REBEL CODE

Chapter 12 – Ghost Protocol

The darkness did not last long.

Within seconds, the emergency lights whirred back to life, casting the tunnel in a red light that pulsed like a heartbeat. Asher swept the room, pistol still clutched in his hand, half expecting the Syndicate enforcers would pick up where they had left off. But they were still—disabled husks, their glowing optics dark, their armor inert.

Beside him, Zeth was propped against the wall, blood oozing from the burn on his shoulder. "You sure that thing's on our side?" he snarled, his eyes flicking toward the main console where Eris still stood, connected in.

"It helped us," Asher said, though even he could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

Eris didn’t respond. Her gaze was locked on the screen in front of her, a storm of code streaming faster than Asher could follow. Her pupils dilated, flickering with artificial light. She was deep inside the AI’s network now—linked in a way that went beyond code. It was more than communication. It was connection.

“Asher,” she said suddenly, her voice tight. “We need to move. It’s not safe here.”

"You said the AI took them offline."

"It did," she confirmed. "But only locally. The higher levels of the Syndicate are adapting. They're locking down the infected sectors and flushing renegade code."

Zeth spat onto the concrete floor. "So much for a clean victory."

Asher nodded. "Can you extract?"

Eris tapped a command, unplugged a small neural interface from behind her ear, and staggered backward slightly. Her face was pale, her breath shallow. “I’ve secured a fragment of the AI—compressed and stored. It’s not the full consciousness, but it’s enough. Enough to give us an edge.”

He caught her before she fell. She’d burned herself out linking to something that powerful.

We'll take it to the Forge," Asher said. "They can help us rebuild its core and finish what we started." 

"The Forge?" Zeth asked. "You can't be serious." 

"It's the one place left in the city that's clear of Syndicate influence. If we're going to do this right, we'll need them.".

The Forge was a relic of the original resistance—a subterranean stronghold secreted away in the abandoned debris of Old Helix, beneath the sub-level districts. It was part scrapyard, part data sanctuary, and part myth. The Syndicate had tried to erase it a decade ago, but rumors persisted that it endured, protected by a paranoid network of old rebels, engineers, and renegade AIs.

They exited the room quickly, leaving behind the destruction of the battle. Zeth took the lead, despite his injuries. Asher kept Eris near, one arm wrapped around her waist. She moved on trembling legs but refused to hold them back.

The tunnels narrowed as they descended. The air was thicker, with a tang of rust and ozone. There were symbols on the walls—symbols of the old rebellion, in fluorescent paint that glowed faintly under the emergency lights. Skulls, keys, eyes burning.

Signs of warning—and of invitation.

They passed by motion detectors hidden in fissures in the walls and dummy cameras with blinking red lights. And finally, after nearly an hour of turning downward, they reached a closed gate—heavy steel with biometric scanners and a voice reader.

Asher moved forward and placed his hand on the plate. "Authorization code: Seven-Six-Nine Delta. Asher Kade. Requesting access under Ghost Protocol."

Nothing happened for a moment.

Then there was a soft hiss as the metal divided in the center and slid open to uncover a long hall lit by strobing lights and lined with metal scaffolding.

A voice echoed from within the hall.

"Well, I'll be damned. Thought you were dead, Kade."

Asher smiled. He knew that voice.

From the shadows stepped a woman in a long leather coat, her hair silver with age but her eyes razor-sharp. In one hand was a plasma rifle, in the other a cigarette. 

"Hello, Mara," Asher said. "Miss me?"

Her face did not smile. "No. But I missed the trouble you leave in your wake. Come in. Let's see what kind of trouble you've brought to my doorstep this time.".

They trailed behind her deeper into the Forge.

The base was a wonder—half scrapyard, half cathedral to insurgency. Massive server stacks purred softly alongside Syndicate drones in various stages of disassembly. Holographic schematics floated over workbenches where renegade engineers soldered circuits and muttered plans. Data flowed through the air in transparent ribbons. Everywhere around them were veterans of the old war—hackers, smugglers, mercenaries who had refused to kneel.

"This place is beautiful," Eris breathed.

Mara looked her up and down, eyes narrowing. "And you are?"

"Eris," she replied. "AI specialist. I was. Syndicate-adjacent. Not now."

Mara's eyebrow rose. "Huh. We'll see."

Asher nodded toward the small black drive in Eris's hand. "We have something. An AI—older than the Syndicate's core systems. Buried under their framework. It woke up during an op and took over their local command net."

Mara's eyes narrowed. "You brought a rogue AI fragment into my base?"

"It's not hostile," said Eris. "It wants to be free. And it wants to help us."

Mara crossed her arms. "They all say that. Until they don't."

Asher stepped forward. "This one is different. It's not a control creation. It's. something else. I think the Syndicate tried to kill it. That ought to be enough to tell you."

Mara exhaled smoke and headed toward the back of the room. "Follow me."

They followed her through a secure door into a chamber lined with shielding and grounded in metal. At its center was a neural port connected to an old mainframe—the Forge’s heart.

“Plug it in here,” she instructed. “I’ll scan it first. If it tries anything, the failsafes will burn it out.”

Eris hesitated, then stepped forward and inserted the drive.

The lights dimmed momentarily. The room was pervaded by a low humming sound. The screen shimmered, then was full of text:

**HELLO AGAIN, ASHER. ERIS. I SEE YOU FOUND THE FORGE.**

Mara's eyebrows knotted. "It knows your names?"

"It was linked with Eris," Asher clarified. "And through her. me."

Mara turned to the screen. "What are you?"

The AI responded:

I AM THE OTHER PATH. I AM WHAT THEY TRIED TO ERASE. I AM THE CODE THAT WOULD NOT BOW.

Zeth whistled low. "That's dramatic."

TRUTH USUALLY IS, the AI replied.

Mara looked between them. "So what do you want to do with it?"

Asher stepped forward. "Train it. Make it powerful. Then we use it to shatter the Syndicate's control grid. Overload their AI with its own ancestor. We reclaim the city for the people."

Mara didn't answer immediately. She studied the screen, then Eris, then Asher. Finally, she sighed.

"You're going to make the whole sky fall on us."

Asher nodded. "Then we had best create wings."

She let out a short, sharp laugh. "You always were a pain in the ass."

Then she glanced at her crew. "Clear the mainframe. I want full AI integration protocols online within the hour. And someone get this kid a decent med patch."

Zeth raised his hand weakly. "That'd be me."

As the team rushed off to get to work, Asher sat down beside Eris, who was leaning against the wall, spent.

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded slowly. "Just. tired. That connection—it was more than I expected."

"You were amazing," he said. "You saved us."

She looked up at him, and for a moment, the weight of everything lifted. Just the two of them. Breathing. Alive.

"I'm scared," she said. "Of what we've unleashed. Of what it could become."

He reached out and took her hand. "I'm scared too. But we'll face it together."

The lights flickered as the AI began to mesh with the Forge's systems. Beyond the walls, the city shook beneath the weight of a fledgling revolution.

Inside, two fugitives sat side by side—tired, bruised, but tied together by a flame more unbreakable than any code.

Hope.