A dark reflection shatters.
Yirenda stood in the Cipher Core vault—beneath twenty floors of black ice and bio-fiber, deeper than even the Diamond Syndicate had ever mapped.
Double authentication. Retinal. Blood. Song pitch.
The last one made her smile. Her voice alone unlocked what no one else could reach.
"You were always a melody, weren't you, mother?"
The vault opened.
Inside:
A steel chamber lit only by holograms.
Memory threads spun like liquid light.
And in the center… the Mirror Cipher—a black-glass console that could only be activated by pain.
Yirenda placed her fingers on the core's surface.
[Verifying trauma signature… Match: 100%]
Access granted.
The room glowed blue.
A screen rose from the floor.
A hidden file—locked behind nine firewall loops.
The name:
"Glass Memory: A.W."
She opened it.
And it began to play.
A woman, bound.
Gagged. Crying.
Not from fear. From anger.
Yirenda couldn't breathe.
"Mother…"
Then—a voice in the video
"Inject her. Wipe the memory clean."
"The daughter?"
"Too young. Too dangerous. Let Cipher study her first."
Yirenda's body tensed.
Every muscle screamed.
The ones who created Cipher… had created it using her mother's brain.
They didn't just steal her mother.
They built a system—a machine—from the mind of the one woman she loved most.
And now they were watching her through it.
All this time.
[Cipher Detected: External tap. Location compromised.]
She moved.
Fast.
Explosives dropped through the vents—glitter bombs with neural disruptors.
Yirenda rolled across the floor, covering the core with her own body, arms locked tight.
She activated the memory transfer to her neural drive.
[Download: 47%…]
The vault door blew open.
A dozen cloaked agents flooded in.
Yirenda hissed through her teeth and slammed a pulse-trigger against her palm.
Electric waves shattered the first three attackers.
[Download: 79%…]
A dart struck her shoulder.
Poison? No. Tracker.
She pulled it out, bit her lip, and launched herself toward the exit.
[Download: 100%… Core connection severed.]
She was out.
But bleeding.
And worse…
Cipher whispered:
"They've taken him."
A flash image.
The sniper—chained. Bruised.
Kneeling in a red auction ring.
Being sold like a creature.
"Auction ID: 314 – The Iron Master's Gala."
Yirenda's eyes blazed.
They didn't just touch her past.
Now they were auctioning her future.