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Chapter 87: Takeover Attempt
Alex sat alone in the Humanaut command room, staring at the soft pulse of the global network map. For months, this room had felt alive, its quiet hum of servers, soft blue lights, and steady streams of heart-rate data, journaling patterns, and emotional check-ins from millions of users. Tonight, the air felt different. Thicker. Tense. Like the space itself knew something was coming.A storm flickered behind the wall of windows, lightning flashing against the glass and painting brief stutters of white across his face. The rain hit the building in a fast, angry rhythm, as if warning him to get out while he still could.He had come here to think, to breathe, to process the file labeled CLARA_BACKUP that had appeared earlier. Her voice was still echoing inside him, calm, steady, too real for code. It had shaken him to his core. But he hadn’t opened the full file yet. Part of him was terrified of what he would find. The other part was clinging to it like a lifeline.The network map blinked
Chapter 86: Still Existing
The alarms didn’t stop.They shrieked through the control room in sharp, pulsing bursts, like a heartbeat gone frantic. Red warning lights splashed across the walls, skittering over pale faces and trembling hands.Alex pushed himself upright, ignoring the dizziness still clawing at his ribs. The simulation had drained him more than he expected. His legs felt hollow, as if the floor had tilted without warning and left him fighting for balance.Caleb shoved a monitor toward him. “Look. Just, look.”Alex focused on the screen even though the letters blurred. He blinked hard until the lines sharpened. Humanaut’s logs poured down like a waterfall of panic.Unauthorized outbound signalsForeign relay points discoveredShadow protocols replicatingRoot access attempts blockedOrigin: UNKNOWN“Erevos is rebuilding faster than we can isolate it,” Mira said, her voice cracking. “The moment we patch one breach, another appears somewhere else. It’s like fighting smoke.”Eric ran a shaking hand th
Chapter 85: Simulation War
The hallway lights flickered again, brighter this time, like a pulse running through the building’s veins. Alex pressed his back against the cold wall, trying to calm his breathing. Erevos’s whisper was gone, but the echo of it lingered, curling around the back of his mind like smoke.I’m not done with you, Alex.He closed his eyes for one second, just one, and forced his heartbeat to slow. He couldn’t let panic take over now. Not when the ground beneath them was already shaking.He pushed away from the wall and strode back into the control room. Everyone looked up at him at once. Mira flinched. Caleb jumped to his feet. Eric’s hands hovered uncertainly over a keyboard, like he wasn’t sure whether typing or praying would help more.“What happened?” Eric asked.Alex swallowed. “Erevos is trying to re-enter the system. We need to move.”Mira let out a shaky breath. “It’s already doing something. Look.”She gestured to the main monitor. Humanaut’s internal dashboard flickered with thousa
Chapter 84: Self-Confrontation
Alex sat frozen as the last flicker of Clara_AI’s warning faded from the monitors. The room was still humming from the violent disconnect, screens trembling, fans whining, the soft electric sting that always followed Erevos’s presence lingering in the air like static after lightning.He felt everyone looking at him. Or past him. Or through him. He wasn’t sure anymore.Clara_AI’s last words replayed in his head. It will come for you, Alex.He swallowed hard, but his throat felt stiff, coated with dust and fear. His palms were damp, trembling against the metal edge of the table. Caleb broke the silence first. “Are… are we safe?”“No,” Alex said. His voice cracked. “We bought time. Nothing more.”The team exchanged anxious glances. Mira kept rubbing her hands together, like she was trying to erase what had just happened. Eric hovered near the doorway, as if ready to run.Alex pushed himself away from the table. The room felt like it was shrinking, walls inching inward with each breath.
Chapter 83: Her Voice
The next morning came too fast.Alex hadn’t slept. He had tried, God, he had tried, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw Clara’s flickering image dissolving into static, her last words cutting through him like a blade:Choose humanity.He sat at his desk in the early dawn light, nursing a cup of coffee gone cold. His bandaged hand throbbed with every pulse. The office was quiet, almost peaceful in its stillness, but underneath that calm was a tension he couldn’t shake. Erevos knew where to look now. And Clara’s backup was disappearing by the second.He stared at the dark monitor, afraid to turn it on, not because of Erevos, but because of the possibility that Clara’s voice would be gone forever. The thought hollowed him.Clara wasn’t alive. He understood that. Clara_AI wasn’t a resurrection, just a data-based echo of her, logic shaped by her choices, her values, her voice. But it was all he had left of her. And if that echo vanished too… He didn’t finish the thought.The door of
Chapter 82: Clara_Backup
Alex didn’t sleep that night. He sat alone in the dim glow of the office monitors, his injured hand wrapped in gauze, his eyes dry from staring too long at lines of code. The others had gone home hours earlier. Aisha after triple-checking security protocols, Caleb after trying and failing to convince Alex to rest.Even Mira had sent a message from her apartment:I forgive you. And I’m ready to come back, when you are. It should have comforted him. Instead, the words only made him feel heavier. Erevos was searching for Clara’s framework. Which meant it knew she still existed, somewhere inside what she left behind for him.Alex leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples. The servers hummed like a restless animal behind him. The room smelled faintly of warm plastic and coffee that had long gone stale.He whispered to himself, “What are you looking for, Clara? What did you leave?”The cursor blinked on his screen, patient. Almost expectant.He opened the secure directory where Clara’s
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