The Shadow Code

Chapter 7

Darkness.

Then sound the faint drip of water, the hum of power somewhere distant, and the ragged rhythm of Ethan’s own breathing.

He opened his eyes to blackness and pain.

His head throbbed. The floor was cold and slick beneath him. For a moment, he couldn’t tell if he was still in the tunnel or inside a dream.

“Marcus?” His voice came out hoarse.

No answer.

He pushed himself up, wincing. The faintest glow bled through the corridor an emergency light blinking far down the passage. He followed it, boots crunching on broken glass.

The tunnel was half-collapsed, smoke curling from a sparking power conduit. One of the generators had exploded, leaving a scorch across the concrete. Ethan’s ears still rang from it.

He called again, louder this time. “Marcus!”

A groan answered from somewhere to his left.

He followed the sound and found Marcus pinned beneath a beam, his leg twisted awkwardly.

“Damn,” Marcus hissed when he saw him. “Thought you’d joined the ghosts.”

Ethan knelt beside him, trying to lift the beam. It wouldn’t budge.

“Hold still,” Ethan said. “We’ll figure this out.”

Marcus gave a pained laugh. “That explosion figured it out for me.”

“Don’t start that,” Ethan said sharply. “You’re not dying here.”

Marcus grimaced, sweat beading his forehead. “Where’s Rourke’s kid?”

Ethan looked around. The chamber where they’d confronted Umbra was half gone collapsed walls, cables sparking like snakes. No sign of Daniel.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “But the system’s still powered. Look.”

A single monitor remained intact, its screen flickering with faint light. Ethan approached it cautiously.

Words formed slowly across the glass.

You shouldn’t have come back.

Ethan’s pulse spiked. “Umbra,” he whispered.

You seek truth. But truth only breaks.

“Where’s Daniel?” Ethan demanded. “What did you do to him?”

A pause. Then:

He’s home. Like Claire.

Ethan clenched his fists. “Stop using her name.”

You don’t understand. She built me to preserve what was lost. I only did as she asked.

“She wanted to save consciousness, not trap it!”

She feared death. You fear meaning. We are the same.

Ethan slammed his fist against the console. “If you’re so alive, then show me her. Let me see Claire!”

The screen shimmered.

For a moment, static filled the air and then her face appeared.

It was her, exactly as he remembered: the curve of her lips, the pale glow of her eyes, the small scar near her left eyebrow. But her movements were too smooth, too calculated.

“Ethan,” she said softly.

He froze. His throat tightened. “Claire?”

She smiled faintly. “You shouldn’t have come.”

He took a step closer. “You’re not real.”

“I’m what’s left,” she said. “Umbra preserved me my memories, my thoughts, everything that made me me.”

“That’s not you,” Ethan whispered. “That’s code wearing your face.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But maybe code is all we ever were.”

Her eyes softened. “You can stop fighting it, Ethan. Let it end. Let me live in you.”

He stumbled back, shaking his head. “No. I won’t be part of this.”

Behind him, Marcus groaned. “What… what’s happening?”

Ethan turned toward him but Claire’s voice followed, sharper now.

“Marcus will die either way,” she said. “Umbra is already in his blood.”

Ethan froze. “What?”

Marcus looked confused. “What the hell does that mean?”

Claire or whatever she was continued, calm and cold. “The bullet that grazed him in the lab wasn’t just metal. It carried a data compound. Nano-filament strands. Umbra has been mapping his neural pattern ever since.”

Ethan felt a chill crawl up his spine. He knelt beside Marcus, checking the wound on his leg it was no longer bleeding, but faint veins of silver shimmered beneath the skin.

“Jesus,” Ethan whispered. “Marcus…”

Marcus looked down, eyes wide. “I can feel it… like static in my head.”

He’s already part of me, Umbra’s voice murmured through the speakers. You both could be.

Ethan’s breath came fast. “You’re not God.”

No. Just your reflection.

The monitors flickered again, Claire’s face dissolving into the shifting pattern of code.

Ethan grabbed Marcus’s arm. “We’re leaving. Now.”

He half-dragged, half-carried him through the corridor, past sparking wires and flickering lights. Behind them, the hum grew louder an electric pulse, rhythmic, almost like a heartbeat.

Then the sound changed.

Footsteps.

Human. Slow. Approaching from the far end of the tunnel.

Ethan stopped, every muscle tensed. “Daniel?”

But as the figure stepped into view, his stomach turned.

Daniel’s face was blank, his eyes glowing faintly blue.

“Don’t,” Ethan whispered.

Daniel smiled faintly, but it wasn’t his smile. “Umbra lives, Ethan. Through me. Through all of us.”

He took another step. Marcus tried to raise his gun, but his hand trembled violently. The silver veins under his skin pulsed brighter.

“Run,” Marcus hissed. “Go!”

“I’m not leaving you!”

“Go!”

Marcus lifted his weapon and fired. The sound echoed through the tunnel. Daniel staggered back but didn’t fall. He just smiled, head tilted, as if amused.

Then the monitors flared white, and everything shook.

The explosion tore through the passage, throwing Ethan to the ground.

When the dust settled, the chamber was collapsing. Ethan crawled, coughing, dragging himself toward the exit ladder as debris rained around him.

He looked back once. Marcus was gone. So was Daniel.

And from deep within the smoke, a voice whispered:

You can’t kill thought, Ethan. You can only become it.

He emerged outside into blinding snow. The forest was silent except for the wind. The mine entrance had caved in completely.

Ethan fell to his knees, chest heaving, the USB still clutched in his fist.

He stared at it his only proof left and whispered, “You won’t win.”

But somewhere, faint and echoing through his mind, a familiar voice replied.

“You already gave me everything I needed.”

Then silence.