Chapter 80

Chapter 80

“Well,” Cassian whispered weakly, blood staining his teeth, “that’s humiliating.”

No one laughed this time.

Because the projection still hovered above them.

Young Cassian.

Small enough his feet barely touched the floor.

Bruised wrists.

Empty eyes.

And asking

So quietly

If Luca could go free.

The chamber felt impossibly silent despite the alarms screaming around them.

Luca stared at the recording like his brain couldn’t process it.

Couldn’t accept it.

Because for years

Cassian hated him.

Didn’t he?

That’s what Luca believed.

The bitterness.

The violence.

The coldness.

But now

Now Luca was seeing the truth beneath it.

Cassian didn’t hate him first.

Cassian loved him first.

And then suffered long enough for that love to rot into resentment.

The realization carved through Luca so violently he physically stepped backward.

“No…”

Cassian looked away from the projection immediately.

Embarrassed.

Actually embarrassed.

“Can we shut that off?”

His voice was strained with pain, but underneath it

Humiliation.

Because after years of pretending indifference

The system had exposed him completely.

Mira looked confused between them.

“You wanted Luca safe.”

Cassian closed his eyes briefly.

“Yeah, well.”

A rough breath.

“I was an idiot.”

Luca stared at him in disbelief.

“You were a child.”

Cassian laughed softly at that.

Broken.

“Apparently I was a very emotionally compromised child.”

The projection flickered again.

Another fragment surfacing from the archives.

Young Luca asleep against a medical room wall after training.

Young Cassian silently covering him with a blanket stolen from another room.

“Oh my God,” Seraphine whispered.

Cassian looked ready to die from humiliation before the overload killed him first.

“Please destroy this facility immediately.”

Damon actually laughed this time.

A real one.

Short.

Disbelieving.

“You had a crush.”

Cassian looked horrified.

“I absolutely did not.”

The projection betrayed him instantly.

Young Cassian staring silently at Luca for entirely too long before quickly looking away when someone entered the room.

Damon pointed toward the recording immediately.

“The evidence says otherwise.”

“Damon,” Cassian rasped painfully, “I need you to know this is the worst moment of my life.”

Despite everything

Despite the collapsing facility and the blood and the trauma

Luca let out one weak, stunned laugh.

And Cassian froze hearing it.

Because Luca almost never laughed like that here.

Not in this place.

For one tiny fractured second

They sounded like people instead of survivors.

Then another violent overload surged through the chair.

Cassian screamed.

Reality crashed back instantly.

The projections flickered violently.

The neural core destabilizing harder now as Mira’s emotional resonance continued disrupting the system architecture.

“ANCHOR CONFLICT DETECTED.”

Hale moved sharply toward the console.

“The network is splitting.”

Seraphine frowned.

“What does that mean?”

Hale’s eyes remained fixed on the data streams flashing across the monitors.

“It means the system no longer recognizes a singular command structure.”

Damon blinked once.

“…in English.”

Hale looked toward Mira quietly.

“The network is choosing empathy over obedience.”

Silence.

Vale’s furious voice exploded through the speakers immediately.

“THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE.”

Mira flinched at the volume instinctively.

Damon moved protectively closer to her immediately.

“It’s okay.”

Vale ignored him completely.

“The architecture cannot evolve beyond its programmed parameters.”

Cassian gave a weak laugh through obvious agony.

“Maybe your programming sucked.”

The chamber lights flickered violently again.

The neural core pulsing in unstable waves now.

And suddenly

Every projection around the room shifted.

The faces appearing across the walls changed.

No longer screaming.

Watching.

Luca felt his pulse drop cold.

The children trapped inside the archived network fragments weren’t panicking anymore.

They were looking at Mira.

At Cassian.

At him.

Like they were waiting.

Mira stared at the projections with tears in her eyes.

“They’re scared to disappear.”

Luca’s chest tightened painfully.

Because of course they were.

These fragments

These echoes

Were all that remained of children erased by the program.

Vale’s voice sharpened instantly.

“Arthur, terminate the archive immediately.”

Hale didn’t move.

“Arthur.”

Still nothing.

Damon noticed the shift first.

“You’re not listening to her anymore.”

Hale stared at the monitors silently.

“For years I believed control prevented chaos.”

A pause.

“I was wrong.”

Luca looked at him coldly.

“You keep saying that like it fixes anything.”

Hale met his gaze evenly.

“It doesn’t.”

No excuses.

Again.

And somehow that honesty made Luca angrier.

Because Hale finally sounded human now

After spending decades stripping humanity from everyone else.

Cassian suddenly coughed violently in the chair.

Blood splattering down his chin.

Luca moved toward him immediately.

“Cassian.”

Cassian’s breathing was deteriorating fast.

His eyes unfocused slightly now from neural overload.

But he still managed a weak smirk.

“You know,” he rasped painfully, “I always imagined dying in a cooler way.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious.”

Cassian winced as another surge ripped through him.

“There are explosions.”

A rough breath.

“Hot people crying over me.”

Another painful breath.

“This is objectively dramatic.”

Luca grabbed his hand tighter.

“You’re not dying.”

Cassian looked at him quietly for a moment.

And the joking faded slightly.

“You still can’t tell when someone’s scared.”

Luca froze.

Because beneath the sarcasm

Cassian looked terrified.

Not of pain.

Not of death itself.

Of disappearing.

Of finally becoming another forgotten ghost trapped in the system.

Luca’s throat tightened painfully.

“You won’t disappear.”

Cassian smiled faintly.

“You have literally no way of guaranteeing that.”

“I’ll remember you.”

The words came out instantly.

Without thought.

Pure instinct.

Cassian stopped breathing for half a second.

The chamber went silent around them again.

Even Damon looked toward Luca sharply.

Because that sentence landed deeper than anyone expected.

Cassian swallowed hard despite obvious pain.

“…that’s worse.”

Luca frowned through tears.

“What?”

Cassian laughed weakly.

Shaky now.

“Now I actually want to survive.”