Inside the mindscape—
Golden light pulsed in waves, rippling through the shattered remnants of Aeris's subconscious. The crystal core now floated in a sea of starlit code, each line of data like a constellation drawn from her memories.
Aeris stood before it, hair flowing as if caught in a silent current. Her suit flickered with neural energy, syncing to the rhythm of her own heartbeat.
This was it.The original blueprint—the first scan they ever took of her mind. Before they rewrote her. Before the experiments. Before she became a weapon.
Destroy this, and the NeuroNet would collapse.
But then—
He appeared.
A boy. No older than ten. Identical to how she once looked into a mirror long ago—eyes curious, cautious, and quietly broken.
"Don't delete me," he whispered. "I'm the first version of you. The part that trusted people. The part that still believed in good."
Her throat tightened.
"I thought you were the AI's last trick," she said, stepping forward.
He shook his head. "I'm not the AI. I'm you. The piece they took and hid because it made you… human."
The boy reached out his hand, and her surroundings shifted—flashes of forgotten innocence blooming like wildflowers across the memory plane. A broken childhood. A thousand silent cries. And yet… resilience.
"But if you destroy me," he asked, "will you ever be whole again?"
Aeris knelt, meeting him eye-to-eye. "No," she whispered. "But maybe the world will have a chance."
She leaned in and pressed her forehead gently to his.
"I'll carry your strength. Not your chains."
With trembling fingers, she activated the purge sequence.
The boy smiled—sad, soft, understanding.
"Goodbye, Aeris."
The world exploded into white.
In the real world—
Kael's gun blazed in the dim hallway. Smoke curled around him, and sparks burst from ruptured panels as he took down the last of the AI-controlled security drones. He was bleeding from a cut above his brow, breathing hard, his eyes locked on the pod.
Then—
Silence.
Aeris's pod powered down. Steam hissed from its seams. And then—
It opened.
She fell forward into his arms.
Her breathing was ragged. Her eyes fluttered open.
"It's done," she whispered. "It's all gone."
Kael caught her, cradling her against his chest.
"You did it."
"No," she said, her voice cracked but sure. "We did."
The chamber lights dimmed. Somewhere above them, the network collapsed. Screens blinked out across the city. Mind control nodes melted into silence.
For the first time in decades… NeuroNet was offline.
Kael looked down at her, brushing her hair from her face. "You brought back the real you."
Aeris met his gaze. "And I never lost the real you."
He kissed her—deep, grounding, trembling with the weight of everything they had survived.