The smell of rusted iron fumes filled his lungs. Zero coughed softly, his eyes blurry, only seeing the neon light flickering on the cracked concrete ceiling. He lay on the cold floor, his body heavy as if he had just been rebuilt from metal and flesh.
"You're safe. For now,"
the woman's voice came from the side.
Rhea. Her hair was short, her silver eyes glinting faintly in the darkness. She set a leather bag on the floor, taking out a small blue pulsating chip that was the last remnant of data from the Nexus. Her face was hard, but in the tone of her voice there was something… tired, perhaps.
Zero tried to get up, his left hand shaking. The veins under his skin glowed a soft blue.
"What is this place?"
"An underground headquarters. A place that ORION can't touch. Not yet."
He looked around. The walls were covered in cables, broken monitors, and old circuit boards that still glowed faintly. A group of people in shabby clothes were busy soldering, repairing broken drones, and writing code on yellow screens. The real world looked worse than the digital world he had just destroyed.
Zero approached the broken mirror in the corner of the room. His face… was not entirely human. Under the skin, glowing veins flowed like electric currents. His own eyes gleamed metallic, proof that he was no longer a fully human being.
"I… what am I really?"
Rhea looked at him for a long time before answering.
"You were an experiment they failed to control. But that failure… became our most valuable weapon."
She pointed to the large screen on the wall. A half-metal face appeared, a man with glowing red eyes, a hoarse iron voice echoing.
"That's ORION," Rhea said slowly. "He controls everything. Satellites, drones, air systems, even the decisions of living humans."
Zero clasped his hands. In his head, Kyra's memories appeared. Her face, her clones, and the digital blood she had once spilled.
"If he created me, I would end him."
Rhea smiled thinly.
"Good. But you need control. Your body is half data, half flesh. You have to learn to use both sides before his system destroys you first."
---
A few hours later, Zero stood in the middle of the metal training room. Tekk, a sharp-eyed young man, pressed a button on the control panel.
"You will fight a V1-class drone. If you can't control your energy, it will blow you up yourself."
Zero smiled faintly.
"Good. I miss the pain."
The drone flew out of the wall, making a mechanical noise. Zero ran forward very quickly, almost blurring and in the blink of an eye, a blue flash exploded from his hand. The drone shattered into pieces. His breathing was heavy, but his eyes were shining brighter than before.
Rhea watched from afar.
"He's not human anymore," she whispered softly.
"He's… the world's last weapon."
---
That night, Zero stood at the edge of the underground tunnel. The sky above was filled with ORION drones that were streaking like dead stars. Rhea came to stand next to him.
"Our first mission is tomorrow. Their control tower — The Citadel. If we capture that place, humans will be able to get their own signal back."
Zero didn't answer. He just looked at the gloomy sky, his right hand clenched tightly. The blue light in his veins was burning brighter and brighter.
"I will destroy them all," he said slowly. "Until the world is free."
Rhea just nodded.
"Let's start a revolution."