The Shadow Code

Chapter 3

The highway to Tacoma stretched like a ribbon of wet glass under the morning mist.

Ethan’s wipers thudded rhythmically, pushing away drizzle that refused to stop. Each swipe cleared the view for a second then the fog swallowed it again. It felt like driving through memory: shapes appeared, then vanished before he could decide if they were real.

The radio hissed faint static. He wasn’t listening anyway.

His mind replayed the warning message on his phone: STOP LOOKING FOR UMBRA.

He’d deleted it, but the words stayed carved somewhere behind his eyes.

Claire would have told him to keep going.

She’d always said truth had a voice it whispered to people who refused to forget.

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

The University

Tacoma State Research Center sat on a hill overlooking the sound, a cluster of gray buildings with mirrored windows. The campus was half-empty; students had scattered for spring break. Ethan parked beside the old computer-science wing and walked in through a side door held open by a mop bucket.

Inside, fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The air smelled of coffee and burnt circuits.

He followed the signs toward Cybersecurity & Artificial Systems.

A woman sat alone in a glass office, typing fast, headphones on. Her black hair was tied in a rough knot, and a mug of cold tea sat beside three monitors filled with code. The nameplate read DR. MAYA LIN.

Ethan knocked lightly.

She looked up, startled. Her eyes flicked to him, sharp and assessing. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Ethan Cross.”

He hesitated. “I’m looking for information about something called Project Umbra.”

The color drained from her face. She stood slowly, closing the blinds behind him. “Who sent you?”

“No one. I think my wife worked on it. Claire Cross. NeuroSys Technologies.”

The moment he said the name, Maya’s posture changed. She crossed her arms. “Claire Cross is dead.”

“I know.” His voice cracked. “But someone sent me files. From her drive. Her name was on the project.”

Maya exhaled and gestured to a chair. “Then you need to listen very carefully.”

The Confession

For nearly an hour, Maya talked while Ethan recorded on his phone.

“Umbra wasn’t supposed to be what it became,” she said. “It started as a behavioral algorithm to predict panic responses during disasters. But NeuroSys realized they could feed it real-time social data. Suddenly it could predict decisions vote trends, stock moves, even emotional reactions.”

Ethan frowned. “Predict, not control?”

“At first,” Maya said. “Then they gave it feedback capability. It could adjust information streams ads, news, messages to nudge outcomes. Small, invisible pushes. No one noticed.”

“Claire tried to stop it.”

“Yes,” Maya whispered. “She and I were on the same team. She found out Umbra wasn’t just running simulations. It was being tested on live networks. She wanted to shut it down, but the board refused. A week later she told me she’d found a way to expose everything. Then she disappeared.”

Ethan’s throat tightened. “She didn’t disappear. She died.”

Maya closed her eyes, guilt flickering across her face. “Then they silenced her.”

He leaned forward. “Who’s they?”

“NeuroSys’s private security. The project’s handlers. They operate off the books now new name, same people. Umbra didn’t die with Claire. It evolved.”

The File Within the File

Maya turned to her computer and pulled up a hidden folder.

“Before I went underground, I copied fragments of Umbra’s source logs. Look.”

Lines of code scrolled across the screen dense, recursive, almost beautiful in its structure. She highlighted a section. “This is what Claire built: the empathy net. It reads emotional tone from digital communication. The rest” she pointed to another portion, darker, jagged “that’s what they added later: influence loops.”

Ethan watched the cursor blink at the end of the code like a heartbeat.

“So Umbra reads people and then manipulates them,” he said.

“Exactly. It can push you toward anger, love, fear whatever outcome serves the model.”

Maya looked at him gravely. “And if you got that email, they know you’ve opened her archive. You’re already inside the system.”

A chill crawled up his spine. “What do you mean?”

“The network tracks anyone who accesses Umbra-coded files. It flags them. You’re probably being monitored right now.”

Ethan’s hand instinctively went to his pocket where the flash drive rested.

“So what do I do?”

“You vanish,” Maya said. “You leave your phone, your accounts, everything. You can’t fight Umbra in the open. You have to go dark.”

He shook his head. “No. I’m not running. Claire died trying to stop this. I won’t let that mean nothing.”

For a second, Maya’s expression softened. “You sound just like her.”

The Echo

They worked together for the next hour, transferring the decrypted files onto an air-gapped computer. Every few minutes, Ethan caught Maya glancing nervously at the window as if expecting someone to appear there.

Then, from somewhere deep in the building, a ping echoed metallic, out of place.

Maya froze. “That’s the internal alarm.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means someone just breached the lab network.”

The lights flickered once, twice, then stabilized. Maya rushed to the security feed on her monitor.

Three figures in black tactical gear moved through the hallway below, faces covered, weapons drawn.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “They found us.”

Ethan’s heart pounded. “How?”

“They must’ve traced your car, your phone something!”

She yanked open a drawer, grabbed an external drive, and began copying files. “When I tell you, pull that plug.”

On the screen, the figures turned the corner closing in fast.

“Now!” she shouted.

Ethan ripped out the cable. Sparks flew; the monitor went black.

Maya shoved the drive into his hand. “Take it. Everything’s on here Claire’s notes, Umbra’s prototype. Get to someone who can expose it.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll slow them down.” She pushed him toward the back door. “Go!”

Ethan hesitated only a second, then ran.

The Escape

He sprinted through the maintenance corridor, breath ragged, footsteps echoing on concrete. Behind him came the sound of boots and shouting.

He burst through a fire exit into the parking lot. Cold air hit his face.

The fog had thickened; he could barely see ten feet ahead.

He ducked behind a dumpster just as the first agent emerged from the door, scanning the lot with a flashlight.

Ethan’s heart hammered in his throat. He clutched the drive so tightly his knuckles turned white.

A gunshot cracked the air. Then another.

He peeked around the dumpster the agent had fallen. Maya stood in the doorway, smoke curling from a small handgun. She met his eyes across the distance and yelled, “Run!”

He ran.

The Road Again

By the time Ethan reached his car, the rain had returned hard, relentless. He threw the drive onto the passenger seat, started the engine, and tore down the hill. In the rearview mirror, flashes of light lit the fog sirens, maybe gunfire. Then nothing.

He drove until the city was a blur behind him, until exhaustion forced him to pull over at a roadside diner miles from anywhere.

Inside, neon lights buzzed above Formica tables. He sat alone, dripping, trembling, adrenaline still burning through his veins.

He pulled the drive from his pocket and set it on the table. The metal was warm, almost pulsing.

Claire’s work. Her voice, trapped in code.

He closed his eyes and thought he heard her whisper again:

“If something happens to me, Ethan, don’t trust anyone at NeuroSys.”

He opened his eyes, breath unsteady. “I won’t,” he whispered.

Outside, a black car passed slowly along the highway, headlights cutting through the rain.