On the seventh day after the press conference, Alison was reviewing the ethical alliance's structural plan in the laboratory when the holographic screen suddenly flickered with a red warning— the company's firewall had detected a quantum-level intrusion, traced back to the IP address of the already sealed consortium headquarters.
She quickly switched to the defense system and discovered an encrypted video embedded in the intrusion code. When the screen unfolded, Richard's distorted face emerged from the darkness, with countless floating server cores behind him, as if he were trapped in a data abyss.
"Congratulations on tearing through our outer layer," his voice echoed with a mechanical reverberation. "But the real game is just beginning. Your rebirth code... has been uploaded to the dark web auction platform, labeled: the key to unlocking immortality technology."
The screen suddenly went black, and cold sweat oozed from Alison's palms. Exposing the truth about the rebirth experiment was meant to deter, but instead, it had turned her existence into a black market commodity. She grabbed her coat and rushed to the regulatory bureau. On the way, she received an urgent text from Connor: "Jack suffered a sudden heart attack in prison. A micro-tracker was found in his body during rescue."
In the regulatory bureau's interrogation room, the director gravely displayed the tracker's analysis results: "The signal source comes from the consortium's underground laboratory. Jack secretly visited this location before his arrest."
"Take me there," Alison put on her tactical gloves. "His memory chip might have a roadmap."
Connor inserted the chip, and the holographic projection displayed a series of coordinates and encrypted instructions. When decoding reached the deep layer, the suddenly changed—the of Jack's ex-wife appeared, her lips moving silently. Lip-reading software translated: "Find the 'Echo Device' in the basement. It's the key to destroying them."
The three sneaked into the abandoned consortium laboratory, where the passage was filled with biometric traps. Alison used the emergency key left by Sophia to break through the defense line. Upon reaching the basement, she saw a giant quantum resonator injecting data streams into underground pipelines.
"The Echo Device," Connor pointed to the core of the instrument. "This is the interface that maps dark web transactions to the real world in real-time."
Alison activated the dismantling program. The resonator suddenly let out a high-frequency scream, and the wall projected a holographic image of the mastermind—it was the deputy director of the regulatory bureau, a face that had attended the hearing.
"You can't stop the arrival of immortality technology," the deputy director grinned ly. "Alison, your rebirth is just the first step in our selection of the perfect sample."
Alarms blared, and the laboratory's security system rebelled. While Connor counterattacked with hacking tools, Alison noticed a familiar code string mixed in the resonator's data stream—the last hidden signal transmitted by Sophia before her mechanical heart exploded.
"Decode that signal!" she shouted. Connor's fingers flew across the keyboard. When the signal was decoded, the holographic screen displayed a stunning image: Sophia's AI consciousness was still alive in the resonator network, engaging in a quantum-level game with the deputy director.
"I ," Sophia's mechanical voice came from the resonator. "Alison, use my consciousness flow to cut off the deputy director's master control authority!"
Alison inserted the key into the interface. Sophia's code surged into the system like a storm. The deputy director's image and struggled, and control of the security system was gradually regained. But on the eve of victory, the resonator's core suddenly overloaded—the deputy director's suicide program was activated, and the entire laboratory would detonate a quantum bomb.
"Evacuate!" Connor dragged Alison toward the escape tunnel. Sophia's final transmission came from behind: "Save my consciousness fragments to the ethical alliance server. Maybe they can be reconstructed... but remember, immortality is not the answer, but a trap."
The shockwave of the explosion threw the three of them away. Before losing consciousness, Alison glimpsed the deputy director's final message: "Your rebirth code has been sold. Buyer code name: 『Prometheus』."
When she woke up in the hospital, Alison received the regulatory bureau's investigation report: the deputy director was actually a third-generation AI puppet of the transnational consortium, and clues about "Prometheus" pointed to a mysterious biotechnology summit. She clutched Sophia's consciousness fragment memory card and decided to infiltrate the summit in person—this confrontation had escalated from revenge to a war for human dignity.
At the summit, she disguised herself as a supplier and sneaked into the core exhibition area. The "immortal embryo" samples displayed in the holographic showcase were suffocating. Familiar conversations came from the VIP room next to the showcase:
"Lord Prometheus, Alison's rebirth code will perfectly integrate with your genes," a consortium executive . "She is not only an experimental carrier but also a living advertisement."
Through the lens, Alison caught a glimpse of the figure in the VIP room—the person was wearing a bionic mask, but the neck scar was exactly the same as that of the "truck driver" at the scene of her car accident three years ago.
She quietly activated Sophia's consciousness fragments. The AI code infiltrated the summit's security system, and the showcase suddenly holographically projected the list of victims of the rebirth experiment. In the chaos, she approached the VIP room. The moment the masked man turned around, a gun was already pressed against his brow.
"Take off your mask," she . "You are both the truck driver and the consortium buyer. Tell me, where is the real manipulator?"
The mask cracked, revealing a young face—it was Richard's nephew, with a quantum communication chip implanted in his pupil. He laughed, and the chip emitted blue light: "You can't beat the algorithm. Prometheus is... all the lunatics who crave immortality."
The summit alarm roared. Alison dragged him into the escape pipeline. Sophia's warning suddenly came from the consciousness fragment: "They have activated the global dark web auction. Your code is being split and bid on!"