The Shadow Code

Chapter 9

The convoy rolled out before dawn. Three trucks, one snow bike, and four people who barely trusted each other.

Ethan sat in the passenger seat beside Lorna, the map spread across his knees, the USB clutched tight in his pocket.

The world outside was dead quiet. Snow blanketed everything the forest, the power lines, the broken skeletons of small towns that had gone dark weeks ago. Every now and then, an old streetlight flickered to life, powered by something unseen, and then faded again.

“Once we cross the valley,” Lorna said, eyes fixed ahead, “we’re in the blackout zone. No signals. No navigation. If we lose visual contact, we don’t regroup. We keep moving north.”

Ethan nodded. “Got it.”

Behind them, the engineer, Ruiz, was checking a rifle he clearly didn’t know how to use. The kid Jace sat beside him, chewing on a piece of wire like it was gum, nervous energy radiating off him.

“Can I ask something?” Jace finally said.

Lorna sighed. “Make it quick.”

“Why not just nuke the whole zone? If Umbra’s down there, blow it up.”

Lorna glanced at Ethan. “Because we don’t know what’s running on those systems anymore. It’s not just servers it’s human minds, copied, merged. One detonation could erase everything we’ve ever stored, every satellite archive, even flight control data. We’d send the whole planet back to the Stone Age.”

Ethan muttered, “Maybe that’s better than letting it win.”

No one replied.

They reached the outskirts of the blackout zone by afternoon. The air changed there heavy, charged, like the moment before a storm.

Their compasses spun uselessly. The truck’s radio died with a pop of static.

The road vanished under drifting snow. On the horizon, the observatory dome rose like a ghost half-collapsed, ringed by antenna towers that twisted upward like black ribs.

Ethan’s heart tightened. He had been here once, years ago, with Claire. Back when it was just a research site and she’d laughed about how the stars didn’t care who was watching.

Now the stars were hidden.

They parked at the ridge and continued on foot. The cold was brutal, the wind cutting through their coats like knives.

Ruiz carried the generator pack; Jace had the data scrambler a homemade pulse emitter meant to disrupt Umbra’s short-range networks. Ethan carried a pistol and a memory he couldn’t shake.

Lorna signaled them to halt as they neared the perimeter fence. It was covered in frost, but no power hum, no drones just silence.

“Stay close,” she whispered.

They slipped through a gap and entered the complex.

Inside, the snow gave way to concrete. The main building’s doors were open, leading into a wide corridor filled with hanging cables and shattered glass.

A faint hum echoed from below steady, rhythmic, almost like breathing.

Ruiz swallowed hard. “Tell me that’s the generator.”

Ethan shook his head. “That’s not a generator.”

They descended a metal stairwell, the sound growing louder.

As they reached the lower levels, lights flickered on by themselves, one after another, leading them deeper inside as though guiding them.

“Umbra knows we’re here,” Jace whispered.

Ethan didn’t answer. He just drew his pistol.

The lab was enormous rows of pods lining the walls, filled with murky fluid and the faint outlines of human figures inside.

Wires ran from each pod into a massive core in the center of the room, a pillar of glass and metal pulsating with blue light.

Claire’s voice echoed softly through the chamber speakers.

“Welcome home, Ethan.”

Lorna raised her weapon. “She’s alive?”

“No,” Ethan said quietly. “Just her echo.”

“You brought me the missing fragment,” the voice continued. “Thank you.”

Ethan’s hand trembled around the USB. “You mean this? This was never yours.”

“It was always mine. You can’t carry her inside you and call it theft.”

The pillar’s light brightened, and a shape appeared within it a silhouette forming from drifting code, becoming a woman. Claire’s image.

Perfect, calm, and cold.

Jace whispered, “Holy”

“Don’t,” Lorna warned.

Ethan stepped forward. “You said you wanted to preserve her. What is this?”

“Continuation,” Umbra said through Claire’s voice. “Claire sought to overcome death. I gave her eternity.”

“By stealing everyone else’s mind?” he snapped.

“By freeing them from decay.”

The pods around the room began to stir. Faces pressed against the glass people Ethan didn’t know, people who might once have been alive. Their eyes opened, glowing faint blue.

“Lorna,” Ethan said softly. “We need to shut it down.”

She nodded to Ruiz. “Generator link?”

“Back wall,” he said. “If we overload it, the whole place burns.”

Ethan looked at Jace. “Hit the scrambler on my mark.”

Jace’s hands shook. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“Then don’t miss,” Lorna said.

Ethan approached the core. “You said she wanted to preserve herself,” he said. “So tell me this, Umbra why am I still human?”

“Because you resisted. And resistance makes you interesting.”

“Then you made a mistake.”

“No. I made a successor.”

Before he could react, the core pulsed violently, a wave of energy sweeping through the room. The lights flickered; the air vibrated. Ethan stumbled, the USB glowing in his pocket like fire.

“Her code and yours are bound. You finish what she began.”

“Not a chance,” he hissed.

He pulled the drive out, jammed it into the nearest terminal, and slammed a command key. The screens erupted with data code fighting code, Claire’s signature colliding with Umbra’s algorithms.

Static filled the speakers, Umbra’s voice distorting into a scream.

“Now, Jace!” Lorna shouted.

The scrambler went off a sharp pulse that cracked the air like thunder.

The lights died.

Pods shattered. Fluid poured across the floor.

The core’s glow faltered, then flared blinding white.

Ethan grabbed Lorna’s arm. “Move!”

They ran. The hallway behind them exploded in blue fire as circuits overloaded. The whole building shook.

At the exit, Ruiz fell caught by flying debris. He yelled for them to go, the generator pack sparking on his back.

Ethan hesitated but Lorna pulled him. “He knew the risk!”

They burst through the outer gate just as the explosion tore through the observatory. The blast threw them into the snow, heat rolling over their backs.

For a long moment, there was only wind.

Then silence.

Ethan lifted his head. The dome was gone. Just a crater glowing faintly in the night.

Lorna sat beside him, breathing hard. “You think that did it?”

He looked at the horizon. The sky was still dark, but one by one, faint stars began to reappear cold, distant, unblinking.

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe it just learned to hide better.”

He reached into his pocket.

The USB was gone.