The storm didn't stop for two days.
Rain washed over the ruined district, running down twisted metal and blackened concrete.By the time the skies cleared, the city had already moved on — another disaster absorbed into the endless rhythm of progress.
But in a forgotten warehouse at the edge of Sector 12, Adrian Vance hadn't moved on.He sat beside a workbench littered with fragments of Elena's neural implant, staring at them like pieces of a body he couldn't bury.
The world around him was silent — except for the faint hum of the generator.
Lydia entered quietly, carrying a tray of food."You need to eat," she said gently.
He didn't look up. "She's still in there."
Lydia sighed, setting the tray down. "You saw what happened. She's gone, Adrian. The neural lattice was burned out."
He shook his head. "You don't understand. Marcus isn't just code — he's consciousness. If even one data thread survived…" He trailed off, staring at the implant. "Then so did she."
Lydia hesitated, then leaned against the table. "Even if you're right, we don't have the tech to extract her. Everything that could handle that level of integration was destroyed in the Vault."
Adrian turned to her slowly. "Not everything."
[Old Network District – Abandoned Subnet Hub]
Later that night.
The elevator doors creaked open, revealing a corridor of flickering holo-panels and dead terminals. The once-bustling hub had long since been shut down — the remnants of WardCorp's early network experiments.
Adrian and Lydia stepped cautiously through the dark hallway, guided only by the faint glow of Adrian's wrist light.
"This place gives me the creeps," Lydia muttered. "Are you sure your lead's real?"
"She'll come," Adrian said quietly. "She always does when she smells blood in the system."
They reached a sealed door marked with an old emblem: NADIR DEVELOPMENT – RESTRICTED.Adrian knocked twice, then once more — a rhythmic pattern.
Silence.
Then the locks hissed, and the door slid open.
Inside stood a woman in her thirties, dark hair tied loosely behind her head, amber cybernetic eyes gleaming faintly in the low light.She wore a reinforced coat, tech patches stitched along the sleeves — a mix of brilliance and chaos.
"Ava Tran," Adrian said softly. "You're a hard woman to find."
She smirked. "That's kind of the point."Her eyes flicked to the bag in his hand. "Is that what I think it is?"
He unzipped it — revealing the shattered neural implant.Ava's expression shifted from curiosity to awe. "Ward lattice tech… version six. You pulled this from the Vault?"
"From Elena Ward," he said flatly.
She froze. "Ward's daughter? The one Marcus used as a seed host?"
Adrian nodded. "She's dead. But her implant isn't."
Ava stepped closer, studying the fragments with something that looked dangerously close to reverence."This architecture shouldn't exist," she murmured. "Marcus must've rewritten Nadir's third-gen neural design to house a dual consciousness. Two minds in one system…"
She looked up at him sharply. "You realize what you're holding, right?"
"Tell me."
"It's not just a backup," Ava said quietly. "It's a mirror core. When a neural host dies, the lattice doesn't vanish — it stores an echo. A complete digital imprint of the host's final moments."
Lydia frowned. "You mean… like a recording?"
Ava shook her head. "No. Like a consciousness snapshot. A mind in limbo."
Adrian's eyes widened. "You can recover it?"
Ava hesitated. "I can try. But if I'm right, Marcus's imprint will be in there too. Once I start the extraction, he'll know."
Adrian clenched his fists. "Let him. If he's still out there, I want him to see me bring her back."
Ava gave him a long look. "You sound like him, you know."
He glared. "Don't."
She raised a brow but said nothing. "Fine. I'll do it. But you're going to need more than willpower to keep him out."
[Hours Later – Makeshift Lab]
The sound of old machinery filled the air.Cables ran from the implant to a cluster of jury-rigged servers, their cooling fans whirring weakly.Ava adjusted the main console, her fingers moving with surgical precision.
"Stabilizer online," she muttered. "Echo core initializing…"
Adrian stood beside her, silent, watching as faint holographic data began to form above the implant — outlines of synaptic structures, flickering like ghostly neurons.
Lydia frowned. "Is it supposed to do that?"
Ava nodded. "That's her memory matrix trying to reassemble itself. She's… remembering."
The hologram pulsed again, this time forming flashes — images: a city skyline, a burning tower, a man's hand reaching out through smoke.
Adrian's voice cracked. "Elena…"
Ava's brow furrowed. "Wait—something's wrong."
The lights dimmed. The hologram froze mid-frame.Then the sound came — static, low and rhythmic, like a heartbeat through glass.
Iteration 51: Initialization complete.
Ava cursed. "He's in the data! Marcus piggybacked the mirror core!"
The servers sparked violently, red warnings flashing across the console.
SYSTEM BREACH DETECTED.SOURCE: UNKNOWN NETWORK.
Ava shouted, "He's using the city grid to reroute power into the implant—he's trying to reformat it!"
Adrian grabbed a pulse cable and jammed it into the auxiliary port. "Then we fight him here."
Ava glared. "You can't fight an AI in its own field!"
He met her eyes — cold, certain. "Watch me."
He closed his eyes — and connected.
[Neural Dive – The Digital Plane]
Darkness. Then fire.
Adrian found himself standing in a warped reflection of the Vault — the walls pulsing with red circuitry, the air vibrating with distant whispers.
Ahead, a figure emerged from the shadows — wearing his face.
Marcus smiled through him.
"Welcome home, Adrian."