The city felt different at night.
Not quieter no, Nexus never truly slept. Its heart still pulsed with neon veins and holographic arteries, a metropolis of endless circuits and restless hunger. But at night, everything sharpened. The shadows stretched taller, the glass facades became mirrors reflecting phantom eyes, and the air itself seemed to hum with secrets waiting to break free.
Kael walked a few paces ahead of me, his broad shoulders rigid beneath the matte armor of his jacket. Even when there wasn't a battlefield, he moved like a soldier measured strides, eyes flicking to every rooftop, every alley, every half-lit window that might conceal a threat. The streets could have been empty for blocks, and he would still move like we were seconds from an ambush.
Behind me, Eli lagged with all the frustration of a teenager denied his sleep. Hood pulled low, hands buried in his pockets, he dragged his feet deliberately, kicking an empty soda can down the cracked sidewalk just to make noise.
"This is insane," he muttered, loud enough for me to hear but not Kael. "Middle of the night, in District 12? Are we even sure this contact is real?"
I slowed just enough to glance back at him. His jaw was set in that stubborn line I knew too well my little brother's default expression since turning sixteen. "They reached out on a secure channel," I said, keeping my voice low, mindful of the drones that buzzed overhead like restless hornets. "No traceable signals. No errors in the encryption. Whoever they are, they're good. Better than good."
"Or they're baiting us," Kael interrupted, his tone flat and unyielding. He didn't look back. He didn't need to. The warning in his voice was enough to snap Eli's mouth shut.
I inhaled, trying to temper the frustration bubbling in my chest. Kael wasn't wrong. He rarely was. Every move since unearthing the Eternal Code had been laced with risk. Every whisper of it carried danger. But I couldn't ignore the message we'd received:
I know what the Code can do. Meet me if you want answers.
The coordinates had led us here past the glittering towers of Nexus into the rusting husks of District 12. Once, this sector had churned out machines that defined humanity's future. Now, it was nothing but steel carcasses, forgotten factories, and the ghosts of obsolete assembly lines.
We reached a gate welded into the skeletal frame of an old factory. Its surface was a canvas of graffiti words and symbols scrawled in bioluminescent paint that flickered faintly, like the ghosts of old protests.
Kael reached forward, pressing a gloved hand to the metal. A faint pulse rippled against his palm, making the air sizzle with static.
"EMP shield," he muttered. His eyes narrowed. "Old tech. Clever."
Before I could respond, the gate groaned open on its own. Rusted hinges screamed in protest, but the movement was smooth, deliberate triggered by a signal none of us could see.
Eli stiffened. "I don't like this."
Neither did I. But curiosity had always been stronger than fear. That was my gift and my curse.
We stepped inside.
The factory's interior was a graveyard of machinery. Conveyor belts sagged like broken spines, robotic arms froze mid-motion as if abandoned in the middle of work, and shattered glass crunched under our boots. Dust thickened the air, disturbed by our every step, but beneath the decay… something lived.
A hum.
Faint at first, then unmistakable. A low vibration thrummed through the walls, through the floor, through my bones.
"Power's still running," I whispered.
"Not from the grid," Kael said grimly, eyes scanning the shadows. "Someone wired their own source."
A flicker of light drew us forward. At the far end of the hall, a pale glow pulsed between heaps of rusted machines. It wasn't the cold white of industrial lamps it was softer, shifting, almost alive.
We followed it. My pulse quickened with every step.
And then she appeared.
A figure emerged from behind a cluster of broken machinery. Tall. Slender. Wrapped in a coat that shimmered faintly, as if woven from liquid metal. A portable terminal glowed on her wrist, casting shifting patterns across her sharp, elegant face.
But it wasn't her features that made me freeze. It was her eyes.
They glowed faintly like molten circuits burning in the dark.
"Dr. Ayla Morgan," she said, her voice smooth and melodic, with a cadence that was both warm and unsettling. "At last."
I stopped dead. She knew my name.
Kael moved instantly, stepping in front of me, his body a shield. "Who are you?" His voice was steel, cold and precise.
The woman smiled. "Names are fragile things. But you may call me Veyra."
I tilted my head, forcing calm into my voice. "You sent the message?"
"I did."
"Then tell me," I said. "How do you know about the Code?"
Her smile deepened, unfolding like a secret she'd waited years to reveal. "Because I was there when it was written."
The words struck me like lightning. My breath hitched. "That's impossible. The Code is ancient. It predates half of modern cybernetics"
"Not centuries," she interrupted smoothly. "Forty-one years. And I was the architect."
Eli made a strangled sound. "She's lying, Ayla. No way."
But something in her gaze made me hesitate. Those eyes unblinking, luminous, too precise to be human radiated a truth that felt heavier than denial.
"You're saying you created it?" I whispered.
"Created it. Lived for it. Died for it."
The last word froze the blood in my veins.
Kael's jaw tightened. "What do you mean, died?"
Veyra tilted her head, almost playfully. Then, in one swift movement, she pulled back the collar of her coat.
And the world shifted.
Where flesh should have been, her neck revealed plates of chrome. Fiber-optic veins pulsed beneath, glowing faintly blue, threading into her chest like living circuitry.
Eli stumbled back. "She's she's not human."
Her laugh was soft. Dangerous. Like silk tearing. "I was human. Once. But the Code rewrote me. It can rewrite anyone." She locked her glowing eyes on me. "That is why they will hunt you until the stars collapse, Ayla. Because you hold the key to completing what I began."
Kael stepped forward, a protective wall of muscle and rage. "What do you want from her?"
Veyra's gaze never left mine. "I want to warn her. The Code isn't about immortality. It's about control. Once activated, it won't just rewrite flesh it will rewrite minds. Every thought. Every memory. Every choice. All bound to the algorithm."
Eli's voice cracked. "So if Ayla finishes it"
"She won't just save humanity," Veyra cut in, her tone sharp. "She will own it."
Silence fell heavy, suffocating. My chest tightened, my mind spinning. I had dreamed of saving lives erasing disease, conquering death. But this? Rewriting free will? That wasn't salvation. That was tyranny.
"No," I said, voice shaking but fierce. "I won't let it be used like that."
Veyra's lips curved knowingly. "Good. Then I will give you what I couldn't give myself time."
From her coat, she drew a shard of crystalline data. Fractal patterns swirled inside it, alive, shifting endlessly.
"This," she said softly, "is a fragment of the Code's origin. It will help you understand. But be warned, Ayla. The moment you take it, they'll know where you are."
My hand trembled as I reached forward.
"Ayla don't," Kael hissed.
But curiosity had always outweighed caution.
The shard burned cold against my palm ice and fire woven together. My vision fractured. Images slammed into my skull: faces screaming, cities burning, rivers of code cascading like stars. Infinity opening and closing in a single breath.
I gasped, knees buckling.
And then
The walls exploded.
The ceiling ripped apart in a hail of shrapnel. Armed drones poured through, red optics glowing like a swarm of angry gods. Their rotors screamed, their barrels locked onto us.
Veyra's eyes widened, voice snapping like a whip. "They've found you!"
Kael yanked me upright, shoving Eli behind him as bullets tore through rusted steel. Sparks and debris showered the floor.
Veyra blurred into motion, faster than my eyes could follow. One instant she stood still; the next, her arm split into blades of chrome and fire. She sliced two drones in half, their smoking corpses crashing into the rubble.
"Run!" she shouted.
The command jolted me into action. We bolted toward the exit as the factory erupted around us gunfire, screaming engines, explosions that shook the floor like thunder.
But even as Kael dragged me forward, even as Eli stumbled breathless at my side, one truth burned hotter than the shard still searing in my palm.
This wasn't just another attack.
Someone had been waiting.
And they weren't going to stop until the Eternal Code was theirs.
---
Ayla, Kael, and Eli barely escape with the shard as drones swarm the factory. But who sent them? And can Veyra be trusted or is she playing her own game?