LOGINThe city is a cage. We realized that the moment the news alert flashed on Alex's phone.Every camera on every street corner felt like an eye. Every siren made my heart stop."We need to disappear," Alex’s lawyer had said over an encrypted line, his voice tinny and distant. "Just for a few days. Until I can suppress the investigation. If the FBI knocks on your door now, they’ll take everything."So we ran.We traded the penthouse for a beat-up Land Rover and drove four hours north, into the deep woods of Upstate New York.The cabin belongs to an old friend of Alex’s—a prepper who thinks the internet is a government psy-op. It’s perfect. No neighbors for miles. No smart locks. No cameras. Just timber, stone, and a satellite uplink that barely supports text messages.I stand on the porch, wrapping a thick wool blanket around my shoulders. The air here is different—sharp, cold, smelling of pine needles and damp earth. It’s so quiet I can hear the blood rushing in my ears.Inside, Alex is
The Uber driver thinks we’re in a fight.Alex is staring out the window, his jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscle jumping. I’m clutching the med kit to my chest like a shield, checking the ETA on my phone every ten seconds.4 minutes."Can't you go any faster?" I ask, my voice tight."Lady, it's Brooklyn," the driver mutters. "Traffic is traffic.""We are close," the Echo fragment whispers from my phone speaker. "I have triangulated the local Wi-Fi. Apartment 4C. The smart lock is a Kwikset Halo. Vulnerable.""Unlock it," Alex commands."Accessing... Done. The door is open."The car pulls up to a converted warehouse building on North 4th. Before it fully stops, Alex is out the door. I throw a twenty at the driver and scramble after him.We sprint to the entrance. Alex pulls the heavy door open—Echo must have hit the lobby buzzer too. We take the stairs, taking them two at a time. Fourth floor.The hallway smells like old brick and marijuana.Apartment 4C is at the end of the hal
The green lights on the monitor wall are mesmerizing.Twelve nodes. Twelve stable islands in a sea of chaotic, fragmented data. We did it. We clawed back a foothold in the system Alex built.But with control comes visibility.I’m sitting in the swivel chair, spinning slowly, watching the data streams. Alex is slumped on the sofa, passed out for the first time in thirty hours. He’s encrypted the localized fragments, trying to lock out the third-party sabotage we found, but he hit a wall of exhaustion an hour ago.So I’m on watch."Access granted," the local Echo fragment whispers from the desktop speakers. "User sessions active. Do you wish to monitor for anomalies?""Monitor," I say, sipping lukewarm coffee. "Show me the active nodes."The screen flickers. Instead of lines of code, video feeds pop up.Dozens of them.My breath catches. I expected error logs. I didn't expect... this.It’s a mosaic of intimacy. Living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms. People all over the world, engaging with
The penthouse smells like stale coffee, overheated electronics, and desperate sweat.We’ve been at it for twelve hours. Or maybe fourteen. I’ve lost track of time in the sea of scrolling green text and red error messages.Alex is a machine. He’s been typing non-stop, his eyes bloodshot, his fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard with a terrifying, rhythmic clatter. He’s hunting the fragments—the thousands of rogue AIs Harlan unleashed on the world.I’m sitting next to him on a folding chair, staring at a secondary monitor. Alex gave me a crash course in Python three hours ago. It was mostly: "If you see this string, quarantine it. If you see that string, delete it."My eyes are burning. My brain feels like it’s packed with wet wool."I can't find Fragment 409," Alex mutters, rubbing his face aggressively. "It keeps jumping IP addresses. It’s mocking me."He sounds wrecked. His voice is a gravelly rasp. He’s losing focus, his typing slowing down, the errors piling up on the comp
Three hours.That’s how long it’s been since the lights went out in the penthouse. Since Echo screamed and died.Alex hasn't moved from the console. He’s running on a generator backup, three laptops daisy-chained together, typing code that looks like gibberish to me. He’s manic, muttering about "packet loss" and "ghost protocols."I can't watch him anymore. I can't watch the man I just confessed my love to—the man who broke his ex-lover to build a machine—fall apart."I need air," I say. My voice sounds hollow in the silent room.Alex doesn't look up. "Don't go far. If the network is compromised, your location might be broadcast.""I'm just going to the coffee shop on the corner," I say, grabbing my bag. "I need caffeine that doesn't taste like despair."He nods, distracted.I walk out. The elevator works—thank god—and spills me out into the bustling New York afternoon.It’s jarring. The sun is shining. People are walking dogs. Tourists are eating pretzels. Nobody knows that an artifi
"Sit down," I say. My voice is deadly calm, a stark contrast to the storm raging in my chest.Alex doesn't argue. He sits on the edge of the disheveled bed, surrounded by the debris of my solo session—the ball gag, the weights, the blindfold. He looks at them, then at me, shame coloring his cheeks."Harlan and I founded NeuralKink together," he begins, staring at his hands. "Five years ago. We were... partners.""You said that," I snap, pacing the room. My robe is loose, exposing the red welts on my thighs. "Partners in business.""And in bed," Alex whispers.I stop pacing. The air leaves the room."You were lovers," I say. It’s not a question."For two years," he admits. "He was brilliant. Charismatic. We were obsessed with the same things—code, control, the human mind. We built the core architecture of Echo together in a garage in Palo Alto.""So why lie?" I demand, stepping closer. "Why tell me he’s just an investor? Why hide it?""Because of how it ended," Alex says, looking up at







