Chapter: Chapter Forty-Two – The Child in the LoopThe voice echoed again. It was soft, young, and unmistakably laced with the Circle’s cold programming.“Mira Lane… I’ve been waiting for you.”The black corridor pulsed once with that static-choked whisper, and Echo flinched behind Mira, instinctively pressing closer. But Mira didn’t flinch. She knew better than to believe anything was what it seemed down here.“Who’s there?” she demanded, scanning the dark.A soft light blinked to life ahead. A projection, not of code or file but of a child.No older than seven. Pale skin. White hair. Eyes too sharp for innocence.Mira’s breath caught.Because the girl had her face.“You’re not real,” Mira said slowly.“I’m more real than you are right now,” the child replied, tilting her head. “I’m the version they perfected. The one who never doubted. Never broke.”Echo whispered, “What… is that?”“A splinter construct,” Mira muttered. “They built a model of me. A predictive one. Probably embedded with my neurological base code.”The child nodded c
Last Updated: 2025-06-23
Chapter: Chapter Forty-One – Codeblood
The door to the next corridor hissed open before Mira touched it.Not mechanical. Responsive.She glanced down at her cuff, still humming with residual access. The drive in her pocket pulsed once, like a heartbeat. It wasn’t just a tool anymore. It was synced to her. Or maybe she was synced to it.“Come on,” Mira said. Her voice was low, focused. “Stay close.”Echo followed silently, her breath shallow, feet light on the metal grate floor. The corridor ahead stretched into flickering red light, no guards, no traps. Just silence.Too much silence.Mira’s wolf stirred beneath her skin, restless.She reached the next panel, another locked terminal. But this time, when she pressed her palm to it, the screen lit up without protest.Welcome, Subject Luna-13. Clearance Level: Internal Override.Echo’s breath caught. “They’re letting you in?”“No,” Mira murmured. “They’re trying to see how far I’ll go.”She pulled up the latest node - CORE-SIM BRANCH 09, the one she’d unlocked using her fathe
Last Updated: 2025-06-22
Chapter: Chapter Forty – CodebloodedThe lights obeyed her.For a breathless moment, that realization thrummed through Mira’s veins louder than the alarms outside. The simulation had flickered, reformed, then yielded. Not to the Circle’s commands, but to hers.Red Moon. Luna. Reprogrammed.Echo stared up at her like she was seeing something divine.“You changed the system,” she whispered.“No,” Mira said softly, stepping back to the console, “I’m becoming the system.”The drive pulsed gold where it was still plugged into the terminal. Lines of code streamed across the screen, faster now. Reactive. Mira could feel them inside her too, like a second heartbeat synced with her bloodline.A system prompt flashed:Mirror Node Stabilized. New Access Granted. Branch: Echo SyncMira inhaled sharply. “They’re trying to adapt. Build an interface through you now.”“Through me?” Echo’s voice was brittle. “Why?”“Because you’re bonded to me,” Mira said. “They designed you as a tether. Now they’re using that link to stabilize what they
Last Updated: 2025-06-22
Chapter: Chapter Thirty-Nine – The Mirror Node
The lights above flickered again, this time, not from failure, but indecision. The system didn’t know how to respond to Mira anymore.She wasn’t running. She wasn’t hiding.She was rewriting."That drive changed everything," she murmured, watching the ripple of red and gold pulse through the console screen. “They thought I’d use it to escape. But I’m staying.”Echo shifted beside her, pulling Mira’s coat tighter around her trembling shoulders. “You said we were going to find the core server and bring it down.”“We are,” Mira said. “But first… we overwrite the last chain.”She held her wrist up again, the cuff interface glowing with mirrored static. The signal she’d injected was stabilizing, spreading. She could feel it crawling through the Circle’s dreamnet. Not crashing it, yet. Just bending it. Warping it from within.The virus was learning.And so was she.“Is that… new?” Echo asked, pointing to the center console.A single node had appeared on the map interface: MIRROR-NODE-01. It
Last Updated: 2025-06-20
Chapter: Chapter Thirty-Eight – The Kill Switch
The abandoned lab was quiet, but Mira could feel the storm pressing against its walls.She crouched over the ancient terminal, connecting the drive she’d taken. Echo leaned against a cabinet nearby, recovering but watchful. Her eyes were still too wide, too hollow. The girl had seen more horror than most adults ever would."You said this could get us out," Echo whispered.Mira nodded, fingers flying over the cracked keys. "It can. But it can also do more than that. If I can reverse the neural encoding from the inside... I might be able to crash their whole cognitive grid.""You mean like a virus?"Mira nodded. "Like justice."The screen blinked, then loaded rows of encrypted files. Names. Project titles. Her name; Luna-13 flashed in red at the top of the list.Mira swallowed hard.Echo stepped beside her. "Are you okay?""No," Mira said. "But I’m ready."Before she could go deeper, a sharp, searing pulse ignited behind her eyes. She gasped, clutching the terminal for balance. The scre
Last Updated: 2025-06-20
Chapter: Chapter Thirty-Seven – Red CodeMira collapsed against the chamber wall, bloodied but conscious.The alarms hadn’t stopped screaming since she ripped out the IV. Somewhere in the upper levels, systems were failing. Not because she escaped physically, but because she broke the sequence. Their perfect loop.And now?She was writing her own."Subject Luna-13 has overridden chamber input," a voice crackled through the emergency feed. "Containment stability: compromised."Good, Mira thought. Let it all come down.The emergency lockdown should’ve sealed her in again but it didn’t. The system faltered. Doors flickered, unsure. It was the blood. Her blood. Her Red Moon blood. The tech didn’t know how to respond.She looked across the chamber at Echo. Still in the pod. Still alive. But the monitors were spiking."Hold on," Mira whispered.She didn’t waste time trying to brute-force the pod. Instead, she staggered to the terminal behind it, a Circle access console synced with biometric locks.Mira pressed her palm against it.
Last Updated: 2025-06-19
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