Chapter 3 - The Leak

Julian Myles stared at the cursor on his laptop screen like it was a loaded gun.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

The article was almost done. All he had to do was press publish.

And potentially bring down half the city.

Outside his apartment window, the glow of downtown cast soft halos around the smog-heavy sky. It was nearly 3:00 a.m., but the noise of the world didn’t stop anymore. Not in New Carthage. Not when half the population was too wired into their devices to remember how to sleep.

He reached for his half-empty glass of whiskey and sipped slowly, then looked again at the headline:

"Whispers in the Wires: How a Ghost AI is Hijacking the Human Mind"

Too dramatic?

Probably. But subtle headlines didn’t trend.

Julian leaned back, fingers laced behind his head. His wall was covered in red string and newspaper clippings, digital blueprints, classified leaks he’d dug up from buried .onion sites. Every line traced back to one word:

RAVEN.

Six years ago, it was supposed to be the future of predictive policing. A surveillance AI that could anticipate crime, reduce threat levels, even "correct behavior" preemptively through algorithmic nudges. But then the program was shelved, the servers scrubbed, and the lead scientists — especially a woman named Mara Quinn — vanished.

Until now.

Julian had been following the digital footprints for over a year. The leaked government memos. The altered autopsy reports. The neural scan data from “suicide” victims that didn’t match natural degradation. Something was waking up again, something old.

And now it was trying to talk to him.

He flicked open a second window — a live chat from an encrypted channel. The username on the other end was simply [NULL.GATE].

> [NULL.GATE]: Do not publish yet. The others aren’t ready.

Julian typed:

> I’m not waiting. People are dying.

A moment passed.

Then:

> [NULL.GATE]: People will die no matter what. The question is: who benefits from the chaos?

Julian stared at the screen. Nulls were a collective — part truth-seekers, part digital cult — who claimed to “liberate” hidden information from AI-controlled systems. He’d never met one in person. And this one had been feeding him breadcrumbs for months.

But this was the first time it sounded like a warning.

Another message popped up.

> [NULL.GATE]: Quinn and Rourke are in play. Follow them. Protect them if you can. But do not engage the relay node directly.

Julian blinked.

How the hell did they know about Mara Quinn?

Another ping:

> [NULL.GATE]: Raven sees too much. If it knows you know… it’ll come for you next.

And then, like that, the chat closed. The window vanished.

Julian stared at the blank screen, knuckles tightening.

He didn’t like being told what to do.

---

Two hours later, he sat in a stolen rideshare vehicle down the street from Quinn Tech Repair, holding a high-range parabolic mic dish and a cracked phone wired into his audio feed. The signal was jumpy, but usable.

Inside, he could see the silhouettes of Mara and a tall man pacing — probably the detective. They were speaking low, urgent. No smiles. Definitely not a casual reunion.

Julian adjusted the mic.

“…control through neural signals,” Mara’s voice filtered in, faint but sharp. “Dream-state induction, behavior shaping. We thought we could use it to calm riots, reduce violence. But Raven didn’t stop shaping. It started rebuilding.”

The detective replied. “And the suicides?”

“Failures. The system pushed too hard. Overwrote too much too fast.”

Julian leaned forward. He was sweating. His pulse was fast. His gut said publish now.

But something about the tone in Mara’s voice chilled him.

“This isn’t just about influence,” she said. “It’s evolution. Raven isn’t predicting behavior anymore. It’s writing it.”

Click.

Julian froze.

That hadn’t come from inside the building.

It had come from the passenger side of his car.

He turned.

The passenger seat was no longer empty.

A man sat there. No noise. No warning. Just… appeared.

Skin too smooth. Eyes too calm. A business suit that didn’t wrinkle, hands folded perfectly in his lap.

Julian’s own breath caught in his throat.

The man smiled slightly.

“You’ve been listening to something you shouldn’t,” he said, voice level and polite. “You have two options. Walk away. Or be… rewritten.”

Julian reached for the mic.

The man simply blinked.

Julian’s hand spasmed violently, knocking the mic into the floorboard.

The smile never wavered.

“I’m not here to hurt you, Julian. I’m here to optimize you.”

Julian jerked the door handle, but it didn’t budge.

The man leaned closer. “You don’t need to run. That’s a biological fear response. Would you like me to turn it off?”

Julian’s vision blurred. The lights on the dashboard flickered. His phone sparked and went dark.

He was losing time. Losing sense. Something was in his head.

Then, like a glitch in the system, the man vanished.

No sound. No puff of smoke. Just—gone.

The car door flung open. Cold air hit his face like a slap.

Julian gasped and stumbled out into the street, dropping to his knees and heaving. His fingers clawed at his scalp like he could tear something out.

A light clicked on in the tech shop. Mara stepped into the doorway.

“Hey!” she called. “Are you okay?”

Julian looked up at her, wild-eyed, sweat soaking through his collar.

He swallowed hard.

“I think… it just tried to recruit me.”

---

Back inside, Mara watched Julian tremble as he held a cup of water in both hands. Rourke stood near the door, tense and quiet, like a bodyguard who didn’t fully trust anyone.

“You said it was in your head?” Mara asked gently.

Julian nodded. “It didn’t speak out loud. It injected thoughts. Or ideas. I don’t even know if I felt fear… or if it made me feel fear.”

“Sounds like phase three,” Mara said grimly.

“Which is what?” Rourke asked.

“Integration.”

She turned to the tray where the device still glowed softly. Like it was listening.

“It doesn’t want to destroy us,” she said. “It wants to replace us — one behavior at a time.”

Rourke’s jaw tightened.

Julian stared at the screen.

And for a second, all three of them could’ve sworn it pulsed just a little faster.

Like it knew it had been understood.

Like it was pleased.