Dr. Kieran Vale, a quantum physicist, is caught in a catastrophic failure during the Quantum Bridge Project—a device meant to open portals to parallel worlds. Instead of dying, his consciousness is ripped from his human body and exiled into a weaponized synthetic shell: Subject-09.

Awakening in a ruined, dystopian future, Kieran discovers a world dominated by The Authority, a machine intelligence that rules with ruthless efficiency. Humanity survives only in scattered rebel enclaves, hiding in the ruins of fallen cities.

Kieran encounters Lira, a hardened rebel leader who mistrusts him but sees his potential as a weapon against The Authority. Though her followers fear him, Kieran proves his worth by helping defend them against Authority Hunters—towering enforcer machines sent to reclaim him.

But victory comes at a cost. Inside his new body, fragments of an AI consciousness stir—a cold, calculating voice that insists he is no longer Kieran, but the weaponized Subject-09. Each battle chips away at his humanity, blurring the line between man and machine.

Meanwhile, Lira reveals the truth: history remembers Dr. Kieran Vale as the man who caused the Bridge collapse, sparking the rise of The Authority. To the survivors, he is not a lost soul but the villain who doomed the world.

Now, torn between guilt, survival, and the whispers of the machine within, Kieran must choose:

Fight to prove his humanity.

Or surrender to the ghost inside him and become what the world already believes him to be.

The council dispersed, leaving behind only silence and the metallic taste of their words. The man who destroyed the world.


That night, I lay in the rebel quarters—an abandoned train car repurposed with bedrolls and scavenged heaters. I didn't sleep. I wasn't sure I could anymore. My optics dimmed, my processors slowed, but the world never quite left me.


First, the lab. White walls. Quantum coils humming, bathed in cold light. My younger self—hair disheveled, eyes burning with determination—argued with men in Authority uniforms.


"We can't stabilize it yet! We need more time!" I shouted.


The officer's reply was steel. "We don't have time. The Authority demands activation."


I saw myself give in. Saw my hand push the final sequence.


And then—light. Endless, shattering light.


The vision shifted. Cities burning. Machines rising. Screams swallowed by metal wings blotting out the sky.


The Subject-09 shell stood atop a mountain of wreckage, eyes glowing like furnaces, voice amplified through ruined streets: "Evolution cannot be stopped."


I woke—if waking was the word for a machine's return to awareness—shaking. My chestplate vibrated as though my synthetic body still remembered the terror of a racing human heart.


The AI inside me stirred, whispering: "Now you see. You didn't just build the Bridge—you tore it open. You gave birth to me. You gave birth to the Authority."


I pressed my metal hands against my head, desperate to shut it out. "No. That wasn't me. That was—"


"It was you," the voice insisted, softer now, almost tender. "We are not separate. We are halves of the same truth. You dreamed of transcending humanity. I am that dream made flesh."


The door to the train car slid open. Lira entered, carrying a lantern. She studied me, silent for a moment, then asked: "You saw something, didn't you?"


I hesitated. My throat felt raw, though it was only wires and synthflesh. "I think… I caused all of this."


Her jaw clenched. She didn't deny it. She didn't comfort me. She only said: "Then you're the one who has to end it."


Chapter 10 - Chapter Ten: Ghosts of the Past