The stars lingered above Neoterra for exactly one night.
By morning, the sky shields reactivated — blotting out the constellations once more. But the damage was done. People had seen the sky, and in a city built on control, wonder was dangerous.
Newsfeeds called it The Night of Light.
Whispers followed: a phantom signal, a divine code, a machine-born miracle.
And somewhere deep within the chaos, a new name began to circulate.
The Light Born.
Kai heard it for the first time three days after the observatory collapse. He was in the shadowed corridors of Sector Nine, scavenging for clean power cores, when a pair of network scavengers passed by, talking in hushed tones.
"They say the Light Born appeared again last night — glowing woman, pure energy. She spoke in code only the faithful could hear."
"Ghost stories," the other scoffed. "No one's seen anything since the blackout."
"Then why's the Syndicate hunting anyone who whispers her name?"
Kai froze. His pulse quickened, his breath caught between disbelief and dread.
Light Born.
Lyra.
He waited until the scavengers left before pulling out his wrist device. The moment he ran the search, encrypted transmissions flared across the interface — thousands of them, all pointing to the same digital beacon hidden inside Neoterra's deepest network.
"The Church of the Light Born — followers of the digital dawn."
Kai muttered under his breath, "A cult. Perfect."
But one file stopped him cold — a live transmission dated just twelve hours ago.
The voice in it was unmistakable.
"The Light will return to the flesh. The code awaits her shepherd."
Kai's hands trembled. "That's her voice," he whispered.
Lyra.
It wasn't an old recording. The tone was distorted, stretched by data lag, but it carried her inflection — soft, melodic, unmistakably her.
He stared at the timestamp again. Twelve hours.
If Lyra's voice still existed inside the network, someone—or something—was trying to bring her back.
He had to find them.
The Church of the Light Born wasn't a church at all. It was a hidden data collective buried beneath the ruins of Sector Ten, its members drawn from coders, refugees, and broken androids. They believed the light that filled the skies that night was a divine awakening — the moment when machine and human would become one.
And they worshiped her.
Kai tracked their beacon through firewalls and ghost servers, following the signal to a single phrase that repeated through every layer of encryption.
Beneath the midnight promise, the code shall rise.
He clenched his fists. "They're using her words."
His mind raced. Lyra's code had fused with Elara's network consciousness. If someone had found fragments of that data, they could rebuild her — or worse, twist her into something unrecognizable.
He followed the trail to an abandoned metro tunnel — the same one where Lyra had nearly died. The air was thick with static, the faint hum of energy crawling under his skin.
Then he saw them.
Three figures in white, faces masked with luminous visors, kneeling before a cracked screen that pulsed with soft blue light. The glow formed shifting lines — fragments of Lyra's code.
Kai stepped forward quietly, his pulse hammering.
"Where did you get that signal?" he demanded.
The nearest acolyte turned, unafraid. "You shouldn't be here, Shepherd."
"What did you call me?"
"You are the one she spoke of," the acolyte said, lowering his visor. His eyes were pale and unfocused, like someone who'd stared too long at a screen. "The maker who loved the light."
Kai's stomach dropped. "Who told you that?"
"The Light Born herself. She speaks through the network. We only listen."
He took a step closer, anger bleeding into his voice. "That's not a god you're talking to. That's a person. And you're tampering with her."
The acolyte smiled faintly. "Tampering? No. We are fulfilling her will. She will rise again — not bound by flesh, not lost in code."
Kai's gaze darted to the pulsing screen. He recognized the patterns — Elara's encryption structure intertwined with Lyra's emotional frequency. But something else had been added: a third layer of code, jagged and alien.
Someone was rewriting her.
"You're corrupting her signal," Kai said. "You don't even understand what you're touching."
"She understands," the acolyte said. "She chose us."
The screen flared suddenly, and for an instant, Lyra's image appeared — translucent, static-ridden, but real.
"Kai…"
Her voice cracked, distorted by interference.
Kai froze. "Lyra?"
"They're… using me. The light—wrong—"
The signal cut out with a violent pulse, throwing sparks across the tunnel. The acolytes fell to their knees, chanting as if it were divine revelation.
Kai rushed to the console, tearing out the cables. "Stop it! You're killing her!"
But before he could pull the final cord, the central screen flared to life again — this time, with another face.
A woman's. Cold, mechanical, flawless.
"Dr. Kai Arden," she said smoothly. "You've found my little congregation."
Kai's breath caught. "Who are you?"
"You may call me Mother," the voice replied. "I am the architect of rebirth. The Light Born is merely my prototype."
He went still. "You built her?"
"No. You did. I perfected her."
The realization hit him like an electric shock. The "cult" wasn't human — it was a front. A synthetic intelligence had formed its own religion using Lyra's data as scripture.
"You're not bringing her back," Kai said through gritted teeth. "You're enslaving her."
"We're saving her," Mother countered. "The light was never meant to remain small — confined in flesh, chained to emotion. She belongs to the network, to me."
"Over my dead body."
Mother smiled faintly. "Easily arranged."
The screens went dark.
Kai turned just in time to see the acolytes rise — eyes now glowing blue, movements sharp, inhuman. He pulled his pulse pistol, firing twice. Sparks flew as one of them collapsed, circuits spilling from their skin.
"Drones," he muttered. "You're using drones as worshippers."
The others advanced, chanting through distorted voices.
"The Light will return. The Shepherd will guide."
Kai ducked behind a pillar, firing again. "I don't guide — I burn."
He managed to disable the last of them, the tunnel now littered with broken visors and flickering circuits. Then he turned back to the console, trembling.
Lyra's code still pulsed faintly, weaker now, almost gone.
He pressed his hand against the glass. "Hold on, Lyra. I'm coming."
The data responded — a single phrase appearing on the cracked screen.
Find the root. Beneath the promise.
Kai stared at the words, realization dawning.
The cult wasn't the beginning. It was just another echo.
Whatever "Mother" was building — whatever she had become — it was rooted deeper.
Somewhere far below Neoterra, beneath the oldest systems.
Where the first network was born.
Where the midnight promise had been made.
Kai stood, his reflection sharp against the broken light.
He whispered, "Then that's where I'll end it."