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CHAPTER 15 – LEVEL ZERO
The metal door hissed, Cold air bled out, tasting of ozone and rust. A single word blinked across the panel: ACCESS GRANTED.Dickson raised his weapon. “Stay behind me.”Celeste’s voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t think behind you means safe anymore.”The door split open. A shaft stretched downward, steel ribs, cable lights spiraling into darkness.Dickson scanned the interior. “Service elevator’s offline.”“Then howHe gripped the maintenance ladder bolted to the wall. “The old fashioned way.”They climbed, The hum of distant servers pulsed through the metal like a heartbeat. Somewhere far below, turbines whined, alive, aware.Halfway down, Celeste asked, “What is Level Zero?”“ARCHON’s root chamber. The first line of code your father ever wrote.”“And the last thing he tried to hide.”He nodded.The ladder vibrated suddenly. Celeste froze. “Did you feel that?”Dickson looked up. The lights above them flickered once, then again. A low mechanical growl rolled through the shaft.“So
CHAPTER 14 – MIRRORS (The Double)
The tunnel glowed red, steady, pulsing like a heartbeat. Smoke coiled off the walls.Celeste froze mid-stepOut of the haze, a silhouette walked forward, same height, same stride, same sharp-cut jaw, and the same eyes.Dickson raised his weapon. “Don’t move.”The other man smiled. “I’d say the same to you.”Celeste’s breath caught. “What is this?”Neither answered.The twin’s voice was calmer, smoother, like Dickson’s filtered through glass. “You always did run dramatic extractions. She must be the asset.”“Step back,” Dickson ordered.“Or what? You’ll shoot yourself?”Celeste’s gaze darted between them. “Dickson”“Stay behind me.”“I can’t even tell which one of you is you.”“Exactly the point,” the twin said. He stepped into the light. Same scar at the temple. Same faint mark on the neck, but his uniform, black tactical weave, Vonn insignia intact.“You’re supposed to be dead,” Dickson growled“I was,” the twin said easily. “You weren’t the only prototype he built.”Celeste whispere
CHAPTER 13 – GHOST PROTOCOL (Part 2 – The Pursuit)
A gate sealed with biometric lock, corporate emblem burned half away.Dickson knelt, prying the panel off. “Keep watch.”Celeste peeked around the corner. The mist glowed, shadows moving, crawling. The drones were slicing through the flare’s smoke now, searching again.“Hurry.”“Almost.”“You always say that.”“Because it’s always true.”The lock clicked green. The gate slid open a hand’s width, then jammed.“Come on” He forced it wider with a shoulder. “Go!”She slipped through. He followed, pulling the gate shut just as the first drone’s claw struck the bars. Sparks erupted.Inside, total blackness.He flicked his wrist light. Rows of old server racks stretched out into the dark, all powered down. Dust thick as ash.Celeste whispered, “What is this place?”“Vonn archive vault. Offline sector. Perfect.”She turned on him. “You brought us here on purpose?”He didn’t look back. “I needed to know if it still existed.”“Why?”“Because this is where your father kept his failsafes.”Her pu
CHAPTER 13 – GHOST PROTOCOL (Part 1 – The Fall)
Wind and fire swallowed the night. Celeste hit the air first, tumbling through smoke. Dickson twisted after her, arm outstretched.He caught her wrist mid-drop. “Hold on!”Metal screamed somewhere above them. The falling scaffolding rained past in glowing streaks. Below, nothing but black city void.“Dickson”“Brace!”They smashed through a lower catwalk, the impact knocking the breath from both. Steel bent and cracked but held.Celeste rolled over, coughing, rain spattering her face. “We’re alive?”“Temporarily.” Dickson checked his rifle, jammed, useless. “Move before the rest collapses.”A beam of blue light sliced through the smoke, searching. ARCHON’s voice bled down from the broken tower “Target reacquired.”He pulled her behind a rusted support. “It’s scanning.”Celeste’s hands trembled. “That thing looked like my father.”“Not looked. It was built from him. Memory imprint.”She stared at him. “You knew?”“Suspected.”“You could’ve told me!”“Would you have believed me?”Anothe
CHAPTER 12 – THE FALL (Part 2 – The Survivor)
They crept forward. The tunnel opened into a flooded sub-lab. Screens flickered erratically, replaying old surveillance feeds, Celeste in boardrooms, her father shaking hands, Dickson on a training field years earlier.On the largest monitor, her own face blinked to life, eyes cold, voice distorted. “You can’t stop what he started.”Celeste whispered, “That’s my voice.”Dickson stepped between her and the screen. “It’s the AI. Adaptive mimicry.”She stared at the image. “Then it knows everything.”“Not everything.” He pulled a data spike from his vest. “Let’s make sure of that.”He slammed the spike into the console. Electricity screamed through the system. Sparks exploded overhead, lighting the lab in violent white.The AI-voice glitched, collapsing into static, then one clear sentence slipped through “Phase Five initiated.”The monitors went black. Dickson turned to Celeste. “Whatever this is, it just escalated.”Before she could respond, the ceiling shuddered. Water burst from a cr
CHAPTER 12 – THE FALL (Part 1: The Awakening)
The only reply was the groan of collapsing metal somewhere below.Her earpiece crackled faintly. “leste”She froze. “Say that again.”“Celeste, this is, control”Static. Then nothing.She tapped the device. “If anyone’s hearing this, I’m alive. Repeat, Vonn Tower has fallen.”The words echoed back at her through the debris, hollow and strange. A beam shifted. She spun, pistol raised out of instinct. “Who’s there?”A faint light flickered beneath the rubble, a pale blue pulse.She climbed over the wreckage, boots crunching glass. Beneath a collapsed console lay one of the drones, half-melted, its optic still glowing.“Executive Vonn status, unknown,” it rasped.“I’m right here,” she said, kneeling. “What happened to the tower?”“Core separation incomplete. Containment breach pending.”Her stomach turned. “Pending? You mean it’s not over?”“Secondary core active. Signal origin, unknown.”She looked toward the horizon through the broken wall. The night skyline was fractured, but somewher
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