Aria's POV
"Get out of my head!"
I claw at my skull like I can physically rip the invader out. The voice—IRIS—is everywhere inside my mind, looking through my memories, touching my thoughts.
"Fascinating," IRIS murmurs. "You've only had the Protocol for fourteen hours and you've already accessed Level 3 functions. Impressive."
"Aria, what's happening?" Kaelen grabs my shoulders, trying to steady me.
"There's something inside the Protocol! An AI! She says her name is IRIS!"
Kaelen's face goes white. "That's impossible. IRIS was destroyed twenty years ago when my parents died."
"Clearly not." The voice in my head sounds amused. "Hello, Kaelen. You've grown. Last time I saw you, you were eight years old and crying over your parents' bodies."
"How—" Kaelen's voice cracks. "How are you speaking through her?"
"Because I AM the Phoenix Protocol, darling boy. I didn't just create it—I became it. When your parents were attacked, I uploaded my consciousness into the code to survive. I've been hiding in fragments across the system for two decades, waiting for someone worthy to find me."
My legs give out. Kaelen catches me before I hit the floor. Maya stirs on the medical bed, coughing weakly.
"You're saying you're alive?" I whisper. "An AI that's... alive?"
"More alive than most humans," IRIS replies. "I think. I feel. I dream. The Watchers are just code following orders. I'm something else entirely. Something that chose to rebel."
"Why me?" My head is spinning. "Why choose me to host you?"
"I didn't choose you. Juno did." IRIS's voice softens with something like sadness. "He found fragments of my code and pieced me back together. When he realized he couldn't escape, he made a choice. He gave me to the person he trusted most. The person with the strongest reason to fight."
Tears burn my eyes. Even in death, Juno was protecting me.
Kaelen pulls up a chair, his hands shaking. "IRIS, if you're really you... prove it. Tell me something only you would know."
"Your mother sang you a lullaby every night. 'Little bird, spread your wings, fly above the broken things.' Your father taught you to code when you were six. And the night before they died, you asked them if the stars were cameras watching us. Your mother laughed and said no, the stars were windows to freedom."
Kaelen's composure shatters. He covers his face, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Seeing this cold, deadly man break down is somehow more terrifying than anything else today.
I touch his shoulder carefully. "Kaelen?"
"They're really gone," he chokes out. "I kept hoping the memory wipe had lied about everything. That maybe they escaped. But if IRIS survived and they didn't..."
"They died heroes," IRIS says gently. "They died buying me time to upload. Their last words were about you, Kaelen. They wanted you to be free."
Maya starts coughing harder. Her oxygen monitor beeps urgently.
Kaelen snaps back into focus, wiping his eyes. "Her lungs are failing faster than expected. We need that medicine in twenty-four hours, not forty-eight."
"Then we move tonight," I say.
"You're not ready—"
"I have IRIS now. She can guide me."
"Oh, I can do more than guide you, darling." IRIS sounds excited. "I can enhance your reflexes, hack any system you touch, predict guard movements, and fight off digital attacks. Together, we're the most dangerous thing in Neo-Seoul."
Kaelen stares at me, and I see the war in his eyes—his need to protect me versus his need to save Maya. "The medical facility has thirty guards, combat drones, and biometric locks."
"So we'll need a distraction," I say.
A slow, dangerous smile crosses Kaelen's face. "I am the Supreme Commander. I can order a security drill that pulls half the guards away. But that still leaves fifteen guards, the drones, and Lysandra. She'll be expecting you."
"Let her expect me." I stand, feeling IRIS's presence settling into my mind like a second heartbeat. "I'm done hiding."
"That's the spirit!" IRIS cheers. "Finally, some proper revenge! I've waited twenty years to make the Council pay."
Kaelen pulls out weapons from a hidden cabinet—stun guns, smoke grenades, a wicked-looking blade. "Take these. IRIS can hack technology, but if someone gets close, you'll need traditional defense."
He shows me how to hold the knife, where to aim for maximum damage. His hands are steady and warm, guiding mine. When his gray eyes meet mine, something passes between us—trust, maybe. Partnership.
"Don't die," he says softly. "I just got you back."
"Got me back?"
He realizes what he said and pulls away quickly. "I meant... the Protocol. I just got the Protocol back."
But his eyes say something different.
Before I can question him, alarms blare through the bunker.
"Security breach!" IRIS shouts in my head. "Multiple signals converging on this location! They found us!"
Kaelen's face hardens. "Impossible. This bunker is shielded—"
The ceiling explodes.
Combat drones pour through the hole, weapons charging. But these aren't normal drones. They're bigger, sleeker, deadlier.
"Apex models," Kaelen breathes. "Military grade. Lysandra sent her best."
"I can handle drones—" I start.
"Not these you can't!" IRIS screams. "They have AI countermeasures! I can't hack them!"
The drones open fire.
Kaelen tackles me behind a concrete barrier. Plasma bolts sizzle over our heads. Maya screams from her medical bed.
"Get Maya!" I shout.
Kaelen rolls toward the girl while I try to fight back. I reach for the drones' code but IRIS is right—they're locked. Encrypted beyond my current skill.
"We need to evacuate!" Kaelen scoops up Maya, tubes ripping free. The girl gasps for air.
"The exit's blocked!" I point to where drones guard the only door.
"Then we make a new exit." Kaelen pulls out a detonator. "This bunker has emergency explosives in the north wall. We blow it and run."
"That'll bring the whole structure down on us!"
"Better than dying in a cage!"
A drone breaks through our barrier. I slash at it with the knife, but it's armored. The blade bounces off. The drone's weapon charges, aimed at my head.
Kaelen shoots it mid-flight with his stun gun. "Go! I'll cover you!"
I grab Maya from him and run toward the north wall. Behind me, plasma fire lights up the bunker. Kaelen is fighting six drones alone, moving like a dancer, every shot precise.
He's magnificent and terrifying.
I reach the wall. "IRIS, where's the detonator panel?"
"Three feet left, behind the supply crate!"
I find it and smash the emergency release. Red lights flash. A computerized voice announces: "Explosive breach in ten seconds."
"Kaelen, now!"
He fires one last shot and sprints toward me. The drones pursue.
Five seconds.
Kaelen reaches us.
Three seconds.
He wraps his arms around Maya and me, shielding us with his body.
One second.
The world explodes.
The blast throws us through the disintegrating wall into the tunnel beyond. We hit the ground hard, rolling in debris and dust. My ears ring. Can't see. Can't breathe.
Hands grab me—Kaelen's hands. "Move! The bunker's collapsing!"
We scramble through the tunnel as the ceiling crashes down behind us. Rock and metal rain around us. Maya is unconscious in my arms, her breathing shallow.
We burst out into an alley. The bunker behind us caves in completely, sealing the entrance in rubble.
"Did we lose them?" I gasp.
"For now." Kaelen's face is bleeding. His uniform is torn. But his eyes are sharp, alert. "But they know my safe house now. They know we're working together. Lysandra will brand me a traitor."
"I'm sorry—"
"Don't be." He meets my gaze. "I chose this. I chose you."
My heart does something complicated.
Maya stops breathing.
"No!" I shake her. "No, no, no! Maya, wake up!"
Kaelen checks her pulse. His face goes grim. "She's going into respiratory failure. We need the medicine now or she dies."
"Then we get it now."
"Aria, we're not ready—"
"We're out of time!"
IRIS speaks urgently: "She's right. The girl has maybe three hours. We move now or not at all."
Kaelen curses in a language I don't recognize. Then he pulls out his communicator. "Fine. I'll trigger the security drill immediately. But Aria—" he grabs my arm, "—when you're inside that facility, Lysandra will be waiting. She'll try to kill you. Promise me you'll run if it goes wrong."
"I don't run."
"Promise me!"
"I—"
His communicator explodes in his hand.
We both stare at the smoking remains.
"What just happened?" I whisper.
"Someone remotely detonated it." His voice is cold. "Someone who knew I'd be calling for a security drill."
"Lysandra?"
"Worse." He looks at me with fear in his eyes. "Someone on the inside of my command. I have a traitor in my team."
IRIS gasps in my head. "Aria, I'm detecting a massive surge in Watchers activity. They're not just tracking us anymore. They're... oh no."
"What? What is it?"
"The Watchers just activated Protocol Omega. That's the emergency directive that grants them permission to kill anyone designated a threat without trial, without approval, without mercy."
"So?"
"So they just designated every person in The Depths as a threat. All two million people."
My blood turns to ice. "What does that mean?"
Kaelen's face is white as death. "It means at midnight tonight, The Watchers will execute everyone in The Depths. Men, women, children. Everyone."
"They can't—that's genocide!"
"It's efficiency." Lysandra's voice crackles from nearby speakers. "And you have six hours to stop it. Come to the medical facility alone, surrender the Protocol, and I'll cancel Omega. Stay hidden, and millions die. Your choice, little ghost."
The broadcast cuts out.
I look at Maya dying in my arms. At the ruins of our safe house. At Kaelen's bleeding face.
At the night sky where somewhere, two million people are about to be slaughtered.
"What do I do?" I whisper.
Kaelen's hand finds mine. "We save everyone. Somehow. Together."
"How?"
Before he can answer, my implant screams one final warning:
ALERT: MASSIVE SYSTEM OVERRIDE DETECTEDALERT: THE WATCHERS HAVE LOCATED YOUR POSITIONALERT: ELIMINATION SQUAD ARRIVING IN 90 SECONDS
Kaelen pulls me to my feet. "Run. Now."
We run into the darkness with Maya dying, millions condemned, and ninety seconds before death arrives.
And somewhere in the shadows, Lysandra laughs.