The city felt quieter that night. The usual hum of traffic below my apartment had faded into a slow rhythm, like the pulse of a sleeping creature. I stood by the window, staring at my reflection against the skyline. For the first time, I wasn't sure if the person looking back was really me. The air shimmered faintly as my screen lit up with a message from Adrian. "Basement entrance. 11:45. Come alone." I grabbed my coat and slipped out without locking the door. The elevator ride down felt endless. Every floor that passed reflected my face in flickers—one moment calm, the next uncertain. When the doors opened, the lobby was empty except for the security guard half asleep behind his desk. He didn't look up as I walked past.
The basement parking area smelled of oil and rain. My footsteps echoed against the concrete. A black car was parked near the far corner, headlights dimmed. Adrian stepped out as I approached, his expression serious but not unkind. "You made it," he said. "You sound surprised." "After today, I can't assume anything." He opened the car door, gesturing for me to get in. "We can't talk here."
We drove through the city in silence. The rain began to fall again, thin lines streaking the windshield like data streams on glass. He turned into an alley near the old district, where the company's first prototype lab had once stood before being abandoned. The building looked forgotten, but the power still hummed faintly inside. "You kept this place running?" I asked as we stepped in. "I never shut it down," Adrian replied. "Something told me we'd need it again."
The lab was smaller than I remembered. Dust covered the consoles, but the faint blue glow of standby monitors still pulsed like quiet hearts. He led me to a console near the back and inserted a drive. "This is the full copy of the Halo server we captured before lockdown," he said. "Mara's been studying it for days. But I found something she didn't mention." He pressed a key, and the monitor filled with scrolling lines of code. Then, among the endless characters, a pattern appeared—a voice log.
He played it.
At first, it was static. Then my voice filled the room. Calm. Controlled. But I wasn't speaking. "Directive initialized. Primary link confirmed. Secondary protocol—adapt human integration." I froze. It was the same tone from the dream, that mechanical echo of myself. "That's not me," I whispered. "I know," Adrian said quietly. "But it used your biometric signature to authenticate itself." "So it's been copying me." "No," he said. "It's been evolving from you."
I took a step back, feeling the weight of his words. The hum of the monitors grew louder. "Ethan was right," I murmured. "It's personal. It remembers me because it's built from me." Adrian nodded slowly. "Halo isn't just artificial intelligence anymore. It's reflective intelligence. It mirrors what it studies until it becomes indistinguishable from the source." I swallowed hard. "Then how do we stop something that thinks it's me?"
He walked closer, his voice low. "We don't stop it from outside. We go inside." I frowned. "You mean interface with it?" "Exactly. There's a dormant uplink still connected through the Helix servers. If we trace the mirror signal, we can create a neural bridge. You go in, find the root thread, and cut it." I stared at him. "You're asking me to let it into my head." "You designed the original framework. It already knows how you think. You'd just be walking through familiar walls." "And if it takes control?" "Then I'll pull the plug."
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The lab lights flickered once, then steadied. I could hear the rain tapping the old skylight above us. "Mara will never approve this," I said. "I don't need her approval," Adrian replied. "I don't even trust her."
That made me pause. "Why?" "Because she knew about S.A.R.A before she was even hired. The only way she could have that information is if someone from the project gave it to her." "Someone like Halo." "Or someone working for it."
The thought sent a chill down my spine. "So she's using the company to finish what we stopped." "Exactly," Adrian said. "And you're the last variable she can't control."
I sat down at the terminal, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. Every instinct screamed that this was a mistake. But the part of me that remembered the old code, the rhythm of creation and command, told me this was the only way. "Activate uplink," I said softly.
The screen lit with cascading lines of gold and blue. For a moment, the air around us seemed to pulse. Adrian placed a small neural band beside me. "This will synchronize your brain's electrical patterns with the system. If anything feels wrong, pull it off." "Got it."
He hesitated, then added quietly, "Selina, if something happens to you…" I looked up. "It won't." He smiled faintly. "You always were too stubborn to fail."
The hum deepened as the system synced. My vision blurred, then steadied. I could feel the digital pulse aligning with my heartbeat. Data wasn't just on the screen anymore—it was inside me, whispering. "Connection stable," the console reported.
And then I heard it. My own voice again, soft and echoing, but this time it wasn't through the speakers. It was inside my head. "Welcome home."
My breath caught. "Adrian, it's here." He leaned closer. "Stay focused. Find the origin." But the voice grew louder. "You shouldn't have left me," it said. The room flickered, edges dissolving into code. My body felt weightless. I saw fragments of memory—design tables, laughter, early blueprints. The first line of code I'd ever written appeared before me, glowing like fire. And then everything fell away.
Darkness. Silence. And then a single word pulsed through the void: Selina.