RISE OF THE FALLEN HEIR

CHAPTER 7: THE SHADOW CONNECTION

I didn’t sleep that night.

The memory fragment kept replaying in the back of my head like a glitch I couldn’t debug.

 That voice, the one that whispered “Welcome back, Ethan” didn’t belong to Omega.

 It was human. Familiar.

But no matter how many times I asked Omega to replay it, the answer was the same.

[Access denied. Fragment integrity at 42%. Attempting repair will risk data loss.]

Risk it? I’d lost everything already. Still, I stopped myself. The last time I forced the System, I blacked out for nearly an hour. Omega’s code wasn’t meant to be brute-forced; it retaliated.So instead, I did what I did best. I dug.

By dawn, my desk was buried in holographic projections logs, metadata strings, and access footprints from the night before.

 Somewhere in that chaos was the truth: where Omega came from, and who had used it before me.

[Host fatigue at 76%. Rest recommended.]

“Later,” I muttered. “Pull all system registry entries linked to your creation.”

Omega paused. Then lines of text materialized old server tags, encrypted references, outdated project names.

One stood out like a scar.

[PROJECT ASCEND – Neural Intelligence Division // Restricted Government Prototype]

“Government?”

[Affirmative.]

 [File origin: Zenith Corporation subsidiary research unit – seven years prior.]

Seven years ago… I was still working at Zenith as a junior developer. Damien’s father, Charles Holt, had been chairman then, a man with the power to make or erase entire careers with a signature.

“Pull internal data,” I said quietly.

[File access locked behind Level-3 encryption. Authorization required.]

“Then find someone who can break it.”

Omega’s response was almost too quick.

[Contact suggestion: Dr. Ivy Clarke.]

I froze, Ivy. The hacker who’d risked everything to warn me before her apartment was attacked. I thought she’d disappeared after that night.

[Signal trace: Active.]

I followed the signal trail through burned-out comm towers and abandoned data nodes. It led to an old warehouse near the river, its walls scrawled with faded graffiti and sensor jammers blinking faintly in the dark.

The moment I stepped inside, a familiar voice said, “You’re either brave or stupid, Ethan.”

Ivy stepped out of the shadows, her hood pulled low, pale blue light flickering across her cyber goggles. She looked different, sharper and more haunted.

“I thought you were dead,” I said.

She smirked. “I thought you were an idiot, but here we are.”

Despite the sarcasm, relief flickered in her eyes.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“Omega did.”

That made her flinch. “So it’s still talking to you.”

“You know what it is?”

Ivy hesitated, then gestured toward a cracked terminal on the table. “Not just what it is. Where it came from.”

The hologram flickered to life, showing classified documents and schematic blueprints. The heading read: PROJECT ASCEND: Artificial Sentience Neural Evolution Device (Codename: OMEGA).

I leaned closer. “Government prototype?”

“Not just the government,It was a private collaboration. The Neural Intelligence Division built the framework. Zenith provided the funding through a front company.”

“Zenith?” You mean—”

She nodded. “Charles Holt. Damien’s father. He was the lead investor.”

The name hit like a bullet. All the dots connected to my betrayal, the frame-up, the destruction of my career. It wasn’t random. It was a cleanup.

“They didn’t just steal your invention,” Ivy continued. “They stole the foundation of Omega itself. You worked on its core algorithm years ago, remember? The adaptive neural feedback loop? That was the backbone of Project Ascend.”

 I remembered those long nights in the lab, running simulations that Zenith said were too unstable to continue. They’d shelved the project or so I thought.

“You’re telling me the thing inside my head was born from that experiment?”

“Yes, and it wasn’t supposed to survive the first host.” I stared at her. “First host?”

Her eyes darkened. “Ethan… Omega has been linked to someone before. I don’t know who. The records were wiped after the test subject vanished. But your neural pattern it’s almost identical.”

Omega’s voice interrupted, sharp as a knife.

[Warning: Unauthorized access detected.]

 [Host environment compromised.]

Ivy’s eyes darted around the warehouse. “They found us.”

“What?”

“Zenith’s signal trackers. They must’ve piggybacked on my transmission to you.”

I grabbed her arm. “Can you move?”

“Always,” she said, yanking a drive from the terminal. “I’ve got enough data fragments from Project Ascend enough to prove everything. But we need to—”

The wall exploded.

A burst of electric pulse tore through the atmosphere, knocking us backward. Drones swarmed through the opening sleek, spider-like machines with Zenith’s logo etched into their plating.

[Host in danger. Activating defensive protocol.]

“Omega, override!” I shouted.

[Authorization granted.]

Time slowed. My vision shifted every drone’s movement outlined in glowing blue code. Omega fed combat predictions directly into my neural link.

I grabbed a fallen metal rod, swung it upward, and slammed one drone against the wall, sparks raining across the floor. Ivy ducked behind the terminal, firing a small EMP launcher. Two more drones dropped.

The warehouse trembled as more poured in.

“Too many!” she shouted.

“Then we run!”

We ran through the back exit as Omega rerouted traffic signals, locking down pursuit routes in real time. Sirens wailed in the distance, the sound bouncing through the wet streets.

By the time we reached the riverbank, my lungs burned, and the rain soaked through my jacket. Ivy fell to her knees, coughing.

I turned, scanning the skyline for drones. “You okay?”

“Never better,” she rasped, clutching the drive to her chest. “They’ll keep coming. Zenith won’t let us breathe after this.”

[Threat level downgraded: Moderate.]

I exhaled slowly, my mind racing. “You said the first host vanished. What happened to them?”

She shook her head. “No one knows. The data was erased. But one log survived a single line.”

She handed me the drive. On the screen, fragmented text flickered in and out of view.

‘HOST 00 TERMINATED – SYSTEM MIGRATED.’

I stared at it, “Migrated?”

“Into you,” she whispered. “Or someone like you. Maybe both.”

[Anomaly detected.]

 [Warning: System stability at 87%. Neural interference is increasing.]

Omega’s voice glitched, layered, distorted as if something else was speaking through it.

“E… than… protocol… breach… you… are…”

“Omega?” I said cautiously.

Static filled my head, sharp and painful.

“You are not… the first host.”

The words came out jagged, alien half-human, half-machine. My vision blurred.

“What did you say?”

[System error. Data corruption at 11%. Please—]

The voice cut off. My knees buckled as a flood of memories, not mine crashed through my brain: a man screaming inside a lab, wires in his skull, his pulse flatlining.

Then silence.

Ivy gripped my shoulders, eyes wide. “Ethan! What’s happening?”

I could barely breathe. “Omega… it remembers someone else.”

She stared at me, realising dawning. “Then whoever that was might still be connected.”

The rain fell harder, drowning out the world as Omega’s last coherent message appeared before my eyes:

[Mission update: Locate former host.]

 [Access restricted: Clearance Level Unknown.]

I felt the air freeze in

my lungs. Somewhere out there, someone had lived this before me.

 And they were waiting.