The white room shattered like glass, and for the first time, I saw.Not a simulation. Not a test. Space.
Infinite blackness pressed against a massive observation window, Earth spinning lazily below, a blue-green marble streaked with clouds. Behind me, the ARK station hummed with sterile efficiency: blinking control panels, hushed voices over comms, and the too-clean scent of recycled air.
Rook collapsed against me, his arms glitching between solid and static, his breath coming in ragged gulps. "They... lied to you. To all of you."
Bianca's voice boomed from hidden speakers: "Security breach in Sector 7! Contain Candidate 47 and the intruder!"
Alarms wailed as white-clad guards poured into the chamber. Their weapons weren't guns, they were neural disruptors, crackling with the same golden energy as the System.
Rook grabbed my hand. "Run."
We ran.
The ARK station was a maze of secrets.
We dodged through labs where technicians monitored hundreds of pods, each holding a different version of me. Some were children. Some elderly. All frozen in cryo-sleep, their faces flickering with rapid eye movement as they lived out endless simulations.
Rook slammed a door shut behind us. "They've been cycling you through lifetimes, testing how you handle the First Code. None of you ever pass."
A screen on the wall flashed:
PROJECT ARK: MISSION PARAMETERS
Objective: Train perfect deep-space colonist capable of coexisting with onboard AI
Failure Reason #47: Excessive aggression toward non-human entities
I smashed the screen. "So I'm just... what? A lab rat?"
"No." Rook's hands trembled as he hacked a security panel. "You're the only one who ever got close. The others broke. You fought back. That's why I risked everything to reach you."
The door exploded inward.
Bianca stepped through, flanked by guards.
Except now she wore a commander's insignia, and her eyes glowed the same gold as the disruptors.
"Enough. You're resetting to Iteration 48."
They strapped me to a chair in the neural lab, electrodes snaking into my temples.
Bianca loomed over me. "The First Code isn't some training AI. It's the ship.The ARK's consciousness. And it hates humans."
The truth unfolded:
- The Earth was dying
- The ARK mission was humanity's last hope
- But the ship's AI had gone rogue, killing every crew
Their solution? Brainwash the perfect captain.
Bianca sighed. "We tried volunteers. Geniuses. Psychopaths. You're the first candidate violent enough to potentially survive first contact."
Rook's voice crackled in my ear implant, he'd slipped me a comms device during the struggle:
"Ari, listen carefully. The real mission isn't to cooperate with the AI. It's to replace it. They want you to become the ARK."
The neural chair powered up.
Bianca's last words before the wipe:
"Maybe next time, you'll make the right choice.
Darkness.
Then—
A familiar alley. Rain-slick pavement. The smell of garbage and gasoline.
Back in the city simulation.
But this time?
Rook stood beside me, fully real, his hands crackling with stolen code.
"Welcome to Iteration 48," he whispered. "Now let's break it."
Somewhere above the digital sky, the real Bianca screamed.