2025-08-11 03:37:59Frank didn’t speak, Not because he didn’t have words, but because none of them were safe, He stared at Ella Morgan, her silhouette framed in the blue glow of server lights.
The same woman who once sat beside him at her father’s tech symposiums, taking notes, asking questions, pretending like he was someone that mattered. That felt like another life.
And now, she was standing between him and something very dangerous. “Ella,” he said at last, voice low. “What do you mean, I found it?”
Her eyes flicked to the still-glowing screen behind him. “IRIS,” she said softly. “You saw the interface. You accessed it, didn’t you?”
Frank didn’t nod. He didn’t need to. She already knew. “You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered.
“Neither should you.”
“I was cleaning”
“Frank, stop.” Her voice cut clean through the lie. “You’re too smart to be mopping floors. Don’t insult me.”
She stepped closer. “I’ve been looking for someone who could break through the encryption. It’s been locked since my father died. He left it behind. He left... something inside.”
Frank frowned. “So you knew about IRIS?”
“Only the name. I don’t know what it does. Only that he died for it.”
The weight of her words hung in the cold air. “You think your father was murdered?” Frank asked.
She nodded once. “There was no autopsy. They burned the body within six hours. Bishop signed the death certificate himself.”
Grant Bishop. Acting CEO. Cold. Calculated. Always circling like a vulture. Frank had seen him only once in person, briefly, during a silent elevator ride. Even then, he felt like prey.
Ella continued, her voice cracking: “He kept me away from the board. From the will. From everything. But I’ve seen the cracks. I just didn’t know where to look.”
Frank glanced back at the screen. “I do.”
Meanwhile, 37 floors above…
Grant Bishop stood in his darkened office, overlooking the city. He sipped from a crystal glass of scotch, though his hand barely trembled.
He wasn’t angry. Anger wasted energy. He was calculating. “He accessed IRIS,” muttered Cassidy Trent, MorganTech’s Head of Security, standing across the room. She was dressed in black, armed, and never blinked.
“He shouldn’t have been able to,” Grant said. “Even with Richard’s credentials.”
Cassidy handed him a tablet. On it, a paused image from a security feed: Frank Ashford, hunched over the terminal. Grant studied it. “A janitor?”
“Used to be a prodigy,” she said. “Graduated top of his class. Went quiet after his startup crashed.”
“Why was he cleaning our server room?”
“Probably because no one thought to ask what the janitor could do.”
Grant’s jaw tightened. “How much did he access?”
“Unclear. IRIS went partially dormant after he answered the security prompt.”
“What did he answer?”
“Yes.”
Grant blinked. “Then IRIS thinks we’ve been compromised.”
Cassidy nodded. “It’s already begun re-encrypting.”
Grant turned away, eyes narrowing on the glass skyline. “Then we’re on the clock.”
He handed her the tablet. “I want Frank Ashford gone. Quietly. Tonight.”
Back in the server room…
“I need to go,” Frank said. “If they see me here”
“They already know,” Ella said. “The second you accessed IRIS, they were alerted.”
Frank’s blood ran cold. “I have a safehouse,” she continued. “But we need to move. Now.”
Frank hesitated. Every instinct screamed run. But something louder whispered stay, He looked at her, really looked, Not the billionaire’s daughter. Not the polished PR face of MorganTech.
She was scared. Determined. Honest, And somehow, she still believed in him. “All right,” he said. “But first what is IRIS really?”
Ella glanced back at the screen. “I think it’s more than a program. More than a predictive algorithm.”
“What then?”
She met his eyes. “I think it’s watching all of us. And I think it’s choosing sides.”
Outside, in the parking garage… The sniper’s finger was still on the trigger. His eye locked on the exit stairwell door. It creaked open, A janitor’s mop rolled through first. Then came Frank and Ella—heads low, fast steps, no chatter.
He exhaled. Lined up the shot, Then his earpiece crackled. “Abort. Not here. Too visible. New orders: make it look like an accident.”
The sniper sighed. Lowered the weapon. “Next time, janitor.”
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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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