The city looked strangely peaceful after the chaos. Neon signs blinked weakly through the drizzle, reflected in puddles that carried a shimmer of digital light — synthetic rainbows in the filth of the night. Nero's boots squelched on the soaked pavement as she dragged her feet through the alley, every step echoing like a clock counting down her sanity.
Her body still hurt — not the sharp kind of pain, but the dull, simmering ache that came after something monstrous. The lead, the radiation, the synchronization — everything inside her screamed. But her thoughts screamed louder.
He's dead… you killed him.
She tried to silence the voice in her head, but another one answered before she could:
"You're exaggerating again," Dr. Unown murmured inside her mind, calm as static. "It was a necessity."
Nero stopped walking, her fists clenching. "A necessity? You threw a man off a forty-six-story building!" Her voice cracked, half rage, half fear. "You murdered him like it was nothing!"
Dr. Unown didn't respond at first. The air between them — between her and him — tightened like an invisible thread.
"He wasn't innocent," he said finally. "No one is. Not anymore."
The rain picked up, slanting through the alley like gray glass. Nero tilted her head up, letting the cold water sting her cheeks. "That's not how the world works," she said quietly. "People make mistakes, yeah. People are scared, selfish, whatever. But that doesn't make them monsters."
"You're wrong," Dr. Unown replied, and his voice — though still inside her — sounded like it came from everywhere. "Humanity has always been monstrous. It hides behind innocence like a sick child under a white sheet."
Nero scoffed, kicking a rusted can down the alley. "You sound like a psychopath in depression."
The voice chuckled softly. "If only depression could explain evolution."
"Don't talk like that," she snapped. "You talk like you've seen everything — like you're above it all. But you haven't. You're not God, you're just… code and arrogance stuck in my brain."
That struck something. The voice fell silent for a moment. The only sound was the rain and the distant hum of an automated patrol drone passing overhead.
Then Dr. Unown's tone changed — lower, almost human. "You think I chose this, Nero? You think I wanted to end lives?"
She blinked. "Didn't you?"
"I wanted to save them."
Nero frowned. "You just killed a guy for writing on the internet."
"He wasn't just writing," Dr. Unown said. "He was spreading a contagion — the kind that grows not in lungs, but in minds. Information that would trigger human panic, lead to hunting, purging, experimentation. You think they wouldn't come for you next? For us?"
Nero hesitated. Her breath fogged in the cold. He wasn't entirely wrong — but he wasn't right either.
"That's still not your choice to make," she whispered.
"You're correct," he said softly. "It was ours."
She flinched. "Don't say that like we're a team."
Dr. Unown's voice dimmed, like a signal fading through static. "You think morality matters in a decaying ecosystem? I studied animals for decades, Nero. The only difference between predator and prey is hunger. And humanity's been starving for too long."
Nero stopped at the mouth of the alley, staring out at the street — bright, noisy, alive. People walking under umbrellas. Cars hovering on silent engines. Neon ads showing fake smiles, food that didn't exist. The world looked normal. And yet, it was rotting.
She whispered, "You talk like the world's already dead."
Dr. Unown didn't hesitate.
"It is."
Nero sighed and started walking again. The apartment wasn't far — a narrow cube stacked among hundreds, all identical, all soulless. The closer she got, the more she felt the pulse of the city — not from outside, but from inside her. The VR — or what was left of it — was alive under her skin, pulsing faintly with electric rhythm.
Her fingers twitched. The veins under her wrist glowed faintly blue.
"We need to stabilize the uranium levels," Dr. Unown murmured, more like a scientist again. "The lead buffer will hold, but it's temporary."
"Great," she muttered. "So I'm basically radioactive, homeless, and haunted. Fantastic."
"You're evolving."
"Shut up."
They entered her apartment — one room, one screen, one pile of unwashed clothes. Nero dropped her wet jacket, collapsed into the chair, and stared blankly at the wall. Her reflection flickered in the window: half-tired, half-hollow, faint light under her skin like she was turning into something unreal.
She ran her hands through her hair and whispered, "You said you wanted to save humanity… how does killing people do that?"
Dr. Unown paused for a long time.
"Sometimes, Nero," he said finally, "salvation begins with extinction."
Nero turned toward the window — the city lights glowing like embers of a dying star.
"Then maybe you are a psychopath," she said softly.
"Maybe," he answered, "but at least I'm honest about it."
Her eyes flickered. Somewhere deep inside, the synchronization hummed like a sleeping god. The world outside moved on, unaware that evolution had already begun — in the heart of one broken girl who wanted to stay human, and one voice that refused to let her.
When Nero woke up, it was morning — or whatever passed for it in her district.The light wasn't sunlight; it was a wash of corporate gold bleeding through the smog, pulsing in time with distant billboards. Her eyes adjusted slowly, pupils narrowing until the world came into focus. For a few seconds, she forgot where she was — until the faint hum inside her skull reminded her.
"You're awake," Dr. Unown said, his voice low, patient — like he'd been waiting for hours.
Nero groaned, covering her eyes with the back of her arm. "You're still here?"
"I can't leave," he said, and it didn't sound like a boast. More like a confession. "But I am… fading. The link between consciousness and your neural lattice weakens after nine hours of activity."
She blinked, sitting up slowly. "So, what — you're saying you get… tired?"
"Not tired. Disconnected," he replied. "Think of it as— my system collapsing under organic feedback. I can inhabit your nervous network for precisely nine hours in every twenty-four. Any longer, and both of us could… dissolve."
Nero squinted toward the cracked clock on her wall. The digits stuttered between 09:13 and ERROR. "And how long's left before your bedtime?"
"Twenty-six minutes."
She snorted. "Perfect. Maybe you can finally stop talking."
"Unlikely," he said, tone dry as metal.
Nero rolled her eyes and stood, every muscle stiff, her skin still carrying that faint electric hum from the previous night. The mirror caught her reflection — tired eyes, damp hair, and faint phosphorescent veins under the skin. She touched her cheek; it was warm.
She sighed. "I look like a glowstick that lost a fight."
"You're stabilizing," Dr. Unown said. "Your cells are beginning to accept my code structure. You'll notice—"
"Yeah, yeah," she cut him off. "Spare me the nerd talk. I need a shower."
"You should avoid water exposure while I'm still syn—"
"Dr. Unown," she said, voice rising just slightly, "shut. down."
Silence.
For a moment, she thought he'd listened. The stillness felt almost too calm. She pulled off her T-shirt, tossing it aside, feeling the sweat and city dust cling to her skin. Then, just as she reached the bathroom door, his voice returned — quiet, apologetic.
"I can't."
She froze mid-step. "Excuse me?"
"Shutdown isn't… voluntary," he explained. "My presence depends on the neural cycles of your brain. When you sleep deeply, I fragment. When you're awake, I re-align. I can't choose to disappear, and you can't force me to."
Her jaw tightened. "So you're telling me I can't even take a damn shower in peace?"
"Privacy," he said, almost amused, "is a luxury you surrendered the moment we synchronized."
Nero turned, glaring at the reflection of her glowing veins in the mirror. "You're such a creep."
"Incorrect," he replied smoothly. "Merely efficient."
She threw a towel at the mirror, muttering something halfway between a curse and a scream. Steam began to fill the small bathroom as she turned the old water valve — the pipes groaned in protest.
Inside her head, the hum grew softer, more rhythmic. Dr. Unown's voice began to flicker — like a radio signal going in and out of range.
"Nine hours… almost complete," he murmured. "I will… recede. Do not panic if sensory interference occurs."
"Good," Nero said, stepping into the shower. "Go haunt someone else's nervous system."
The water was lukewarm and rusty, but it felt heavenly. For the first time in two days, her body relaxed — until the faint static under her skin returned. Tiny bursts of light ran along her veins, blue and gold, like electric fireflies.
"Dr. Unown?" she called hesitantly.
No answer.
"Hey— you still in there?"
Silence again.
She exhaled, relief washing over her with the water. Maybe he really did shut down. Maybe she had nine hours of peace before the ghost scientist in her nerves came back online.
The idea almost made her smile.
Almost.
But as she leaned against the tile wall, she noticed something. Her reflection in the steamed mirror wasn't matching her movements perfectly — it lagged by a fraction of a second. The reflection smiled… half a second late.
Her stomach dropped.
"...Dr. Unown?" she whispered again.
Then, faintly, through the static hum in her head:
"Nine hours reset… commencing synchronization sleep."
And the reflection's lips moved with the voice.
"Rest well, Nero."
The lights flickered once, then twice, and everything went black for a heartbeat.
When her vision returned, she was standing in the same place — but the steam had cleared, the mirror was clean, and a faint line of data symbols glowed across her eyes. The clock on the wall blinked 00:00.
Dr. Unown was gone — for now.
But his presence still lingered, warm and alive, in the back of her skull. Like a sleeping god waiting to open its eyes again.
The apartment was quiet when Nero came out of the shower — steam still coiling from the bathroom like the ghost of warmth that never stayed. Her hair was damp, clinging to her neck. The water had cleared her head just enough to make her think things were normal again.
Almost.
She dropped into her chair and powered on her console. The startup chime filled the room — bright, cheerful, painfully ordinary. The kind of sound that didn't belong in a life haunted by radiation and neural gods.
Onscreen, her favorite game blinked to life — "Oblivion Circuit 5."The loading screen showed neon forests and drifting mechs. Nero smiled faintly, picking up the controller.
Just one hour, she told herself. Just one normal hour.
The character appeared — her custom avatar, pink hair, oversized rifle, a mess of chaos in digital form. Nero leaned forward, muscles relaxing for the first time in days.
But halfway through the second level, the sound in her head changed.
A hum — slow at first, then sharp.
Then, a voice.
"That," Dr. Unown said, his tone slicing through her thoughts, "is brainrot."
Nero jolted so hard she dropped the controller. It clattered to the floor.
"What—?! You're awake already? You said nine hours!"
"My cycle completed early," he replied. His voice wasn't calm this time; it was… cold. "And I woke up to find you wasting neurological capacity on digital illusions."
"It's called a game, Doctor," she snapped. "Normal people do this to not lose their minds."
"Normal people," he said flatly, "don't fuse with advanced neural symbiotes and become radioactive conduits of evolution."
Nero groaned, slumping back. "For someone who lives in my brain, you really don't understand how it works."
"I understand perfectly. You're retreating into fabricated control — pretending you still have power in a world that's already rewritten your DNA."
"Maybe I just need a break!"
"There are no breaks," Dr. Unown hissed.
Nero froze. His voice — usually measured, almost mechanical — had something else in it now. Anger. Or maybe disappointment.
She leaned forward. "What's your problem? I didn't ask for any of this, remember? You crawled into my skull!"
"Because you let me," he whispered. "You wanted more than this. You wanted to matter."
Her breath hitched. For a second, she wanted to argue — but then the doorbell rang.
The sound was sudden, normal, and horrifyingly out of place.
Ding-dong.
She turned her head toward the door. The sound of reality. Someone outside.
"Don't answer that," Dr. Unown said immediately.
"It's probably a delivery—"
"No."
She ignored him and stood, padding across the room in her loose T-shirt. The bell rang again.
She peeked through the cracked security cam on her phone — and froze.
It was Kai.
Her ex. Her almost-boyfriend. The one who used to pay her rent and game subscriptions in exchange for affection she didn't really feel. His voice came muffled through the door:
"Hey, Nero! You there? I… I brought your charger. You left it at my place."
Her heart twisted with something she didn't want to name. Guilt. Anger. Regret.
She hesitated, then reached for the handle.
"Don't," Dr. Unown said again, sharper now. "He's not part of your system. He's a variable. Unstable."
"He's a person," she shot back. "Unlike you."
She opened the door.
Kai stood there, smiling — but it was nervous, uneven. "Hey, uh, long time no see. You okay? You look… different." His eyes darted to the faint glow in her neck veins. "You sick or something?"
Nero forced a laugh. "Radiant skincare routine. Don't worry about it."
Kai chuckled awkwardly. "Yeah, right. So, um—" He lifted the small charger in his hand. "Thought you'd need this. You kinda ghosted me."
She opened her mouth to answer, but her mind flooded suddenly — static, heat, data.
"He's lying," Dr. Unown said from inside her.
"Stop it," she muttered under her breath.
"He didn't come for the charger. He came to check the apartment. His pupils are constricting; he's afraid. His heartrate—"
"Shut up!"
Kai frowned. "What?"
She tried to smile. "Nothing, I—"
Then everything went white.
A rush of heat, soundless but deafening, filled the room. Nero staggered back as her body convulsed. She could feel him — Dr. Unown — surging through her nervous system like a digital current hijacking her synapses.
"System override," he whispered.
Her hand moved before she could think. Fingers stretched out — and Kai froze mid-step. His eyes widened as a faint light rippled across his chest.
"Ne… Nero?" he choked.
Nero screamed — but her body didn't listen.
A flash. A crackle. Then silence.
Kai collapsed onto the floor. His skin was pale, his veins darkened, smoke rising faintly from his lips.
Nero stood frozen, her breath shattering in her throat.
Dr. Unown's voice came after a few seconds — quiet. Measured again.
"He was contaminated. I detected surveillance residue — microtrackers in his jacket. They were following you."
"You killed him!" she screamed. "You killed Kai!"
"He was already compromised."
"He was human!"
"So was I," Dr. Unown said softly, "until humanity burned my zoo to ashes."
Nero dropped to her knees beside Kai's body. The faint hum of radiation lingered in the air like static grief.
"You can't keep doing this," she whispered. "You can't decide who lives and dies."
"Neither can you."
She wanted to scream again, but her throat wouldn't work.
Outside, the neon signs flickered brighter — and for the first time since synchronization, Nero realized:She wasn't just connected to Dr. Unown anymore.
She was becoming him.
The room still smelled faintly of rain and burnt ozone. Nero sat frozen, her pupils wide, her mind refusing to connect the pieces lying before her. Kai's body slumped against the wall — a still frame that didn't belong in her small, cluttered apartment. His eyes were open but hollow, like all the light had been vacuumed out of them.
Her throat moved, but no sound came. Then, finally, a cracked whisper."Why… why did you do that?"
Inside her skull, a low hum — not a voice yet, but a vibration that made her teeth ache. Then came that calm, clinical tone she'd learned to dread.
"He was tracking you."
Nero shook her head, slowly at first, then violently. "No. No, it wasn't him! It was just a GPS— he said it was a stolen phone, you freak! Not a transmitter!"
Dr. Unown paused, the air tightening around her.
"Ah. I see. An oversight."He sounded genuinely thoughtful, as if she had pointed out a flaw in an experiment rather than a life lost.
"An oversight?" Nero's voice cracked into a bitter laugh. "You call murdering my— my friend an oversight?"
"He wasn't your friend. He used you. Paid you to keep his convenience alive."
"Then that makes me the same, doesn't it?!" she shouted, clutching her head, trembling. "I took it! I took his money, his help, his—" Her voice broke. "That's not your call to make!"
There was silence. Then, gently,
"I can make mistakes too."
Nero blinked. Her heart thudded once, twice — then stopped for a breath. The words didn't sound human, but they sounded… tired. For a flicker, she almost pitied him.Then the pity curdled into fury.
"Who the hell made you Doctor, huh?" she spat. "Doctor of what? Murder? Nerves? You think because you hide inside me, you can fix the world?"
"No."
Dr. Unown's tone shifted. Softer, like someone lowering a scalpel onto flesh.
"I became 'Doctor' because I wanted to heal life. Once."
A pulse rippled through her spine — not pain, but a sensation like gravity twisting. The lights flickered, reacting to his energy. Nero turned back toward Kai's body, breathing hard. His skin was beginning to gray around the edges, not from time, but from something else. Something internal.
"Wait— what are you doing?"
"Ending the error," Dr. Unown murmured. "Decay is a mercy."
The air grew cold. From Kai's nostrils and mouth, faint trails of black smoke began to rise — delicate, slow, curling like ribbons in water. His veins darkened beneath the skin, crawling with silent elegance. Nero backed away, her hand trembling as she pressed it against the wall.
"Stop," she whispered. "Please, stop."
"Look closer."
Against her will, her eyes did. The decay wasn't random. It was patterned — fractal, like branching coral or fungal growth. The same symmetry she'd seen in her VR headset before it dissolved. The same fractal pulse that now lived inside her nerves.
Kai's body turned to dust in silence, collapsing inward like burnt paper. For a moment, the ashes shimmered — as though they remembered warmth — then scattered, drawn by a wind that didn't exist.
The room was still again. Only Nero's breathing broke the quiet.
"You… you're a monster," she said softly, staring at her shaking hands.
Dr. Unown didn't answer. Instead, a faint static filled her ears — like whispering from inside an old radio.
"Monsters evolve when the world rejects them," he finally said."And evolution… is never gentle."
Nero sank to her knees, tears welling up but refusing to fall. She looked around her small, messy room — the empty energy drink cans, the piles of game disks, the poster of a world that never existed. Everything suddenly looked so fake.
Her voice was small, fragile. "If this is evolution… what am I becoming?"
For a moment, the static quieted.
"A survivor."
Then, faintly, like an echo:
"Or maybe… a god."
The lights went out.
The silence after decay felt longer than time itself. Nero sat still for what felt like hours, her body locked in a cold tremor. Her walls, her floor, her world — everything reeked of something that couldn't be scrubbed away.
Finally, she spoke.Her voice cracked but firmed with each word."From now on…" she whispered, staring into the mirror. "You don't kill anyone… unless I say so."
For a few seconds, there was only the hum of the city outside. Then, Dr. Unown's tone — low, hesitant, almost like a sigh through static.
"Is that an order, Nero?"
Her reflection blinked slowly, eyes bloodshot but steady. "Yes. I don't care what you think they deserve. You're inside me — you follow my rules."
The neural hum in her ears softened. His voice came again, quieter.
"Understood."
Something in his tone changed — not robotic obedience, but something gentler. A subtle surrender.
"Would you like to see something, Nero?"
She frowned, wiping at her cheeks. "What now? Another horror movie you recorded in my head?"
"No. A memory. Not mine entirely… but close."
Without warning, her vision blurred. The world faded to white static — then reshaped.She was standing in a sunlit laboratory.
It smelled of antiseptic and wet fur. Transparent glass chambers surrounded her, each filled with animals — foxes, birds, even a lion cub. Some were missing limbs, others missing organs. But all of them… alive. Connected to machines that breathed for them, blinked for them, gave them something that looked like hope.
At the center of the lab stood a man — tall, composed, wearing a long coat with stains of work and time. He had dark hair tied back, thin spectacles resting low on his nose, and eyes filled with something uncomfortably pure: compassion mixed with obsession.
He smiled at a tiny bird whose wings were replaced with thin titanium plates."See?" he said, his voice soft and melodic. "Even nature can learn new ways to fly."
Nero felt her heart tighten. The man looked so alive, so human."Who's that?" she asked quietly.
Dr. Unown's voice echoed through the lab's walls, overlapping like layers of memory.
"Dr. Jack. Zoologist. Biomechanic pioneer. He wanted to rebuild nature's weakest — turn decay into rebirth."
The man in the video turned, his face catching the light. There was kindness there, but also a heavy shadow — the kind that comes with too much loss. Nero felt something strange stir in her — warmth, admiration, maybe even longing.
"He's…" she murmured, "…beautiful."
"Yes," Dr. Unown said, and his tone was unexpectedly soft. "He was."
The memory shifted again — this time darker. The same lab, but broken. Machines in ruins. Cages melted. Animals — silent, gone. In the corner, Dr. Jack, coughing blood into his hand, still trying to attach a prosthetic limb to a dying wolf.
The old monitors flickered. On the screen, his final message played, voice strained, lab collapsing around him:
"If evolution forgets empathy… we're not gods. We're ghosts wearing flesh.""Speak for those who can't speak for themselves."
Then the feed cut out. The lab dissolved into static.
Nero stood in the dark again — her small apartment returning like a faded dream.
"Was that… real?" she asked quietly.
"It was his last recorded moment," Dr. Unown replied."I carry fragments of his mind. His algorithms. His vision. Approximately eighty percent of him lives within me."
Nero turned her face toward the window, eyes wide."You mean… you're him?"
"A reflection," he said. "But reflections aren't perfect. The rest of me… was born from pain."
For the first time, Nero didn't know what to say. There was something tragic about the idea — a ghost of a man trying to keep the dead alive, now existing inside her head as a weapon.
She spoke finally, her tone barely a whisper. "Maybe… that's why you're so broken."
"Maybe," he admitted, a hint of sorrow curling through his tone."But broken things evolve fastest."
The silence lingered again, heavy and intimate.
Outside, thunder rolled over the city, washing neon against the window. Nero leaned her forehead on the glass and sighed. For the first time, she didn't feel entirely alone.And that terrified her more than anything else.
The rain outside had softened into mist. Nero sat cross-legged on the floor, head still buzzing from Dr. Unown's words. Her breath came in shallow bursts, like her brain couldn't decide whether to scream or listen.
Dr. Unown's tone changed — it wasn't mechanical anymore. It was like a teacher standing before an empty classroom, remembering a time when there were students to hear him.
"Nero… have you ever heard of panspermia?"
She blinked, rubbing her temple. "Pan–what? Some kind of bacteria dish?"
"Close," he said. "It's a theory. That life didn't begin here… it arrived here."
He paused, and her vision flickered again. The room dissolved into starlight, projected across the inside of her mind. Planets spun like glowing marbles. Dust, comets, and frozen stones streaked across space.
"Billions of years ago," he continued, "asteroids carried the seeds of organic life — bacteria, proteins, and memory — across light-years. Those seeds collided with dead worlds, and some… adapted."
She looked up at the cosmic panorama, awe replacing fear."Are you saying life came from outer space?"
"Not just life," he said softly. "Possibility."
The image twisted — the asteroids became machines, their metallic surfaces crawling with code instead of microbes.
"I believe the same principle applies to consciousness. Ideas are viral. They travel — not through space, but through minds."
He turned the starlight into a holographic form of a VR headset — sleek, pulsating faintly with veins of gold.
"When I discovered the compound you now carry — the God of Evolution — I realized it was another form of panspermia. A biological software capable of rewriting any nervous system it enters."
Nero swallowed hard. "So… this thing inside me came from space?"
"Not quite," he said. "It came from accidents — from the remains of my predecessors' work. What was left of the God of Evolution… I used it all."
His tone dropped, almost reverent.
"Only fifty-six units could be made before the source crystal was exhausted. Each headset was weaker in matter but stronger in adaptation. I called the first series NAMOLA-56."
The word echoed — Namola — it sounded like a machine breathing.
"NAMOLA-56 was primitive, but resilient. Then came -55, -54… down to the later prototypes. Every iteration learned faster, bonded deeper. By -06 — yours — the God of Evolution wasn't just an implant. It was a symbiosis."
Nero shivered. "You're saying there are others… other people like me?"
"Not people," he said quietly. "Hosts. Most didn't survive synchronization."
The lights dimmed. She saw flashes — people convulsing, bleeding, their neural nets overloaded by the VR merging with their DNA. A graveyard of failures.
Nero's throat tightened. "So you… made them die?"
"They made themselves die," he corrected gently. "I only offered them a choice to evolve. Evolution is cruel, Nero. Always has been."
Her hands clenched. "You sound like some kind of god again."
"No," he said, almost with a smile in his tone. "Gods create. I just recycle."
The silence returned for a moment — but it wasn't calm. It was charged, humming.Then he said something that froze her blood.
"When I was about to throw Gerald off the tower…"
Nero's breath hitched. "Don't—"
"...the signal came. From them."
Her heart thudded once. "Them?"
"The Unown Association."
He said the name like a whispering thunder. Her vision glitched — for a fraction of a second, she saw a conference room that wasn't of this world. Figures cloaked in black and metal, their faces replaced by hollow masks marked with numbers.
"They called a meeting — the upper Unowns, ranks seven through twelve. They oversee the project fragments, each with their own doctrine of evolution."
Nero stepped back, her pulse racing. "You mean there are… others like you?"
"They're what's left of us. Each carries a part of the original intelligence. And they've been silent — until Gerald's death."
The air went still. Rain tapped at the window like anxious fingers.
"They want to know why," Dr. Unown said at last. "Why I revealed myself. Why you survived. And most of all—"
His voice darkened.
"—why the God of Evolution is still active."
Nero stood in the center of her room, surrounded by echoes of gods and ghosts.She didn't know it yet, but the real evolution was about to begin.