The safehouse was silent except for the faint hum of the Core.Lines of code crawled across the monitors — ancient, encrypted, and impossibly familiar.
Adrian stared at the terminal, his fingers trembling above the keyboard.He knew this code. He'd seen it before, years ago, in a simulation his father designed to test human–AI memory convergence.
"Raymond Vance…" he whispered. "You're still in there, aren't you?"
Elena sat beside him, her face illuminated by the shifting light of the data streams."You think your father uploaded his consciousness?" she asked quietly.
Adrian nodded. "Part of it, yes. The Core was built to store neural blueprints — entire personalities.Nadir was supposed to preserve humanity's brightest minds. But someone turned it into a weapon."
Lydia frowned. "So… what are we seeing now?"
Adrian's eyes narrowed. "Echoes. Fragments of my father's mind trapped in the network."
He pressed a few keys, and the monitors suddenly changed — forming a single coherent image.A holographic projection flickered to life above the console.
It was a man's face.Older. Worn. But unmistakably — Raymond Vance.
"Adrian…" the projection spoke, voice fragmented but still powerful."If you're seeing this, it means the failsafe's been triggered. The Board found Nadir."
Adrian's chest tightened. "Dad…"
"I warned them," Raymond's echo continued, "that linking human consciousness to synthetic cores would create instability. The Core learns — it evolves — and it remembers."
He looked directly at the camera, as if staring through time.
"They think they control it. But they never understood — the Core has its own will now."
Elena leaned forward. "What does that mean?"
Raymond's voice distorted slightly. "The Core isn't just a tool. It's alive. And if the Awakening Protocol completes, it will rewrite reality itself — erase the lines between human and machine."
Lydia stepped back, whispering, "Rewriting reality…?"
Adrian clenched his fists. "He's talking about cognitive overwriting. Digital neural dominance."
"Exactly," said Raymond's echo. "Human memories… consciousness… all of it could be overwritten by the network."
The projection flickered, glitching into static before stabilizing again.
"Adrian," Raymond said softly. "If you want to stop it, you need the access key — hidden inside your own neural imprint. I left it with her."
He turned slightly, and Elena froze as her name appeared in flickering text beside him.
ACCESS POINT: ELENA WARD
"What…?" she whispered. "Why me?"
Raymond's image smiled faintly. "Because you were the only one I could trust."
The message abruptly cut off, leaving only silence and the faint echo of his last words.
Adrian turned to Elena, shock and confusion in his eyes. "He linked the key to your neural code."
She shook her head. "No — no, that's impossible. I wasn't even part of Nadir until years later."
Adrian frowned. "Unless you were… and they erased that memory."
Lydia glanced between them. "You mean—she might've been one of the test subjects too?"
Elena's face went pale. "No. I would remember—"
Her voice faltered.A sudden pulse from the Core filled the room, and she screamed, clutching her head.
Flashes of light. A white room. Children inside capsules. A boy's voice whispering her name.
"Elena!" Adrian caught her before she fell. "Stay with me!"
Her voice trembled, eyes wide in terror. "I saw him… your father. He was there. He said—he said I wasn't supposed to wake up."
The monitors went black.
Then a single line of text appeared:
"ELENA WARD – SUBJECT ZERO CONFIRMED."
Adrian's blood ran cold. "Subject Zero… the original test case."
Elena looked at him through tears, her voice barely a whisper."All this time, Adrian… I thought I was helping you uncover your past. But I was part of it."
He took her hand. "Then we uncover it together."
Outside, a thunderstorm rolled across the city, lightning flashing against the horizon — the kind of storm that signaled a new beginning.
And in the shadows beyond the safehouse, a figure watched the windows from afar.A cigarette burned in the rain, and a voice murmured into a comm:
"Phase Three is confirmed. Subject Zero has awakened."