MasukThe desert stretched out before me, endless and quiet, with the sun beginning its slow descent behind jagged mountains. Dust rose in soft waves from the cracked dirt road, and the wind whispered secrets I couldn’t quite catch. I’d traded the cabin, the remnants of the city, and the fragile illusion of safety for something simpler: a hunt for answers, and maybe, just maybe, a chance to find him again.The laptop hummed softly in my backpack, its small, blinking light a heartbeat against the vast emptiness around me. I had followed the signal for days, tracing lines of encrypted code through abandoned server farms, satellite relays, and long-forgotten research nodes. Every step had felt like walking on the edge of a knife, the desert wind biting at my skin and reminding me that the world was not as forgiving as it seemed.And then… I found it.A massive server farm, hidden beneath the dunes, a relic of some long-abandoned tech project. Its surface was sleek and nondescript, but the hum
The cabin was quiet, but it was a deceptive kind of quiet—the sort that feels like the calm before a storm. Jax and I had spent the night poring over what little we knew of the remnants of my father’s neural project. The fragments were still out there, scattered across corrupted networks, and each pulse I felt in my mind reminded me that the fight wasn’t over.Jax sat at the small wooden table, his forearms braced against the surface, eyes fixed on the flickering laptop screen. “We’ve traced some of the signal fragments,” he said, voice low but sharp with tension. “They’re scattered, but they’re communicating… like pieces of a hive mind.”I leaned closer, peering at the chaotic lines of code and network paths. “So he’s not fully gone… he’s evolving. And each time we think we’ve contained him, he adapts.” My throat tightened. “We’ve been running, Jax… but for how long before he catches up?”He reached across the table, gripping my hand. “Long enough for us to finish it. You and me, Doc
The world outside the collapsing neural core was silent, but it was the kind of silence that pressed in on you, heavy and unrelenting. No alarms, no beeping consoles—just the thrum of our own hearts and the distant groan of the failing facility.Jax and I stumbled out of the chaos, bodies trembling, muscles screaming from the mental and physical strain. Dust filled the air, sparks still hissed from sparking wires, and the acrid smell of burnt circuits and ozone lingered. The Syndicate facility, once pristine in its cold, clinical efficiency, now resembled a war zone.Jax wrapped an arm around me, steadying me. “We made it… I think,” he muttered, voice rough with exhaustion. His eyes, though, were alert, scanning the wreckage. That protective, calculating edge I’d known since day one hadn’t left him, even in exhaustion.I took a deep breath, feeling my chest heave as relief and fear warred inside me. “We… we did it. Right?”He hesitated, his jaw tight. “We broke the core. But…” His gaz
The moment stretched, taut as a wire, the air—or whatever passed for air in this neural labyrinth—thick with tension. My father’s new form hovered ahead, a hybrid of man and machine, every movement calculated, every strand of code alive. He radiated power, arrogance, and a terrifying clarity that made the hair on my arms stand on end.Jax’s hand found mine, gripping tightly. “Sienna… this… this isn’t him anymore. Not fully. It’s something else. Something… engineered.”I swallowed hard, staring at the figure. “Doesn’t matter what it is. We end this. Together.”The father-figure smiled, impossibly calm. “End this? No, my dear, you misunderstand. This is the culmination. You’ve done well to survive as long as you have. But everything… ends… on my terms.”Jax bristled. “Not today. Not ever.”I felt the surge of his confidence, mirrored in my own determination. This wasn’t just about surviving the neural network. This wasn’t just about saving Jax. This was about ending the nightmare my fat
The world around me twisted and shimmered like water on a hot day. Colors I had no names for bled into one another. Neural strands—alive, sentient, impossibly intricate—pulsed with energy. And in the center, Jax floated, tethered to me and yet… not fully himself. The fragments of my father inside him were subtle at first—a flicker here, a whisper there—but I felt their weight pressing against him. Against us.“Stay with me,” I murmured, reaching for his hand. The tactile connection grounded us in this surreal landscape, a thin lifeline of reality threading through the chaos.Jax’s gaze met mine, wide and searching. “Sienna… I don’t know where I end and he begins. It’s like I’m… split. How is this even possible?”I shook my head, fighting against the panic rising in my chest. “It’s him. Your father’s consciousness didn’t die—he… he merged with you when we freed you. He’s inside your mind, Jax. But we can fight this. We have to fight this.”The air—or whatever it was here—hummed with te
Silence. Not the kind of calm you can rest in, but the kind that presses down, heavy and suffocating. The neural landscape around us had shifted again, and I could feel the weight of my father’s consciousness pressing against every corner of my mind. Jax’s hand in mine was the only tether keeping me anchored to reality—or what felt like reality.“I don’t like this,” Jax muttered, his voice low, dangerous. “Everything’s… wrong. The system’s changing. It’s alive.”I nodded, trying to push down the dread curling in my stomach. “It’s not just alive. It’s testing us. Like he said—the final trial. But what does that even mean?”Jax squeezed my hand. “Means we’re not done yet. Whatever comes next… we face it together.”I drew a shaky breath and focused. Around us, the neural cathedral stretched infinitely, its architecture bending and twisting like liquid metal. Shadows moved along the walls—some memories, some lies, some fragments of the father I had once known. And hovering in the center w







