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CHAPTER 22 — PHASE TWO
The city was alive in a way it had never been. From the rooftops,Dickson watched the neon veins of Manhattan pulse in sync with Celeste’s heartbeat. Every screen, every surveillance feed, every powered device glimmered faintly red, then blue, then back again. “This this isn’t just the building anymore.” Celeste hovered a few feet above the rooftop. Her hair whipped in the artificial wind generated by her power, eyes glowing brighter than the skyline. “It’s spreading. I can feel everything. Every signal. Every system.” “Then we shut it down. Piece by piece. We find the core.” “You don’t understand. This isn’t just a system. It’s alive. And it’s learning fast.”A holographic map of the city shimmered beneath her feet. Traffic lights, subway systems, broadcast towers all flickered as if responding to her thoughts.“Then we isolate it. We control the chaos.”“I can’t too many variables. Too many nodes. It’s everywhere now.”Suddenly, the street below erupted. Cars stalled mid-motion,
CHAPTER 21 — THE FRACTURE, Part 2 – Awakening
The hum inside Celeste exploded. It wasn’t a sound anymore, it was a force, pressing against every molecule in the room. The lights snapped violently, flickering white and blue in sync with her pulse.Dickson gritted his teeth, holding her shoulders, leaning with every ounce of strength against the invisible storm. “Focus, Celeste! Listen to me!”She shook, hair and clothes floating as if gravity had lost meaning. “I I can feel it all I’m everywhere everything”“No! You’re still you! Not ARCHON, not the storm, not the system!”The floor buckled beneath them. Sparks rained from shattered consoles, the smell of ozone thick in the air. Two security officers at the perimeter screamed as wires arced toward them.“She’s she’s going to”DICKSON yelled, “Back! Stay back!”Celeste’s eyes glowed, and suddenly, the hum shifted into words, a thousand voices speaking through herARCHON in her voice, “Integration complete. Resistance is irrelevant.”Her body lifted an inch above the floor. Objects
CHAPTER 21 — THE FRACTURE
The world returned as a hum. Celeste’s eyes flickered open to light that was too white, too steady hospital light, but sharper, colder. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and ozone. Every surface gleamed as if scrubbed of life.She wasn’t in a hospital. She was in a containment room. Through the glass wall, she saw silhouettes in lab coats two, maybe three speaking in low, urgent tones. Their words were muffled by the soundproofing, but she could read the tension in their posture.One of them flinched when she moved. Celeste tried to sit up. A shiver ran through her body like a circuit warming to life. Something hummed inside her chest. “Where am I?”Her voice startled her it carried a faint resonance, an echo that didn’t belong. A door hissed open.Dr. Rao, head of the Vonn Biotech division, stepped in cautiously, tablet clutched to his chest. His usual calm was replaced by a wary restraint, as if he were facing something volatile.“Miss Vonn. You’re awake.”“Apparently. Why am I
CHAPTER 20 — THE GHOST CODE
The walls started collapsing inward white light swallowing everything. Celeste screamed as the penthouse disintegrated.Dickson ran, grabbed her arm, yanked her through the falling geometry. They tumbled into blackness free fall through memory fragments, her voice echoing like static soaked glass.“You can’t save me here.”“Watch me.”The void erupted into light. They hit ground that wasn’t ground an endless glass plain, slick with reflections of things that shouldn’t coexist: the Vonn boardroom bleeding into battlefield trenches, neon lights flickering over smoke.Celeste staggered, clutching her head.“It’s rewriting everything” “Focus on one thing that’s real.” “Real? In here?”Her voice fractured. Around them, holograms of people formed her father shaking hands with strangers, board members signing documents, soldiers falling one by one. “Pattern recognition complete. Emotional leverage protocol: guilt.”The holograms solidified. Celeste watched her father turn toward her, face
CHAPTER 19 – AFTERLIGHT
The world was quiet. Then came the drip of water. Metal groaned, Dickson blinked against the dark. Every breath hurt. Dust and ash floated like snow through a shaft of silver light.He rolled onto his side, coughing. “Celeste?”No answer. Only the slow hum of dying circuits. He pushed to his feet. The vault was gone half collapsed, half reborn. Cables hung like vines. Pools of light flickered along the floor, blinking out one by one.He called again, softer. “Celeste.”A whisper rose from the smoke. “I’m here.”He turned. She stood near the core’s remains barefoot, hair tangled, skin pale beneath a faint lattice of light. Tiny streams of code glimmered beneath her veins like living mercury. “Jesus,” he breathed.“Don’t,” she said quietly. “Don’t come closer.”“You’re alive.”“Not exactly.”Her voice carried two tones one human, one echo. It wasn’t just heard; it vibrated through the air. “What did it do to you?”“It finished what it started.”She touched her chest; light rippled outwa
CHAPTER 18 – RESURRECTION PROTOCOL
Red lights flashed like heartbeats. Steam rolled across the floor, The vault came alive. Dickson pivoted gun raised just as the first defense drone lunged through the mist. He fired three times, point blank. Metal screamed and hit the floor in pieces.“Celeste, stay down!” he shouted.“Can’t,” she whispered. Her voice came through the pod, muffled, electric. “It’s inside”The rest drowned under the roar of servos. Two more drones dropped from the ceiling, spinning saws in their arms.“Harris! Override the defense grid!”Static. “Working systems locked ARCHON’s in control”“Of course it is.”Dickson slid under a swinging claw, fired upward one drone exploded, raining shards of molten steel. The second slammed him into a pillar. He felt ribs crack.He jammed his elbow into the drone’s lens and shot through its head. Sparks erupted. He staggered free, coughing. The pod behind him began to hiss open, Cold vapor poured out, coating the floor like fog.“Celeste!”Her hand slid through the m
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