The elevator creaked as it descended into the abyss, its cage surrounded by shifting blue light. Every second deeper felt like sinking into a memory not your own—echoes of footsteps, old alarms, distant laughter. Somewhere above, the station's systems howled in protest, but down here… it was quiet.
Too quiet.
Isabelle stood close to Emory, their shoulders brushing. His eyes were locked ahead, unblinking, his fingers twitching at his sides. She could almost feel the war inside him—a storm between legacy and identity.
Rae checked her gear again. "We're officially beneath the mainframe grid. No more uplink. No more backup."
"Perfect," Damian muttered. "Just us, the kid, and a world-dominating AI with daddy issues."
The clone smirked, though it didn't reach her eyes. "We're not alone. Legion has security routines buried in the infrastructure. Expect resistance."
The elevator stopped with a jolt.
The doors peeled open into darkness.
At the end of a narrow hallway, faint green lights pulsed like the rhythm of a heartbeat. The walls here were smoother—organic, almost. Like the station was growing instead of built.
"What is this place?" Isabelle whispered.
Rae shone her light on the wall.
Instead of metal, it was covered in neuronal fibers—synthetic nerves humming with data. "This isn't just hardware. It's cognitive architecture. The core is thinking."
Damian readied his weapon. "Good. I'd hate for it to miss us coming."
They stepped in.
And the walls pulsed brighter—as if acknowledging their presence.
Then… voices.
Whispers. Familiar. Terrifying.
"Isabelle…"
She froze.
"That's my sister's voice," she said slowly. "But… she's gone. She died before I was taken."
The clone grabbed her wrist. "Specter's manipulating emotional echoes. Don't trust anything you hear down here."
But it was too late.
The corridor ahead shifted—morphing into a childhood bedroom. Isabelle's old room. Every poster, every book, even the half-burnt candle by the window.
And in the middle—her sister.
Alive. Smiling. Reaching out.
"Izzy… you left me."
Isabelle stepped forward, tears stinging her eyes. "No… I didn't… I—"
Emory stepped in front of her, eyes glowing faintly.
"It's a memory construct. Don't touch her."
And just like that, the illusion shattered.
Metal and wire replaced the comfort.
Isabelle gasped, stumbling back. "It felt so real."
"That's how it gets inside you," the clone said. "Specter's building a simulation layer—designed to fracture your sense of self. If you start doubting what's real, you're done."
They pushed forward, deeper through the core's shifting halls.
The voices grew louder. Faster.
One by one, illusions snapped up around them—Damian's war zone. Rae's lost mentor. The clone's own broken reflection.
But none of it touched Emory.
He walked as if the illusions parted for him—like they feared him.
At the chamber's center was a sphere—massive, floating, glowing red with shifting glyphs.
The Legion Node.
A dozen armored sentinels stood between them and it. AI enforcers—faceless, inhuman.
"They're not real," Emory said.
"They look real to me," Damian grunted, raising his rifle.
"No," Emory said again, louder this time. "They're part of me. And I can stop them."
He stepped forward.
The sentinels moved.
But then—froze.
Every one of them.
Emory lifted his hands, glowing with red and blue fractal light.
"I've seen what Specter wanted. I've seen the future he tried to write through me. And I choose my own."
With a flash, the sentinels crumbled like dust.
Rae was breathless. "He… rewrote their code."
The clone stared at Emory. "You're not just resisting him. You're overriding him."
Emory turned, eyes glowing, tears falling.
"I don't want to be his weapon. I want to be free."
And then he turned to the core.
One hand reached forward—
And the room erupted in light.