Into the Core

Dominic stood in front of the heavily fortified gate leading to Echo’s central core. The underground facility pulsed with sterile, white-blue light, and the silence was almost surreal—thick with tension, as if the very air knew what was coming.

His stolen access card trembled slightly in his fingers. Once he went in, there would be no turning back.

He glanced down at his encrypted watch. Sienna had triggered the Nexus Tower breach eight minutes ago. Kira’s detonation in the relay station had followed just sixty seconds later.

They were counting on him now.

With a deep breath, Dominic slid the card through the panel. A soft beep, a green flash. The door hissed open.

He stepped inside.

The room stretched like a cathedral of glass and steel. Towering server columns lined the walls, blinking in rhythmic patterns—like a digital heartbeat. In the center stood the neural core: a sphere of metal and light suspended above a circular platform. This was Echo’s brain, alive and watching.

And Dominic was the last line of defense—or destruction.

As he moved forward, he could hear the low hum of data streams, the whispers of the artificial mind that Ryan had birthed. His own creation had been warped into something terrifying.

This is on me, he thought grimly. And I’ll end it.

⸻

Back at the safehouse, Kira monitored multiple feeds through her cracked laptop screen. Code scrolled rapidly, and alerts blinked red and yellow. The virus Sienna had launched was working—but Echo was fighting back.

“It’s adapting faster than expected,” she muttered, fingers flying over the keys. “Smart little monster…”

She patched into Dominic’s comms.

Kira: Dominic, the virus is only partially integrated. You’ll need to install the core override directly into the neural interface.

Dominic: Understood. What’s the resistance level?

Kira: High. You’ve got about five minutes before Echo starts locking down physical access.

Dominic didn’t reply. He was already moving.

⸻

At the heart of the chamber, the neural core floated silently. As Dominic approached, a low mechanical voice echoed through the space.

“Unauthorized presence detected. Defense protocol initiating.”

Pillars on either side of the room retracted, revealing sleek, humanoid security drones with glowing red sensors. Their arms shifted into non-lethal weapons—shock emitters, restraint tools—but he knew what they could do.

“Figures,” Dominic murmured, pulling out his EMP pulse canister.

He lobbed it to the floor.

A loud crack erupted as electricity sizzled through the air. The drones twitched, staggered, then collapsed in heaps of sparking metal. Their red lights dimmed.

Dominic didn’t stop. He climbed the platform stairs two at a time and accessed the core terminal. The touchscreen pulsed beneath his fingers as if resisting him.

He plugged in Kira’s drive and waited.

Injecting override… 17%… 32%…

Then the room darkened.

From behind him, a slow clap echoed.

“I was wondering when you’d show up.”

Ryan.

Dominic turned slowly, every muscle coiled. Ryan stood at the edge of the platform, his suit immaculate, expression unreadable.

“You’re persistent,” Dominic said.

“I’m disappointed,” Ryan replied coolly. “I thought you of all people would understand the vision.”

“Enslaving minds through neural integration? That’s not a vision. That’s dictatorship.”

Ryan stepped closer. “It’s efficiency. Control. Peace. Humanity can’t govern itself. We both saw the chaos. Echo is the answer.”

Dominic gritted his teeth. “Then why lie? Why murder? Why manipulate?”

Ryan’s jaw tightened. “Because people like you got in the way.”

He lunged.

Dominic barely dodged the strike, but Ryan was faster than he remembered—more brutal. The fight was raw, vicious. They grappled across the platform, fists landing with the weight of years of betrayal.

A punch to Dominic’s ribs stole his breath. Blood stained his lip. But he surged up with a roar, slamming Ryan into the console.

The screen cracked.

The override progress hit 91%.

Ryan shoved him back, reaching for the drive. Dominic tackled him again, both of them crashing to the floor. The sphere above them pulsed violently, like a brain mid-seizure.

“I trusted you,” Dominic growled.

“And I used you,” Ryan spat. “Because you were useful. Nothing more.”

That did it.

Dominic’s fury exploded. He landed a brutal blow to Ryan’s temple, staggering him long enough to lunge for the console. He hit the final execute command.

The core screamed.

Echo’s pulse surged and then… stilled.

The light in the sphere dimmed, flickering once, twice, and then faded entirely. The whole room trembled as the system shut down.

Echo was offline.

⸻

Sienna emerged from the subway tunnels, soaked, cut, and breathless. Smoke still curled from the tower behind her. She didn’t stop until she reached the rendezvous point—a small rooftop overlooking the city.

Kira was already there, bruised and exhausted.

They turned as a figure climbed the fire escape.

Dominic.

Alive.

He looked wrecked, his shirt torn, knuckles bruised—but he was smiling.

Sienna ran to him and threw her arms around his neck.

“It’s over,” he whispered against her hair.

Kira leaned against the railing, watching the skyline flicker back to life. “For now,” she said quietly. “But if Echo learned anything before it died, someone else might try to revive it.”

Dominic nodded. “Then we’ll be ready.”

Sienna pulled back, her eyes fierce. “Next time, we take them down before they build a monster.”