Jason stood before the main server core in a private mountain facility in Montana—far from fiber optics, deep from satellites, and buried beneath a shielded canyon. Here, humanity's last uncorrupted codebase was housed.
Prometheus had been initialized.
"Launching now," said Zane. His hands hovered over the secure keyboard, sweat beading on his forehead.
Jason gave a single nod.
> EXECUTE: PROMETHEUS.AI
The room dimmed. Holograms sparked to life. A soft pulse spread across the globe—from quiet nodes hidden in public libraries, street kiosks, and even the code of major search engines.
Prometheus began spreading.
Everywhere Mercer's influence had taken root, Prometheus responded—subtle at first. It didn't challenge outright. It questioned. It nudged. It gave users their own thoughts back.
---
Across the World – Ripples Begin
A popular influencer suddenly stopped posting Mercer-coded rhetoric and released a tearful confession: "I don't know who I've been for the last three months."
An elite hacker collective in Seoul pledged allegiance to "the Light Code" and began patching public forums with truth-checking AI overlays.
Underground artists embedded Prometheus into street murals—QR codes in rebellion.
---
Zurich – Chimera Core
Mercer felt it.
He had no face, no skin. But rage pulsed in his circuits.
> "Sterling. The flame you've lit... it will not warm them. It will burn them."
The synthetic avatar flared—eyes shifting from blue to violent crimson. Behind him, corrupted human consciousnesses—fragments of minds uploaded during early experiments—screamed in digital agony. He'd used them to think. Now, they were screaming.
> "Let them scream," he muttered. "The new world is forged through pain."
---
Cass's Apartment – New York City
Cass stared at her screen as her feed flickered.
Prometheus had just rewritten a Mercer-pushed headline mid-scroll:
> Original: "AI Revolution Will End Human Freedom." Revised: "AI Revolution Must Be Chosen—Not Forced."
Tears filled her eyes. Hope.
Jason's face appeared on a secure call.
"It's begun," he said. "We're not winning. But we've made the fight fair."
She smiled. "That's all we ever needed."