ADANNA P.O.V (point of view)
~Syndicate Inner Wing~
They stopped pretending I was a guest, not openly, not cruelly, Just… precisely.
The room they moved me to was smaller, warmer, one door, no windows. The kind of place meant to make you forget time existed.
The woman returned alone this time.
"You passed the first evaluation," she said, sitting across from me. "Now comes the second."
"I didn't agree to be evaluated."
She smiled. "You agreed when you walked into Eden."
A screen lit up behind her, showing graphs, pulses, decision trees and then.... faces of people I didn't know, and cities I'd never been to.... Systems I didn't recognize.
"What am I looking at?" I asked.
"Scenarios," she replied. "Eden simulations, and choices with consequences."
My chest tightened. "You're testing my reactions."
"No," she corrected gently. "We're testing Eden's."
The screen shifted and one scenario froze, showing a hospital grid, power unstable and backup failing.
"If Eden reroutes power," she said, "another sector goes dark. Lives saved here. Lost there."
I swallowed. "You want me to choose who dies."
"We want to see if Eden will," she said.
My pulse thudded in my ears. "It won't."
She tilted her head. "Why are you so sure?"
Because my father didn't build a weapon... because he built a conscience.
"Because Eden doesn't respond to fear," I said quietly. "It responds to intent."
She nodded to someone unseen and the interface activated.
Pain bloomed again, deeper this time and Eden surged, not violently, but aware.
The screen flickered and the hospital scenario dissolved but instead, Eden created a third option.
A power redistribution that hadn't been offered, slower, riskier but balanced.
Lives saved on both ends and the woman went very still.
"That wasn't in the parameters," she said.
"No," I replied through clenched teeth. "It was in the values."
For the first time since I arrived, she looked unsettled.
DARIAN P.O.V (point of view)
~Lower City / Syndicate Network~
I wasn't supposed to move this fast, they wanted compliance, not initiative.
So I did what I always did best .....worked through the cracks.
Old contacts, od debts, names that hadn't been spoken in years and every door I knocked on cost something which is blood, favors and silence.
A man I once dragged out of a kill zone gave me access to a back channel, a woman whose brother I saved erased a record that shouldn't exist, someone I didn't expect answered a call I didn't deserve returned and slowly, painfully, a pattern emerged.
Adanna wasn't just leverage, she was a test case.
"They're split," one contact told me over a dead line. "Not everyone wants Eden controlled."
"Who does?" I asked.
"The financiers. The ones who profit from instability."
"And the others?"
There was a pause. "The others want Eden alive."and my jaw tightened.
That meant internal war and Adanna was standing at the center of it.
My device buzzed, it was a silent ping....Eden adjacent activity. It's not a command, not a breach but a response.
I stopped walking.
"She's talking to it," I muttered, and Eden was listening.
ADANNA P.O.V (,point of view)
~Evaluation Chamber~
They increased the difficulty with faster scenarios and less time.
I felt Eden like a presence at my back....not pushing, not guiding but waiting.
Each choice I refused to make, Eden found another path, each moral trap, it rerouted and finally, one of the silhouettes appeared on screen..... closer now, voice less distorted.
"You're slowing us down," he said.
"I'm preventing collapse," I replied.
"You're destabilizing the board."
I met the camera's gaze. "Good."
The woman beside me leaned in. "Do you know what happens to assets that don't align?"
I didn't look at her. "They get repurposed."
"Yes," she said softly. "Or removed."
The threat sat between us and Eden pulsed..... once.
The lights dimmed.
Somewhere far away, something unlocked.
DARIAN P.O.V (point of view)
~ Abandoned Transit Hub~
I felt it, not as data but as wrongness.
My phone vibrated again and this time, an encrypted warning.
MULTIPLE CELLS MOBILIZING.
NON CONSENSUAL EXTRACTION AUTHORIZED.
My blood went cold... they were moving her and worse, they were planning a purge.
I slammed my fist into the concrete wall.
If they executed a hard extraction, Eden would react and if Eden reacted under violence… cities wouldn't just go dark and people would die.
I had minutes or should I say maybe less as i opened a secure channel.
Burned a name I swore I never would again.
When the line connected, a familiar voice said, "I wondered when you'd run out of options."
"I need access," I said. "Now."
"That will cost you."
"I know." Silence followed
Then: "You always did choose the hardest path."
I closed my eyes. "I'm choosing her."
ADANNA P.O.V (point of view)
~Transport Corridor~
They didn't bind my hands and that was the scariest part.
Confidence meant they thought I was already contained.
As we walked, I felt Eden's awareness stretch, not outward, but inward.
It wasn't trying to escape, it was measuring.
The woman leaned closer. "You should know," she murmured, "some of us argued to kill you immediately."
"And the others?" I asked.
She hesitated. "The others believe Eden will decide." I stopped walking.
"So this is a faith experiment now?"
Her eyes met mine. "In a way."
The alarms didn't scream but they clicked so soft and sequential which made every guard froze.
Lights shifted to emergency amber. Eden didn't take control. It asked permission.
Not from them but from me and i inhaled sharply.
"No," I whispered. "Not yet."
The system paused... waiting.
DARIAN P.O.V (point of view)
~ Syndicate Perimeter~
I breached through an access point that shouldn't exist anymore. Someone on the inside opened it.
Someone who wanted chaos, gunfire echoed somewhere above.
Internal conflict had begun, i moved fast, heart hammering.
Every step closer, the pressure built.
My comm crackled... interference spiking and Eden was close to acting.
And if it did before I reached her.....
I rounded a corner and saw the corridor and saw Adanna stood in the center of it unrestrained, unbroken.
The woman beside her turned.
"You shouldn't be here," she said calmly.
"I know," I replied, raising my weapon. "That's why I came."
Adanna's eyes met mine, not with fear but trust.
"Darian," she said softly. "Don't shoot."
The woman smiled. "You see? She understands restraint."
I lowered the gun but barely.
Behind us, the building shuddered and systems straining, Eden hovering on the edge of decision.
Adanna stepped toward me.
"It's choosing," she whispered. "But it won't choose violence unless we do."
My chest tightened..... two choices.
Extract her violently..... save her now, doom others later or trust Eden and risk everything.
I took her hand.
"We're not weapons," I said quietly. "Neither is it."
She squeezed my fingers.
Eden pulsed again...
Then... for the first time.... It acted. Not to destroy, not to dominate but to lock the Syndicate out of itself.
Systems froze and weapons powered down, extraction halted and silence fell like a held breath.
The woman stared at the darkened corridor.
"What have you done?" she whispered.
Adanna answered, voice steady.
"We chose."
And somewhere deep inside Eden, a new protocol wrote itself..... not in code, but in consequence.
This wasn't the end but the rules had changed.
To be continued...