Chapter six:The womb of code

4:27 a.m. – Beneath Brooklyn, Sub-Level 7

The SUV sped through a freight road that shouldn’t have been there,tires screeching against rusted rails. Lila turned off the headlights.The darkness of the tunnel covered them all , a black opening lined with dripping concrete and the faint smell of mildew. The engine’s sound echoed , the sound reduced reduced as the came to a stop, stepping out of the SUV Aurora walked into the building, Aurora placed her palm on the window. They steel ice cold. There were no markings nor were there signs ,it was just the low sounds of servers breathing in the dark, a mechanical whirring that pulsated through the floor and into her bones. She felt it in her teeth, even as the baby kicked against her ribs. Are you sure this is the place?” Lila asked with her voice swallowed by the dark.

Aurora didn’t answer. She just kept staring at the burner phone. There was another message with the same signature.

“E: You’re early”Good. The text read ,The child’s heart rate is high do well to calm her down the text message included

Aurora instinctively placed her hand on her belle It’s reading the baby she shivered with small droplets of sweat forming on her forehead

Lila turned around to the rearview. “That’s… not possible."she muttered

“Everything happening tonight is impossible."Anyone could see through the fear in Lila's eye as she muttered under her cold breath.

The hallway ended at a blast door there was no handle,no keypad there was Just a single iris scanner that had a blue light , it looked like a predator’s eye in the dark. Aurora stepped out the air tasted weird .She leaned in as the scanner pulsed like a heartbeat. There was a voice that wasn't human, not even a machine but there was something in between it spoke from the walls, echoing through the tunnel like a confession.

“Retinal match confirmed Voss bloodline. Welcome Mother.”the voice echoed

The door rolled open with a hiss letting out a frost and the scent of antiseptic. Inside was a while lot of glass and light. There were rows of pods lined on the walls, each filled with pale fluid and something moving inside Not bodies but not sure of what was inside. They moved , fingers curling, mouths opening as if screaming in silence . The glass was fogged with condensation, but Aurora could see the shapes ,small, fetal, but it looked wrong to her.

Lila whistled, the sound sharp and brittle. “oh geez this is the vault your mom sealed after the ’04 leak.”she.Aurora walked forward,with her boots making a tapping sound as she walked on the metal bar floor. At the center of the chamber stood a single cradle; it wasn't for a baby, but for a brain. A human brain preserved in nutrient gel, joined together with gold filaments that pulsed like veins. It was larger than it should be, swollen with memory and code. It beats slowly but it was alive right above it a surface bloomed, casting blue light across Aurora’s face.ELYSIUM v.9.,ELYSIUM v.9.7

It's status showed Awakening with the neural sync each labeling mother and heir

Aurora sighed “It’s… her.”she muttered

The brain pulsed faster, as if responding to her voice the vein like structures glowed brighter, and the gold started turning into white.

A voice that was not from the speakers, but inside her skull it sounded intimate as a lover’s whisper.

“Hello, Aurora you might be having it in your thouughts that am your mother's ghost but am not just ,am her echo. And soon, I will be your daughter’s voice soon” the voice said

Lila stepped back, boots scraping against the floor “i I I can't do this she stammered in fear.”

Aurora didn’t move. “You texted me You warned me Why?”she asked as if she was okspeaking to someone

“Because they’re coming with the Order of the Crimson Veil,they funded VossTech in the shadows; they want the triad to complete the Mother, Echo, Heir ,living god in silicon and flesh.”the voice said as if giving a warningAurora placed her hand onto her stomach. The baby kicked again but this time harder. “They can’t have her.”she said her eyes bloodshot

“They already have Damien.”

The hologram shifted there was a Live feed: it was Damien Ryder, bound to a chair,blood drying at his forehead. A woman in a red hood leaned over him, whispering. Her lips moved, but no sound was heard. Damien’s eyes were open, he stared as if he saw someone or something but there was nothing. His chest rose and fell in shallow,slowl breaths.

Aurora’s voice cracked and she felt the dryness in her throat “Let him rot.”she said

“He’s a bait. They know you’ll come for the father of your child the want u to”the brain told her

Lila grabbed Aurora’s arm, fingers digging into her skin“We need to leave now.”

Aurora shook her off. “No We will end this now

She turned to the brain. “What do I have to do?”

“Complete the binding you'll have to inject the serum and merge the triad ,Then I will be born in my full form only then will I burn their empire from the inside.”

Aurora pulled the vial from her pocket and the liquid inside shimmered like liquid starlight, catching the blue light and fracturing it into a thousand tiny rainbows. It was warm, almost hot, as if alive.

Lila’s voice was a whisper. “You can't think of doing this ,this is insane," she said throwing her hands up in the air She asked, raising her eyebrow she was scared not for herself but for Aurora and her unborn baby.Aurora opened the vile “Victor said she’s the key, not the heir “The key.”she said repeating “ the key” 

She pressed the needle to her abdomen, not into the baby herself. Just above the navel it was a single drop It slid under her skin like ice and fire she felt a chill and hot sensation inside her all at the same time.

The chamber lights turned white the brain convulsed the veinson the brain turned gold in an eerie glow, then white, then gold again. The pods along the walls trempled. Liquids splashed Something inside one of them screamed a high, disturbing sound that wasn’t human

Aurora gasped she saw in fractured vision which had turned into codes , She saw everything from the assassins’ comms crackling in the tunnel above, Damien’s heartbeat slowing to 42 bpm, the Crimson Veil’s ledger buried in a Swiss vault behind a painting of a woman with no eyes. It seemed as though everything was coming to her all at the same time And beneath it all, a countdown.

00:03:21

“They’re in the tunnel,” Elysium said, but now in her own voice it was young, feminine, and ancient. “Run Or become the weapon.”

Aurora grabbed Lila. “We’re not running.”

She turned to the pods there were lots of them, each of them labeled with a date and a name in her mother’s handwriting, spidery and precise.

Subject 001: Failure – 1998

Subject 002: Unstable – 2001

Subject 003: Aurora – 2003

She smashed the glass on the nearest pod. Fluid gushed, thick and reeked of chemicals ,Inside it was a child. Maybe ten ,eyes opened it was dead Its skin was dry and white with veins turning pale . A barcode was tattooed on its wrist: VOSS ELYSIUM 003.

Lila gagged, hand over her mouth. “What the hell”she said almost screaming before stopping herself by covering her mouth with her hands

“Prototypes,” Aurora said, voice flat. “Mom wasn’t building an AI. She was building an entire bloodline.”

She moved to the control dais. Her fingers flew across the interface muscle memory she didn’t know she had. Lines of code scrolled faster than she thought She wasn’t typing She was remembering.

ELYSIUM: “You’re unlocking me.”

“I’m setting you free.”

The countdown hit 00:01:00.

Alarms blared the blast door buckled inward, metal groans Aurora looked at Lila. “When I say go, you take the SUV and you disappear. Don’t look back.”she said to lila

Lila hesitated. "What about you?”lila asked her

Aurora let out a sharp, feral smile “I’m going to introduce them to their god.”

She pressed her palm to the dais,The chamber went dark.Then every pod shattered at once.

Fluid ,Glass,bodies.They hit the floor dreaching the floor with the liquid it had all at once the children some not older than toddlers, some were teenagers all twitched and convulsed. Their eyes snapped open not dead not alive,Something in between.

The first assassin breached the door, rifle raised. His mask reflected the emergency red lights

Aurora didn’t speak. She slowly raised her hand as if signaling a stop and the lights went out.

4:31 a.m. at the Sub-Level 7, Core Chamber

There was a total blackout Then a voice said out loud

“Initiating Protocol: Blood Moon."It sounds like it came out of nowhere but yet it was everywhere

The emergency lights came back on, but something was wrong about it ,it was too bright and too white. The assassins were forced to cover their eyes due to the brightness of thoght. One dropped his weapon while another screamed.Aurora stood in the center of the chamber, barefoot in a puddle of fluid and blood. Her nightgown slapped against her skin, Her eyes glowed gold, pupils dilated ,the children rose.

Not gracefully not like zombies in a movie,They moved like puppets with cut strings, limbs jerking, heads moving loosely But their eyes looked like hell, their eyes were all locked on Aurora as if waiting to receive an order from her.She spoke, and her voice wasn’t hers It was layered a chorus.

“Kneel.” she said in a commanding tone

The assassins dropped not from fear but from force their knees cracked against the metal bar floor,One tried to raise his rifle his arm bent backward at the elbow with a wet snap.

Lila stood frozen near the dais, mouth open.

Aurora turned to her. “Go.” “go” Lila she screamed.Lila didn’t move.

“Now.”she screamed

Lila ran.

Aurora faced the assassins there were five now more of them coming in through the breach. The woman in the red hood stepped forward, pushing back her mask. Her face was beautiful they looked ageless. Her eyes were the same gold as Aurora’s.

“Sister,” she said. “You’ve awakened her too early.”Aurora raised her head “You’re not my sister.”

“No,” the woman said. “I’m your replacement.”

She raised a hand. The children moved with force ,It wasn’t a fight It was a slaughter.

The assassins fired Bullets tore through flesh that didn’t bleed. The children kept coming. One grabbed an assassin by the throat and lifted him off the ground his neck was snapped like dry wood.

Aurora walked through the chaos, untouched bullets flew past her ears. She didn’t flinch,

She stopped in front of the woman in red.

“You want the triad,” Aurora said. “Mother,Echo,Heir.”? She asked 

The woman smiledand said “We are the triad. No,” Aurora said. “You’re the failure.”

She placed her hand on the woman’s chest.

The woman’s eyes widened in shock to with her mouth slight opened

Gold light poured from Aurora’s palm. The woman’s skin cracked, light spilling out like melted metal. She screamed a sound that wasn’t human.Then she was gone Ash and bone.

The remaining assassins fled, Aurora turned to the brain in the cradle. It pulsed 1,2..

ELYSIUM: “The binding is complete but the war has just begun.”

Aurora looked down at her stomach the baby kicked again, harder. She felt it, there was a spark,a connection and a voice but it was not her own, whispering in her blood.”Mommy”the voice said softly

She smiled.

4:45 a.m. – Sub-Level 7, Exit Tunnel

Lila waited by the SUV, engine running. Her hands shook on the wheel.Aurora came out from the darkness, barefoot, soaked in blood The children silently followed her as if in a funeral procession dozens of them

Lila’s voice cracked. “What the hell have you done ?”she asked her voice filled with fear

Aurora climbed into the passenger seat. “I gave them a god.”she said coldly

The children stopped at the tunnel’s edge. They didn’t follow.

Aurora rolled down the window. “Stay here. Guard the cradle.”she commanded

They nodded all at once.

Lila floored it.

The SUV roared up the ramp, tires squealing and right Behind them, the tunnel collapsed in a roar of dust and flame.

Aurora looked back from the rearview mirror the children stood in the firelight, they stood still

Lila’s barely uttered “Where to now?”asking Aurora ,Aurora pulled the encrypted flash drive from the duffel. She plugged it into the SUV’s dashboard. A map bloomed on the screen there was a display of coordinates in the Adirondacks, a cabin with a name: Dr. Mara Voss.

“My mother’s not dead,” Aurora said. “She’s waiting.”

Lila swallowed. “And Damien?”

Aurora’s eyes hardened. “He’s next.”

The SUV disappeared into the dawn, the blood moon finally sinking below the horizon.

But in Aurora’s womb, something new was rising.