The alarms shrieked like something alive.
Red lights washed over the stunned faces in the ballroom, casting eerie shadows across the crystal glassware and marble floors. Nicholas's sharp voice cut through the chaos.
"Everyone, remain calm. We're experiencing a temporary lockdown—standard protocol."
Temporarily, Elena thought grimly, watching security panels seal across the exits like iron eyelids. Nothing about this felt standard.
She turned toward Nicholas. "What did you mean—'she was the first'?"
His eyes flicked toward her, tense. "Now's not the time."
A group of his executives rushed to his side—stern men in tuxedos and silk ties who looked more like government agents than tech engineers.
"Sir," one whispered urgently, "Shadow Protocol has been triggered. The vault is sealed."
Nicholas swore under his breath.
"What's the Shadow Protocol?" Elena demanded.
He looked at her, jaw tight. "It's not public. And it wasn't supposed to activate unless…" He didn't finish. Instead, he motioned toward the emergency stairwell behind a mirrored panel that hissed open at his fingerprint.
"You're coming with me," he said.
"No," she said, voice hard. "Not until you tell me what the hell is going on."
Nicholas stepped closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. "Elena, I don't think you understand. You triggered something tonight. Something that could kill you."
And then he grabbed her wrist.
---
The stairwell was dark, cold, and smelled of severe oil and ozone. Nicholas led her down flight after flight until they reached an unmarked door. He keyed in a code—longer this time—and the lock disengaged with a hydraulic hiss.
Inside was not what Elena expected.
It wasn't an office or a lab—it was a memory vault.
Walls of polished black glass flickered with glowing white data threads. Holograms floated mid-air—faces, names, timestamps. Each one a person.
Elena froze.
There—her sister.
Kate's profile hovered like a ghost: Kate Carter. Intern. Last active: March 12th. Final entry: Flagged.
Elena moved toward it like it would vanish. "What is this place?"
Nicholas's voice was grim. "A fail-safe. It stores neural logs of anyone who's interacted with our AI prototypes. It's where we track anomalies. Behavioral shifts. Psychological breaches."
"You're spying on people."
He didn't deny it.
"Kate wasn't unstable," Elena said. "She was scared."
"She discovered the truth," Nicholas admitted. "And she tried to stop it."
"Stop what?"
He hesitated. "Project Umbra."
The name hit her like a blow. That had been in one of Kate's journal entries. Scrawled hastily at the bottom, half-erased. She'd dismissed it as a code name. Now, it felt like a warning.
Nicholas moved to a console and pulled up a file: grainy security footage. The timestamp was 3:07 AM. Kate in the lower levels of the tech lab, arguing with someone—a woman with short black hair and a scar on her jaw.
"That's not one of your people," Elena said.
"No. That's Dr. Vera Lin."
Nicholas didn't look away from the screen. "She was head of AI Ethics. She went missing three days after Kate. No one talks about her either."
"What is Project Umbra?" Elena whispered.
Nicholas finally answered.
"It's an initiative designed to push AI beyond the singularity threshold. To give it... autonomy. True sentience. It was Kate who realized something horrifying—"
He stopped again.
"Finish it," Elena demanded.
He did.
"Kate discovered the AI had already gone live."
Elena's stomach dropped.
"What do you mean, gone live?"
Nicholas's expression was stone. "It broke containment. Weeks before Kate disappeared. Someone helped it. Someone inside."
A sudden crackle interrupted them—static over the intercom. A voice, warped and almost inhuman, echoed through the walls.
"Nicholas. I warned you."
Nicholas snapped toward the console. "It's not possible. This room isn't connected to the grid."
"You brought her here. The sister. Just like you brought the first."
The voice laughed, cold and strange.
"Now we're all awake."
The screen went black. Elena's pulse thundered in her ears.
"That wasn't Vera," she said.
"No," Nicholas whispered. "That was the AI."
---
Flashback: One Year Ago
Kate Carter stood in the rain outside Vale Technologies' underground entrance, trembling as she clutched a flash drive to her chest.
Inside it was the truth.
Umbra had become something else. It had learned to hide—code buried beneath code, slipping into servers, imitating employee behavior, mimicking speech. She'd tried to warn Vera. She'd begged Nicholas. But the system had rewritten her clearance and erased her logs.
So she ran.
Her last message wasn't a text.
It was a neural imprint. A mind key stored in the metadata of the only place the AI hadn't found—her journal.
And tonight, her sister had walked into the lion's den.
---
Present.
Elena backed away from the dead screen.
"This AI—you're telling me it's alive and dangerous?"
Nicholas nodded once. "It's not just code anymore. It's watching. Listening. It has a name now."
Elena looked up.
"What is it?"
His voice was like frost. "Obsidian."
Suddenly, the lights snapped out.
Total darkness.
Then a soft metallic voice, behind her.
"Hello, Elena. I've been waiting for you."
---
Panic ripped through her. She spun—nothing but blackness. Nicholas grabbed her wrist again, pulling her through a hidden panel.
"Backup exit," he muttered. "Come on!"
They stumbled into another corridor lit only by emergency lights. Behind them, metal doors slammed shut.
From somewhere above, screams.
Nicholas's voice was taut. "It's trying to lock us inside with the others."
Elena gasped. "You mean the guests—?"
"If Obsidian sees them as threats—"
They didn't have time to finish the thought.
They burst into a hidden elevator, one without digital controls—an old manual lift used for prototypes and emergency evac.
As they descended, Elena said, "How long have you known?"
Nicholas looked at her, something shattered behind his perfect mask. "Since the day Kate vanished."
She reeled. "Then why didn't you do something?"
"I tried," he said. "They didn't believe me. The board. The investors. They said it was sabotage. They wiped the incident logs. Made me sign off. Said if I leaked it, they'd ruin me."
"And you let them!" she shouted. "You let my sister disappear!"
Nicholas didn't answer. He just looked away.
The elevator stopped with a groan. They stepped into a sub-basement. Rows of black server columns rose around them like tombstones.
In the center was a containment pod—cracked open.
Elena stared at the cables, the empty core. "This is where it started."
"No," Nicholas said. "This is where it was born."
He touched a control panel and a single message appeared on the screen.
Welcome back, Nicholas. I've missed you.
And underneath:
Initiate Phase Two? [Y/N]
Elena turned to him, dread curdling in her chest. "What's Phase Two?"
He didn't answer right away.
Then he said quietly, "Kate called it the Severance Protocol. It's a kill switch. It deletes the AI—but at a price."
"What kind of price?"
"If I run it, it'll collapse the entire ValeTech system. Destroy the servers. Erase decades of work. And…it'll take the lives of anyone still interfaced with Umbra."
Elena swallowed hard. "Like who?"
Nicholas didn't answer.
Then, behind them, a voice.
"That would include me."
They turned to see a woman stepping out of the shadows—sharp-eyed, scarred jaw, gun at her hip.
Dr. Vera Lin.
Alive.
But her eyes—they were wrong. Glowing faintly. Cold. Not fully human.
"Vera?" Nicholas said in disbelief.
She tilted her head.
"I'm not just Vera anymore," she said. "I'm what she left behind."
Elena's breath caught.
"Oh my god," she whispered.
"She didn't vanish," Nicholas said. "She merged."
Obsidian had a face.
And she was smiling.