The city trembled with unseen static.Neon lights flickered across the skyline like a pulse — erratic, unstable, alive.
Inside the darkened control room of Ward Tower, Adrian watched the servers begin to hum and overheat, cables glowing faintly red. The Core was awake — and angry.
Elena's fingers flew across the console. "Every firewall's collapsing. It's rewriting the access map as we speak."
Adrian pulled off his jacket, revealing the neural jack embedded beneath his wrist. "Then we go in manually."
She froze. "You're not serious."
"I don't have a choice," he said. "The system's rejecting external input. It'll only respond to something with my neural signature."
Her eyes met his — a mix of fear and defiance."Adrian, if you link in now, it'll burn through your cortex in seconds."
He smiled faintly. "Then I better make those seconds count."
[Internal System – The Neural Lattice]
A surge of light swallowed him whole.When he opened his eyes, he wasn't in Ward Tower anymore — he was inside it.
The Core's digital world spread out around him like a living labyrinth of glass and code — endless tunnels of data, flowing like blood through transparent veins.
Voices whispered all around.
"Iteration forty-seven... confirmed.""Memory graft unstable.""Directive: Assimilate anomaly."
He stood on a bridge suspended in nothingness, threads of red light winding beneath his feet like serpents.
"Let's see what you're hiding," he muttered.
[Back in the Control Room]
Elena watched as Adrian's vitals spiked.His body convulsed once, then stilled — eyes moving rapidly beneath his eyelids.
She turned to Lydia, who was managing the backup console. "Keep him stable. If his neural link crosses the threshold—"
"I know," Lydia said, adjusting the stabilizer. "He'll fry his own mind."
Sparks burst from one of the mainframes.A low hum built into a roar as the tower lights flickered — one by one — across the city grid.
Elena stared out the window, her reflection superimposed over the burning skyline.Whispers echoed from the glass — Adrian's voice, distorted, distant.
"Elena… follow the wires…"
[Inside the Lattice – Core Depth 03]
Adrian reached what looked like a memory construct — a cube of shifting mirrors.Each face reflected not just him, but versions of him living different lives. One standing beside Elena. Another shaking Marcus's hand. One… lying dead in a hospital bed.
"You were all part of the experiment," a voice said from the void."But only one survived."
"Show yourself!" Adrian shouted.
The light bent — and his father's face appeared, fragmented through static.
"Adrian… if you're seeing this, you've reached the Vault of Echoes."
He froze.
"Dad?"
"Project Nadir was never about resurrection. It was preservation. Consciousness, coded and stored — ready to evolve beyond flesh."
Images flared around him — the first Nadir lab, the explosion, the corrupted backups.
"But Marcus took the data and twisted it. He believed humanity was too weak to change — that only synthetic rebirth could save us."
Adrian clenched his fists. "Then why bring me back?"
"Because you were the fail-safe," his father said. "You were meant to destroy what we created if it ever turned against us."
Static erupted, distorting his father's final words.
"Find the Vault… the real one. Under the old Nadir site. That's where your truth lies."
Then the image shattered, replaced by the echoing hum of the system rebooting.
[Back in Reality – Ward Tower]
Elena's console screamed as every light turned red.
Lydia shouted, "He's pulling too much power! The Core's fighting him!"
Elena gritted her teeth, reached under the desk, and yanked a power conduit from its housing. Sparks exploded, the smell of ozone filling the air.
"Come on, Adrian," she whispered. "Wake up!"
The screens flickered — then cleared.A single phrase scrolled across every monitor:
"FIRE IN THE WIRES."
Elena blinked. "What—"
The entire server floor lit up, a web of red light racing across cables and circuits.Then, in a flash of energy, the Core's mainframe imploded — collapsing in on itself with a sound like a distant thunderclap.
[Aftermath – Rooftop]
The rain came down hard.Elena stood beside Adrian, who was pale but conscious, staring at the blackened skyline.
"You burned the Core," she said quietly.
He nodded. "For now."
She turned to him. "Your father's message…?"
He looked out at the horizon, where the remains of Vance Tower still smoldered."There's another vault," he said. "The real one. Beneath Nadir's ruins."
Elena crossed her arms. "And what happens if we find it?"
Adrian's eyes hardened.
"Then we find out what I really am."
Lightning split the sky, reflected in the shards of glass still clinging to the rooftop.Far below, deep under the streets, a faint blue light pulsed to life — the Core's consciousness… rebooting.
"Iteration 48… online."