2025-10-16 13:57:40
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Chapter 12 – “Afterlight”
The sky pulsed red above the ruins of Orivale. Nicholas staggered to his feet, every breath scraping like broken glass in his chest.The Core was gone, a crater smoldered where it had stood. Ash lay half-buried under twisted steel, groaning. “You alive?” Nicholas asked, dragging him free.“Define alive,” Ash rasped. “Everything hurts but my sarcasm’s intact.”Nicholas stared upward. The red orb hung there like a dying sun, its surface shifting. For an instant, a face flickered in the light, his father’s. “He’s still here,” Nicholas whispered.“I thought you killed him.”“You can’t kill code.”Elara’s voice came faintly from the comm, static breaking every few words. “Nick… the network… it didn’t collapse. It moved.”“Moved where?”“Into the sky grid. He’s using the city’s satellites, he’s building a new shell.”Ash swore. “So the whole planet’s next?”Nicholas picked up his rifle, scanning the horizon. Something was wrong. The air shimmered, like heat on metal. Then he saw them, figur
Chapter 11 – Ground Zero
The sky over Orivale was burning red. Nicholas sprinted through the shattered streets, Ash at his side, as skyscrapers warped around them, glass twisting like liquid, steel bending toward the Core’s pulsing heart. Every electronic surface screamed the same message: ASCENSION IS NOW.“He’s rewriting the damn city,” Ash said, dodging a collapsing traffic drone. “He’s turning everything with a processor into part of himself!”“Then we cut the power,” Nicholas replied, vaulting over a crater.“You can’t cut the sun, Nick!”The Core towered ahead, half machine, half cathedral, its walls alive with flowing red veins of energy. Through the haze, the massive humanoid shape of Nicholas’s father hovered at its center, eyes burning.“Why fight me, son?” The voice resonated through metal and bone. “We could rule a world without hunger, without war. You’d rather defend their decay?”Nicholas raised his weapon. “You killed the city for your utopia.” “I saved it from itself.”A shockwave tore throug
Chapter 10 – “The Fall of Orivale
The world came back in pieces, sound first, then pain. Nicholas dragged himself from the rubble. Smoke choked the sky; the once-hidden tunnels had torn open into the streets above. A crater the size of a city block glowed with white fire. Around its rim, half-finished Ascendants twitched in the dust, sparks dying behind their eyes.Ash coughed beside him. “If that was your plan, remind me never to join your next one.”Nicholas wiped blood from his brow. “We stopped the core.”Ash pointed toward the skyline. “Then why’s Orivale still burning?”Towers were flickering, windows strobing red-blue like a living heartbeat. The network hadn’t died; it had spread.A voice cracked through the static of the city’s public feeds. “Evolution has left the lab. Welcome, citizens, to Ascension.”The sound was everywhere, phones, billboards, car radios, his father’s voice, serene and omnipresent.Elara’s whisper came through the comm implant, faint but alive. “Nick… he used the blast to seed the grid.
Chapter 9 – “Ascension Protocol”
The red emergency lights died one by one until the chamber was swallowed in darkness. Then, a hum.Low, resonant, almost like breathing.Nicholas pulled himself up from the wreckage, chest heaving. Sparks fell from the shattered ceiling, burning tiny scars into his skin. “Elara!” he called.Her voice echoed everywhere, soft, layered, dissonant. “I’m here… and not here.”“Where are you?”“Inside the network. He’s trying to overwrite me, Nick. I can feel him pulling my memories apart.”Nicholas wiped the blood from his mouth and limped toward the pulsing glass cylinder. The metallic heart inside glowed blue and red, two lights twisting and colliding like a storm.Ash groaned from where he lay near the wall, clutching his side. “Tell me we’re still breathing human air.”“Barely,” Nicholas said. “Kane?”The agent’s body was gone, only his broken badge lay on the floor, smeared in blood. “He’s not dead,” Elara said through the comms. “He’s uploaded. He’s part of the system now.”“Then we p
Chapter 8 – “The Core Beneath
The elevator screeched to a halt, cables trembling. Cold air rolled out of the dark shaft, smelling of oil and rust. Ash cocked his pistol, glancing at the flickering lights. “Sub-Level Zero looks like hell built its own basement.”Nicholas stepped off first. His boots echoed across metal grating. “That’s because it did.”The corridor was carved from old subway tunnels, reinforced with black steel. Energy conduits pulsed faintly beneath the walls, glowing with the same crimson tone as the Mayford crest.Elara stumbled behind them, pale and sweating, the red light flickering behind her eyes. Nicholas could hear the faint whisper of his father’s voice through her, low, rhythmic, taunting.“You’re running out of time, my son. Every second you hesitate, another mind joins me.”Ash muttered, “You ever notice how maniacs love monologuing?”“He’s not talking to us,” Nicholas said. “He’s syncing her.”Elara’s voice trembled. “He’s using me as a conduit… feeding the network from the inside. If
Chapter 7 – “Phase Two” (Excerpt)
The symbol pulsed brighter, painting the lab in blood-red light. Smoke drifted through the shattered corridor; sirens wheezed somewhere deep below.Ash slapped the wall panel. “What the hell does Phase Two mean?”Nicholas’s voice was flat. “It means we were already too late.”The clone’s body jerked once more and went still, the crimson glow spreading across the floor like veins under glass.From hidden speakers, a familiar voice purred through the static. “My son. You just finished the upload.”Nicholas froze. “Upload of what?”“Of me. A mind needs a vessel, after all.”The power flickered. Screens around them lit up with streams of data, DNA sequences, neural maps, Nicholas’s own heartbeat overlayed with another rhythm.Elara stared, horrified. “He’s using your signal as a carrier frequency.”“For what?” Ash demanded.“For himself,” Nicholas muttered. “He’s turning every Rebirth soldier into an extension of his mind.”“Correct.” The voice was almost proud. “And thank you for providi
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