Chapter 3: The Serpent's Voice
New York, 2147 AD
*Selika Maris Delgado stood on the UN holo-stage, a neural halo glowing above her brow like a crown of code. Below, New York's Central Hub seethed a riot of hackers, faith-jackers, and displaced coders chanting anti-Union slogans: The Veil Lies! Crash the Net! Holo-screens flickered, hacked by the Cult of Ilum-Ra, showing Göbekli Tepe's red pulse two days ago, its signal rippling through global neural webs. Selika's pulse quickened, but her diplomat's mask held elegant, unyielding, a blade wrapped in silk. Her voice, a low hum honed by years of Union training, was her weapon, and she wielded it like a virus."Citizens," she began, her words threading through the neural web, coiling into the crowd's implants. "Order is our strength. The Union protects. Return to your nodes." Her voice wasn't just sound it was code, an Arkan-Veyr gift she barely understood, bending minds like a serpent's hiss. The riot faltered, eyes glazing as her signal synced with their neural feeds. Hackers dropped their pulse-torches; coders knelt, murmuring prayers to the Veil's AI saints. Selika's halo pulsed, amplifying her command, but her chest tightened. This wasn't diplomacy it was control, and it tasted like ash.She'd felt it since Istanbul, two nights ago, when she'd faced Reyan Al-Mehdi in that dive bar. His glyphs, glowing like her own buried memories, had stirred something a voice not hers, whispering of Ilum-Ra, of Flame-Twins bound by blood. She'd tracked him to the Basilica Cistern, her Union orders clear: monitor the "Sleeper," report anomalies. But his defiance, his pulse-knife aimed at her, had cracked her mask. He was no pawn, and neither was she. Not anymore.Her implant sparked, a Union alert flashing: Anomaly confirmed, Istanbul vault breach. Neutralize Subject-Helix. Reyan. Her fingers twitched, but a new signal hacked her feed, sharp as a blade. "Selika, daughter of my code," it purred, feminine and ancient. "You are mine." Her halo glitched, and the holo-stage vanished.She stood in Eridu, 12,000 years gone, its ziggurats pulsing with neural code, the sky a binary scar. A figure loomed Inanna, her eyes starfire, her voice a seductive hum: "You betrayed him, serpent. Ilum-Ra's fire was yours, and you gave it to Enlil." Selika saw herself, ash-smeared, whispering to a faceless Enlil as Ilum-Ra burned, his glyphs fading. Her hands her own hands drove the betrayal, splitting the Flame-Twins. "You can rule, Selika," Inanna whispered. "Crash the Veil, take his code."Selika gasped, back on the holo-stage, the crowd now silent, kneeling. Her halo flickered, Inanna's signal lingering like a virus. The Union's neural web hummed in her implant, her handler's voice cutting through: "Delgado, report. Riot contained. Proceed to Istanbul, eliminate the anomaly." Selika's mask hardened, but her Arkan-Veyr blood burned, a glitch she couldn't firewall. Reyan's face flashed his glyphs, his rage. He was the other half, the Living Archive, and she was the serpent who'd broken him.She stepped off the stage, her coat swirling in New York's neon haze. The Hub's holo-screens glitched again, showing Eridu's ruins, a Cult hack spreading Ilum-Ra's code. Her implant pinged a dark pool message from an unknown node, tagged Codex: "The Flame-Twins awaken when the stars crash." Her breath caught. The same fragment Reyan's hack had pulled from the cistern vault. He'd dumped it to the House of Enki, rogue archivists who'd shred the Veil if they could.Selika's fingers moved before she could think, jacking into a black-market node via her halo. She wasn't Union, not fully not since Istanbul. Her Arkan-Veyr code, buried in her DNA, was waking, and Inanna's vision had cracked her loyalty. She hacked a Cult faith app, its neural stream pulsing with zealots' prayers to Ilum-Ra. Buried in its code was a signal, faint but clear: Borobudur vault, Java. The red hour comes. Her halo sparked, Inanna's voice coiling: "Take it, serpent. Rule with him, or burn alone."She killed the hack, her heart racing. Borobudur was another data vault, like the cistern, holding Ilum-Ra's fragmented code. Reyan was heading there she felt it, a pull in her blood. The Union wanted him dead, the Cult wanted him caged, but Selika wanted answers. Why her? Why him? What was the "red hour"?A drone hummed above, its optic red—a Keeper AI, not Union. "Selika Maris Delgado," it droned, voice laced with religious static. "Your code is tainted. Submit to the Veil's audit." Her halo flared, her voice surging: "Back off." The drone froze, its neural core glitching under her Arkan-Veyr hum. It crashed into the Hub's pavement, sparking, but its signal would've pinged the Keepers' prophet, Mara Eluin, who'd burn the world to save the Lie.Selika slipped into an alley, neural billboards flashing Union dogma: Faith is Code, Code is Order. She scoffed. Religions were firewalls, neural algorithms to trap humanity's mind. But Inanna's vision, Reyan's glyphs they were older, a truth the Veil couldn't erase. Her implant glitched, showing Eridu again her betrayal, Ilum-Ra's fire fading. "I'm not her," she whispered, but her voice trembled.She jacked into a dark pool, pinging an Enki node. "Sleeper's trail," she typed, her diplomat's mask slipping. "Borobudur. I'm in." The response was instant: "Serpent, you're late. He's already moving. Vault's hot." Selika's halo dimmed, her Arkan-Veyr blood burning. Reyan was no pawn, but neither was she. The Flame-Twins were waking, and the stars were crashing.