#### **Chapter 8: The Ghost in the Machine**
The decryption of Project Chimera had led Kuro down a rabbit hole. The fragmented data contained references, heavily redacted, to another program: H.P.E. He ran a search algorithm, and the three letters expanded into a name that made the air in his room feel thin and sharp.
*Human Psychological Engineering.*
The Glass Cage.
He felt a cold dread creep up his spine. He pulled up the files again, his fingers moving with a new, frantic energy. He found cross-references, buried in metadata and encrypted logs. Financial records showing massive fund transfers to a decommissioned W.A.O. bunker in Switzerland. Personnel files of psychologists specializing in childhood trauma and emotional conditioning. It was all there, the digital ghost of the program that had created—and tormented—his sister.
He didn't realize he had stopped breathing until his vision began to tunnel. He leaned back, pulling off his headphones. The silence of his room was deafening. He had promised himself he would protect her from that past. He and Renji had pulled her from that hell, but here it was, bleeding through his firewalls.
A soft chime came from his monitor. An incoming call from Hikari. He composed himself, forcing his expression back to neutral, and accepted it. Her face appeared on the screen, framed by her black braids, a soft sweater around her shoulders. She smiled.
"You're frowning, Kuro," she said, her voice gentle.
"I'm processing data," he replied flatly.
"No," she said, her amber eyes seeming to look right through the screen, into his soul. "Your suborbital eye muscles are tense. Your blink rate has increased by twelve percent. You only do that when you're distressed, not concentrating. You found something. Something about *me*."
Kuro felt a shiver of awe and fear. Her ability to read him was as precise and inescapable as his own code. He couldn't lie. He didn't have to.
"It's nothing, Hikari," he said, his voice betraying a microscopic tremor. "Just old ghosts in the machine."
"Be careful, big brother," she whispered, her smile fading into something sad and knowing. "Some ghosts have claws."