamed that if he didn’t move, didn’t act he would lose everything.But the voice’s last words burrowed deeper than the sirens: The truth isn’t that Ella is alive. The truth is what she’s become.Frank (hoarse, muttering): “What the hell did you mean by that?”No answer, the comms were dead, only static.Frank (snapping at the silence): “You don’t get to disappear on me! Not now!”The static cracked, fizzled then faded altogether, he was alone. Alone with the timer eating seconds of Ella’s life.He slammed his fists against the desk, then yanked the cables free. Sparks spat, the screen blinked out, but the countdown burned on another monitor across the ro
Chapter Sixty- Five – Whispers Behind the Glass
The night pressed heavily against the glass walls of the abandoned data center, shadows spilling into every corner like smoke that refused to dissipate. Rain hammered down on the broken roof panels, its rhythm chaotic, echoing like a war drum.Frank Ashford sat rigid in the cracked leather chair, his eyes locked on the glowing terminal in front of him. His heart had been a wild drumbeat since the moment the voice first whispered through the comms.The voice of the so-called all, It wasn’t Derek, it wasn’t Ella, it wasn’t anyone he recognized, and yet it knew him too well.Frank (whispering, almost to himself): “Why do I feel like I’ve spoken to you before?”Voice (calm, distorted through the modulator): “Because you have not with words, perhaps. But with actions every step you’ve taken, Frank I’ve been in the shadows of it.” Frank’s jaw tightened his fingers curled against the desk knuckles white.Frank: “That’s supposed to comfort me?”Voice: “No, It’s supposed to warn you.”Frank sw
Chapter Sixty- Four – A Stranger’s Mercy
Darkness, Cold seeped into Frank’s bones like poison. His lungs burned, every breath thick with saltwater memory, he jerked awake choking, clawing at the air but he wasn’t drowning not anymore.He lay on a cot, rough sheets scraping his skin the scent of antiseptic biting his nose. The room was dim lit by a single hanging bulb that swayed with every faint vibration in the walls Chains were gone, Shackles gone. He sat up too fast pain ripped through his ribs.Frank (hoarse whisper): “Ella…”Silence, only the faint hum of machines, the drip of water in pipes. His pulse pounded in his temples,footsteps slow deliberate. Frank tensed, fists clenching, sparks tingled along his fingertips uncontrolled, hungry.A shadow appeared in the doorway, the figure stepped inside, face obscured by the dim light, long coat, Steady gait.Frank (snapping): “Where is she?!”The figure didn’t answer, they set a tray down water, bread, something that smelled like broth.Frank (snarling): “Answer me!”He surg
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