2025-03-24 21:38:47The safe house was quiet, save for the constant hum of the decryption software running on Carter’s system. Malcolm paced the room, arms crossed.
Zeke sat at a workstation, fingers flying over the keyboard. “Alright, so, uh… good news? We’re about 30% into the decryption process.”
Malcolm narrowed his eyes. “And the bad news?”
Carter sighed, rubbing her temples. “The Syndicate’s encryption is more advanced than we thought. The files are fragmented. The deeper we go, the more resistance we hit.”
Malcolm stopped pacing. “Meaning?”
Carter looked at the screen, her brows furrowed. “Meaning they have a failsafe built in. If we hit the wrong sequence… the data might wipe itself completely.”
Malcolm exhaled sharply. “So we only get one shot at this.”
Zeke nodded grimly. “Yup. And we’re already on borrowed time.”
Outside, the city was waking up, but Malcolm knew the hunt was still on.
He turned to Carter. “What’s in the files so far?”
She clicked a few keys, pulling up a fragmented document. Lines of corrupted text flashed across the screen.
Then, one phrase stood out—highlighted in red.
Project: Helios
Malcolm’s stomach tightened.
He had heard that name before. Years ago. Before everything fell apart.
“What the hell is Project Helios?” Zeke muttered.
Carter frowned. “I don’t know yet, but—”
A loud beep interrupted her.
The decryption progress jumped to 50%… then stalled.
Zeke’s eyes widened. “Uh, guys? That’s not me.”
The screen flickered. The code began rewriting itself.
Carter’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “They’re trying to lock us out.”
Malcolm’s jaw clenched. The Syndicate had found them.
A voice crackled through the speakers—distorted, mechanical.
“Malcolm. You’re in over your head.”
Malcolm stepped forward. “And you are?”
A pause. Then, a cold chuckle.
“You already know who I am.”
The line cut out.
And then—
The power went out.
Total darkness.
“Backup generators should kick in,” Carter muttered, reaching for her tablet.
A deep thud echoed from above.
Then another.
Zeke whispered, “Uh… is that—”
Another thud. Closer this time.
Malcolm pulled his gun. “They found us.”
The safe house had security, but if the Syndicate had breached the upper level, they wouldn’t have long.
Carter moved to the server console. “We can’t leave yet. If I don’t finish the decryption, the files will be lost.”
Malcolm turned to Zeke. “How fast can we get out?”
Zeke gulped. “You want the safe way or the insanely reckless way?”
Malcolm didn’t hesitate. “Reckless.”
Zeke sighed, pulling up a blueprint. “There’s an emergency exit—an old subway access tunnel beneath us. But it’s flooded, and also, uh… might collapse.”
A loud bang came from the entrance.
Carter’s fingers flew across the keys. “Decryption at 80%. I just need a few more minutes!”
Malcolm turned to Zeke. “Get the tunnel open. Now.”
Zeke scrambled to a hatch on the floor, prying it open with a crowbar. A metal ladder led down into dark, stagnant water.
Malcolm aimed his gun toward the sealed entrance, where the pounding had turned into cutting sounds—someone was slicing through the door.
“Carter—now.”
“90%—almost there!”
The cutting stopped.
A beat of silence.
Then—
Boom.
The door exploded inward, blinding light and smoke flooding the room.
Carter ripped the drive from the console. “Got it!”
Malcolm grabbed her wrist and shoved her toward the hatch. “Go!”
Carter climbed down first, splashing into the waist-high water below.
Zeke followed, slipping halfway and cursing.
Malcolm fired off three shots, forcing the first armored intruder to duck.
Then he jumped.
The tunnel was narrow, damp, and collapsing in places. The only light came from Carter’s wrist display.
Zeke was already half-running, half-wading ahead. “I told you this was a bad idea!”
Malcolm ignored him, checking the data drive in Carter’s grip. “Is it safe?”
Carter nodded. “Encrypted, but intact.”
Behind them, voices shouted in the distance.
“They’re following us,” Carter hissed.
Zeke panted. “Yeah, no kidding!”
The tunnel sloped downward, leading toward a sealed maintenance hatch.
Zeke paled. “That thing’s been rusted shut for years.”
Malcolm handed him his gun. “Then start shooting.”
Zeke blinked. “Wait, what?”
Malcolm aimed at the lock. BANG. BANG.
The hatch shuddered but held.
The voices behind them grew louder.
Malcolm reloaded. “Again.”
Carter grabbed a nearby pipe. “Or—”
She swung it at the lock.
CRACK.
The hatch snapped open—revealing a long drop into the river below.
Zeke groaned. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Jump,” Malcolm ordered.
Zeke hesitated. “What if—”
A bullet whizzed past his ear.
He jumped.
Carter went next.
Malcolm turned, fired a final shot, then dived into the dark water below.
They surfaced, gasping.
Zeke flailed. “Oh my god—this is disgusting—”
Carter paddled toward the riverbank, shivering. “We need to move before they track us.”
Malcolm dragged himself onto solid ground, soaking wet but still holding the data drive.
He exhaled.
They had escaped.
Barely.
Carter looked at him. “Now what?”
Malcolm stared at the drive.
They had answers now. Or at least the start of them.
And the Syndicate wouldn’t stop until they got it back.
Malcolm’s jaw tightened.
“Now?” He pocketed the drive, eyes burning with determination.
“Now we take them down.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 126 – Identity Drift
Location: The Crosswind – Archive SubdeckChrono: +7 days since Rift StabilizationZeke stared at the interface logs on his tablet for the third time in an hour.Something didn’t add up.“Run it again,” he muttered.The ship’s AI, IONA, pulsed a soft blue on his display.Recompiling neuro-spectral logs… completed. Variance detected: Subject ‘Mara Voss’ exhibits temporal inconsistency.Zeke blinked. “Mara?”He opened the biometric stream. Her heartbeat was steady. Too steady. Exactly 68.4 BPM for the last six hours. Not even a half-second fluctuation. Not while running drills. Not during sleep.Human physiology didn’t do that.Machines did.Elsewhere – Combat Simulation DeckMara Voss moved through the drill like a ghost. Every movement efficient. Every strike precise. The sparring drone couldn’t keep up.Cade stood on the observation platform, arms crossed, trying to ignore the chill at the base of his spine.“She’s… better,” Mira observed beside him.“Too better,” Cade muttered. “Tha
Chapter 125 – Echoes in the Shell
Location: Crosswind – Bio-Simulation LabThe scan couldn’t lie.“What do you mean it matched my biometric ID?” Ethan asked, voice low but strained.Mira didn’t flinch. “I ran the trace three times. The figure in the new aperture—the one mimicking your face—it’s not just copying your appearance. It’s pulsing with your neural signature. Thought patterns. Heart rate rhythms. Even micro-muscle memory.”Ethan stared at the image: a shimmering humanoid, partially formed from Riftlight, flickering between known shapes. His. Zeke’s. Ava’s. And others no one could place yet.“It’s building a composite,” Nyah murmured from the corner. “It’s taking the best—and worst—parts of us and forging something new.”Zeke rubbed his temples. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or terrified.”“Both,” said Cora, stepping into the lab. “You should be both.”Briefing Room – 02:17 Galactic Time“I’m calling it the Echoframe,” Mira began, projecting the hologram mid-air. “The figure appeared in Aperture Sigma-
Chapter 124 – Ghost Code
Chrono: +6 days since Rift StabilizationLocation: The Crosswind – Observation DeckEthan Cross stood alone in the darkened observation chamber, eyes fixed on the Rift. It no longer pulsed erratically. No surges. No collapses. Just that slow, calculated shimmer—like light moving through memory instead of space.He hadn’t logged anything tonight. Not yet.He couldn’t bring himself to speak aloud.For the last three nights, he’d seen the same dream. A field of fractured mirrors, each reflecting a version of himself—some older, some younger, some monstrous. One had eyes filled with stars. Another had blood on his hands.And in each reflection, the same voice echoed behind him.“You were never the first.”Elsewhere – Secondary Lab Deck,Nyah adjusted her neural interface collar and sat beneath the glowing network grid. The glyphs had become less chaotic. They now resembled syntax. Sentence fragments, even. She didn’t read them. She felt them, like currents of emotion laced into symbols.“
Chapter 123 – Fragments of the Forgotten
Nyah sat alone, surrounded by holographic glyphs—alien, angular, pulsing gently with Riftlight. They weren’t symbols exactly. They were emotions encoded as shapes, patterns born not from language but intent. She wasn’t deciphering them.She was feeling them.Each sequence hummed with echoes: awe, longing, grief. It wasn’t human, but it was undeniably sentient. And today, for the first time, the Veil had sent something different.A message: “Remember me.”She didn’t know if it referred to itself or to something it had once known. But she knew one thing—it was reaching deeper. Past the data. Past the code. Into memory itself.Ethan examined the sealed Parallax crate Cora had brought aboard. Inside: a scorched fragment of a Chrono Beacon, blackened but intact.“R-17 Collapse,” Cora confirmed. “Same pulse signature we’re seeing in the Veil now.”He frowned. “It’s mimicking previous anomalies?”“Or remembering them,” she said. “The Rift doesn’t forget. It replays, reflects, reabsorbs. Ever
Chapter 122 – The Stillness Between Worlds
Aboard the Crosswind – Orbiting the Rift’s LullSilence, for the first time in months, didn’t feel like dread. It felt earned.The Crosswind hovered in orbit, its engines humming at a low, steady frequency. No alarms. No fractures. No screams buried in static. Just quiet.Inside the central chamber, Ethan Cross stood with his hand pressed against the observation dome. Before him, the Rift—once a chaotic maelstrom—now shimmered like a placid ocean of stars. The colors moved slowly, like breath. The hunger that had once bled from it was gone.Or… transformed.He wasn’t sure.Behind him, Nyah stirred from the integration pod. She blinked, pupils still adjusting to full-spectrum reality.“How long was I out?” she asked, voice raspy.“Three hours,” Mira rep
Chapter 121 – The Horizon Protocol
The stars had never looked so still.From the observation deck of the Crosswind, Ethan Cross watched the vastness unfold. Space was no longer merely physical—it was conceptual. The coordinates Magnus had uploaded didn’t point to a place, but to a possibility. An unstable sector of the quantum web, nicknamed “The Horizon Veil,” where reality bled into adjacent timelines.“Coordinates locked,” Mira announced from the console below. “Course triangulated through resonance lattice. It’s holding steady… for now.”“Any signs of the Rift mind?” Ethan asked.She shook her head. “Not directly. But our sensors are picking up resonance echoes—like breathing. Something is aware of us.”“Lovely,” Cade muttered, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s go knock on its front door.”<
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