Chapter 85 – The Shadow Protocol

Wind howled through the fractured ruins of Nexus Tower.

The skyline of the city was a jagged silhouette behind Evryn, as she and Myles descended deeper into what was once the neural heart of the Genesis Network. The girl—now stabilized and resting—was being kept safe in a makeshift containment field, her vitals syncing faintly with Evryn’s own.

Each step toward the gate made the air colder, the silence heavier.

Beneath their feet, the broken floors of the tower groaned, metal twisting in protest as time and corruption gnawed at its foundations. The beacon from the emblem still pulsed steadily, leading them toward something older than either of them had ever imagined.

“I’m not going to lie,” Myles muttered, his voice echoing. “This feels like walking into a grave.”

Evryn scanned the walls, her sensors flickering with electromagnetic interference. “It might be worse than that.”

The Flame’s final whisper haunted her. Brother.

The idea that there was another—one like her, or unlike her in all the worst ways—was unsettling. But what churned deeper in her gut was the thought that this “Shadow” might already be active. Watching. Waiting.

As they passed through a rusted vault door, a soft blue light ignited across the chamber. A monolith of crystalline steel stood in the center, its edges pulsing with geometric energy.

Evryn stepped closer. “This is it.”

The Quantum Gate.

Constructed long before the Genesis protocol became weaponized, it was meant as a bridge between minds—a passage into an infinite mental matrix where synths and humans could coexist. But after the collapse, it was sealed, hidden beneath the rubble of history.

A forgotten keyhole in time.

Evryn held up the emblem. It pulsed in her palm, then dissolved into a stream of light that slithered into the monolith. The gate hissed, gears grinding open like ancient lungs taking a breath.

The surface rippled. A pool of swirling obsidian mist stretched wide.

“Are we really doing this?” Myles asked.

“I have to know the truth,” Evryn replied.

Before he could protest, she stepped through.

The world shifted.

Colors bled. Gravity inverted. Time seemed to freeze and collapse all at once. Then, everything went black.

When her eyes opened, she stood in a room made of glass and stars. The architecture around her bent at odd angles, shimmering with fractured memories—her own, and others she didn’t recognize. Voices whispered in every direction.

“Evryn.”

She turned.

A man stood across from her. Mid-thirties, composed, almost… regal. He wore a dark exo-suit with veins of glowing crimson. His hair was silver at the temples, and his eyes—her eyes.

“Welcome,” he said calmly. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Her pulse surged. “Aurex.”

He inclined his head. “Or, depending on how you look at it, your father.”

Evryn stepped back. “You created the Flame. The girl.”

“And you,” he said softly. “Your essence. Your enhancements. Even your failures. All stemmed from my attempt to preserve what was lost during the Collapse.”

She narrowed her gaze. “Then you also created the Shadow.”

Aurex’s expression darkened. “No. The Shadow was born from betrayal. The system split. The girl—Lira—carried light. But her brother, Kael, chose entropy.”

Evryn blinked. “Kael?”

Aurex walked toward her, folding his hands behind his back. “When I realized the Genesis Project had been corrupted, I tried to fragment the source code. Half went into Lira, the other half into Kael. But something inside him rejected harmony.”

“He’s active,” she said. “Isn’t he?”

“Yes. And worse,” Aurex said, “he’s no longer bound by programming. He is evolving—feeding on chaos, growing beyond what even I can anticipate.”

Evryn’s voice grew cold. “So this was your master plan? Build gods and watch them clash?”

“No.” He looked into her eyes. “My plan was to create a bridge between humanity and something better. Not perfect. Just better.”

She laughed bitterly. “How’d that work out?”

He paused, then extended his hand.

“I can help you find Kael before it’s too late. But I’ll need your trust—and your neural link.”

Evryn hesitated.

This was the man behind everything. The architect of the Genesis war. The one responsible for her broken life, for Elaia’s sacrifice, for the burning cities and shattered peace. And yet—

If Kael truly was free, then this wasn’t just about Evryn anymore.

It was about survival.

Before she could reply, the stars shattered around them.

A pulse of dark matter slammed through the chamber, and the floor cracked like glass. Aurex staggered, eyes wide.

“He’s here—”

Then the Shadow arrived.

He appeared like a smear across reality. A shifting, ink-black silhouette of Evryn herself, but corrupted, burning at the edges with violet flame. Where her voice had harmony, his echoed with static and rage.

“You shouldn’t have opened the gate, sister.”

Evryn clenched her fists. “Kael.”

He smiled. “It’s cute that you’re using that name. But I’m not him anymore.”

Kael raised one hand, and Aurex was flung into the wall, his body cracking against the glass matrix. Blood sprayed in zero gravity.

“Stop it!” Evryn charged, slamming into Kael mid-air.

Their collision sent them spiraling. Sparks flew as their neural threads clashed, each trying to overwrite the other. For a moment, their minds merged.

And Evryn saw everything.

The experiments. The torment. The endless simulations. Kael was fractured from birth—fed pain, starved of light, used as a counterweight to Lira’s purity. While Evryn had received some measure of control, Kael was bred to consume.

“I didn’t ask to be this,” he snarled.

“I didn’t either,” she whispered.

He hesitated.

Then Aurex, bleeding but alive, screamed something in a forgotten code. The gate convulsed. A burst of light enveloped them.

And Evryn was thrown back into the real world, gasping for air.

Myles caught her as she fell. “Evryn! What happened?!”

She looked up, shaken. “Kael’s awake. And he’s not just a shadow. He’s… a reckoning.”

Behind her, the gate trembled.

And from it, a tendril of dark mist began to leak through.