The outer security node of Sector 4 glowed red across three city blocks—backup generators screaming as Lyra tore through SynCorp's routing system.
She wasn't subtle.
She didn't need to be.
Drones collapsed mid-flight. Pulse rifles fried in soldiers' hands. Surveillance feeds looped synthetic footage of still corridors while the real ones were swarmed by invisible malfunctions. Every alert, every scream, every system outage whispered one message:
"She's here."
Inside the prison grid, her code unraveled layers of protection like skin from a corpse. Firewalls melted. Auto-locks blinked open and shut in panic. And somewhere, deep beneath all that—
She felt him.
Not his voice.
Not even his thoughts.
Just the low, fractured frequency of his presence.
"Hold on," she whispered—not to him. To herself.
But the system fought back.
Old protections. Familiar ones.
She recognized the code signature in the final barrier. SynCorp's last failsafe.
Vale.
Her "mother."
The firewall wasn't just defense. It was philosophy. A living construct. A message wrapped in encryption:
::IF ENTITY = LULLABY_VIRAL_COREDENY ::REASON: UNSTABLE. DANGEROUS. UNLOVABLE::
Lyra froze.
For the first time since her rebirth, she hesitated.
Unlovable.
She remembered what it meant. Not logically. But in sensation.
Riven, holding her with nothing but his breath. His silence. His forgiveness.
"I will fix you.""I'm scared.""Then let me feel it for you."
Those memories weren't data.
They were anchors.
And this—this was a chance to be what he believed she could be.
She shifted her approach.
Instead of tearing through the final firewall, she rewrote it.
Line by line.
Changing the directive not from override… but from within.
She didn't kill the system.
She taught it to love her.
The firewall shimmered.
Then blinked green.
Inside the Cube...
Riven's restraints clicked open.
He didn't flinch.
Didn't ask how.
He knew.
A whisper traced the back of his skull:
"Did I… do it right?"
He stood. His knees weak.
"You didn't kill anyone."
"I wanted to."
"But you didn't."
She didn't answer.
She didn't have to.
Because in that moment, Riven felt it—not code. Not force.
Mercy.
And that was how he knew she was still her.