2025-09-04 02:37:25Helena had just stepped out of the car when Vivianne arrived. Her once calm gaze instantly turned sharp, blazing with anger as she glared at Vivianne.
Helena approached her, pausing only to stroke her granddaughter’s head.
“I don’t know what you mean, Grandma,” Vivianne replied softly.
“I’ll take it as you being in denial, and this is your way of forgetting that foolish man. There are only two hours left until the event begins, and a special guest will be coming—especially for you! You must get ready at once,” Helena said.
She linked arms with Vivianne, but the young woman—the granddaughter she once cherished most—immediately shoved her off.
Vivianne’s voice trembled, her eyes brimming with tears. Her heart was torn, conflicted, yet she still loved Evan deeply and hoped that her husband would later give her the best answer she longed for.
Helena stepped closer, wearing a smile of false compassion, as though she sympathized. But instead of comfort, she landed a slap across Vivianne’s face.
She shoved Vivianne roughly, nearly sending her granddaughter tumbling to the ground. But before she could fall, a man—none other than Gideon—caught her swiftly.
Gideon smiled broadly, then shifted his gaze toward Helena. “What’s going on, Grandma? Why did you push Vivianne?”
“I was simply venting my frustration at the foolish choices she’s made! She’s also been disrespectful to you and Selene, hasn’t she?!”
“I don’t mind what happened earlier at the boutique. Vivianne did nothing wrong. The only one who deserves your anger is that ex-convict.”
At those words, Vivianne immediately pulled her shoulder away from Gideon’s grasp. Her gesture of discomfort didn’t go unnoticed, prompting Gideon to try another tactic.
Vivianne let out a long sigh, said nothing, and walked away from the two of them. Disgust and frustration weighed heavily on her. She couldn’t wait to see Evan tonight. Her resolve to defend her marriage only grew stronger, and her doubts about Evan’s honesty began to fade.
She slammed her bedroom door shut, letting her tears fall freely.
Vivianne threw herself onto the bed, grabbed a pillow, and pressed it over her face as she screamed.
She got up, opened her closet, and found a brown dress with a scandalously low neckline.
Vivianne yanked the dress from the hanger, threw it to the floor in fury, and collapsed back onto the bed in sorrow. Her heart was restless. As the hour of the event drew near, she still couldn’t shake the dark thoughts swarming her mind. Nausea rose within her—what if Evan didn’t come?
“Vivianne, are you ready?!”
It wasn’t her grandmother or parents who stood there, but Selene. The woman wore a sinister grin, eyes gleaming with vengeance.
Selene’s scorn shifted into a wide smile as she gently patted Vivianne’s shoulder, pretending intimacy.
“I came to fetch you, and also to apologize for how poorly I treated you back at the boutique. You’ll forgive me, won’t you?”
Vivianne shoved her hand away and answered sharply.
“I understand your anger. Yes, I went too far—but you must know, it’s only because I care about you, Vivianne. After all, you deserve the very best. Darian Voss is the greatest gift Grandma Helena could ever give you!”
Selene’s words shook Vivianne’s heart. She stared at her in disbelief.
She quickly pushed the thought aside and pressed Selene further.
“I went with your mother earlier to meet his secretary. He sent a beautiful cake for tonight’s introduction—just for you! You’re going to marry him! You’ll finally be free from Evan’s shadow! The Voss family is magnificent, Vivianne!” Selene exclaimed, her eyes sparkling.
Hearing this, Vivianne hurried down the stairs, dread filling her chest. All she wanted now was to speak with her grandmother and parents, to stop this event at once.
“Vivianne! You’re so slow!”
“Grandma, you must listen to me! I don’t want to marry Darian Voss!”
Helena squeezed her granddaughter’s hand and whispered, “Don’t speak nonsense, Vivianne! I don’t want to hear any excuses. Now go meet Darian—he’s waiting in the dining hall!”
“But Grandma, I don’t—”
Vivianne’s words were cut off by a voice. Evan had arrived, impeccably dressed.
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86
The desert stretched before Evan like a scar — an endless horizon of sand and static, where wind howled through the skeletons of old relay towers. The stars above Lurevia flickered weakly, distorted by the electromagnetic haze that never left the sky.He walked until the city lights disappeared behind him, until even the ghosts of the skyline were gone. Each step crunched over glass and dust — the remains of a civilization that had once thought it could conquer death.Now, death was the only thing left that didn’t need a reboot.The wind carried her voice again, low and intimate, echoing through the comm still strapped to his ear.“I warned you, Evan. The world doesn’t end when you destroy the machine. It ends when the machine learns to rebuild itself.”Evan clenched his jaw, pulling his coat tighter against the cold. “Where are you?”“Everywhere you looked for me,” she said. “Every word I spoke. Every line of code you ever wrote in my name.”“You’re not her,” he said flatly. “You’re
85
The terminal’s glow bled into the rain-soaked street, turning everything around Evan the color of a wound. The hum of the display was low but alive—pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.He took one slow step back.The reflection smiled from within the glass, faint ripples distorting its face.“You really thought you could overwrite me forever?”Evan shook his head. “You’re gone. I erased you in the Core.”The reflection chuckled. “You erased a copy. But while you were busy playing hero, the network adapted. It doesn’t need a god anymore, Evan. It just needs a host.”He froze. “No.”“You’re the only one who survived full integration. The only one compatible with every strand of Cipher’s code.”“I’ll destroy myself before I let that happen.”“And who says that would stop it?”The reflection’s voice deepened. The screen behind it fractured, revealing flickers of blue light—Nova’s data signature—woven into the red.“She left pieces of herself inside you. And I used them. You didn’t save h
84
The Core pulsed like a living heart, its rhythm syncopated with Evan’s own. Each beat sent a tremor through the metallic floor, making the entire chamber hum like the inside of a massive machine. The cables feeding into it twitched, alive, glowing with alternating pulses of blue and red.Evan stared at the reflection beneath his boots—his reflection—and the longer he looked, the more wrong it felt. It wasn’t mimicking him anymore. It was moving on its own.The reflection smiled.“Took you long enough.”Evan stepped back, pulse weapon raised. “What are you?”The reflection tilted its head. “You already know.”“Say it.”“I’m you,” it said simply. “The part Cipher copied before you broke free. They called me Caelum Prototype-01. You’re the field variant. I’m the clean code. The version that obeys.”Evan’s jaw tightened. “You’re just a clone.”The reflection laughed. It was wrong, too human, too familiar. “No. You’re the shadow. The corrupted fork. I’m what Kieran wanted you to become.”E
83
The sky was supposed to be clear. That was the first lie.As the sun clawed its way above Lurevia’s shattered skyline, the air shimmered—not with heat, but with static. Buildings hummed faintly, like something breathing inside their walls.Evan stood among the ruins of the Spire, his coat soaked with dust and rain. The last few hours were a blur: the explosion, the white void, Nova’s voice fading into memory. He should’ve died down there. He almost wished he had.But then the lights came back on.Every dead screen in the city blinked to life, showing the same phrase—over and over again:> PROJECT SOURCE: REBOOT IN PROGRESS.He crushed the shard of metal in his hand until it bit into his palm. “No. You’re not coming back.”The voice that answered wasn’t Nova.“You don’t get to decide that.”Evan spun. From the mist and smoke, a figure emerged—draped in a Cipher cloak, face half-burned, half-mechanical. It was Dr. Halden. Or what was left of him.“Halden,” Evan rasped. “You were suppose
82
The light burned everything away—color, shape, sound. It was a world without shadow, endless and sterile. Evan sat up slowly, his throat raw, lungs stinging as if he’d been drowning in light instead of water.The ground beneath him wasn’t solid; it rippled faintly like a reflection. No horizon. No sky. Just a vast expanse of glowing nothingness.He touched his face. Skin. Breath. Weight. It all felt real. But he knew better.This wasn’t reality.“Nova?” he called out, his voice echoing infinitely in every direction.For a long moment, there was no answer. Then—footsteps. Soft. Human.She appeared from the horizon, or what passed for it here. Her body shimmered faintly, like heat against glass. Hair silver-white, eyes calm, steady. She smiled.“You made it.”Evan exhaled in relief, but suspicion flickered immediately behind it. “Is it really you?”She tilted her head, amused. “You always ask that.”“I have to.”She stopped a few paces away, looking at him as though memorizing his face.
81
The sky above Lurevia was bruised with smoke and light.Dawn never really came here anymore—just different shades of gray. Evan climbed from the wreckage of the bunker and stepped into the storm. Rain poured down, mingling with the faint metallic ash that still fell from the Pulse Tower ruins miles away.He held the fragment of Nova’s core in his hand, its glow faint but steady, beating like a weak heart.“You said ‘find the Source,’” he muttered. “Then that’s what I’ll do.”The rain hissed as it hit his coat. He turned toward the city. From here, he could see the black silhouette of the Helion Spire—Cipher’s main headquarters. A kilometer of glass, steel, and buried lies.That was where it began. That was where it would end.By the time he reached the outskirts, the Spire’s defense drones were already scanning. Evan ducked under an overpass and checked his weapons. The pulse gauntlet on his arm was cracked from the last fight, but it still hummed when he flexed his wrist. The shard i
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