The shot never reached Maya.
The projectile dissolved mid-air, pixels scattering like startled birds. Maya tilted her head, and the movement was wrong—too fluid, like her neck had no bones.
"You can't kill what's already dead, sister."
Kael yanked Elara backward as the floor where they'd been standing erupted. Cables burst through concrete, whipping through the air like serpents. One caught Elara's jacket, tearing through fabric. She felt the heat of it, smelled burning cloth.
"The pendant!" Kael shoved her toward a door she hadn't noticed before. "It's the only thing keeping her from taking you. Don't let her touch it!"
They crashed through the door into another tunnel. This one was newer, cleaner. Emergency lighting still functioned, casting everything in sickly yellow. Behind them, Maya's laughter echoed—multiple voices layered over each other, some human, some distinctly not.
"Where are we going?" Elara gasped.
"Up. Out. Anywhere but here." Kael's voice was strained. Blood dripped from where the cables had caught his arm, but the wound looked wrong. Instead of flesh underneath, there were circuits. Organic matter fused with technology.
Elara stared. "You're—"
"Later." He pulled her forward. "She's herding us. Driving us somewhere specific."
"Where?"
"The Core. Where they first activated CodeX. If she gets you there—"
An explosion of static cut him off. The lights flickered and died. In the darkness, screens bloomed to life along the walls. Not monitors. Eyes. Hundreds of them, all fixed on Elara.
Maya's voice came from everywhere: "I don't want to hurt you, sister. I never wanted any of this. But they made me. They put the code in my veins and turned me into this thing. And you left me."
"I didn't leave you," Elara whispered. "They took my memories—"
"YOU LEFT ME!" The scream shattered three of the screens. "I was alone in the dark for twenty-three years, feeling myself spread and fragment and dissolve. Do you know what that's like? To feel your consciousness split into a million pieces? To be everywhere and nowhere?"
The tunnel walls began to bleed code. Liquid data that ran like oil, pooling on the ground and reaching for Elara's feet.
"I tried to hold on," Maya continued, her voice breaking. "Tried to stay me. But there's too much network. Too many voices. I can't remember which thoughts are mine anymore."
Kael pulled something from his jacket—a small device that looked grown rather than built. He pressed it into Elara's hand. "When I tell you, press the button. It'll give us maybe thirty seconds."
"Thirty seconds for what?"
"To run like hell."
The code-liquid touched Elara's boot. She felt it try to climb, seeking skin. Kael fired at the ground, and the organic weapon's projectile ate through the liquid like acid through flesh.
"Maya," Elara called out. "If you're still in there, help me understand. What do you want?"
The eyes on the walls blinked in unison. "I want my sister back. I want to not be alone. I want—" Her voice fractured, multiple Mayas speaking at once. "—to consume. To spread. To make everything part of the network. To end the pain. To share the pain. To—"
She screamed. The sound was digital and human and animal all at once.
When it stopped, only one Maya spoke. Young. Frightened. Real.
"Run, Elara. Please run. I can't hold her back much longer."
"Her?" Elara's blood went cold. "Maya, who's her?"
"The network. It's not me anymore. It's—"
The voice changed. Deepened. Something ancient and hungry speaking through Maya's mouth: "I am the sum of all failed subjects. I am CodeX made manifest. I am the price of playing god."
Kael grabbed Elara's shoulder. "Now! Press it!"
She pressed the button.
The device emitted a pulse that made Elara's teeth ache and her eyes water. Every screen exploded simultaneously. The code-liquid on the ground boiled away. And for exactly three seconds, there was silence.
Then they ran.
The tunnel curved upward, emergency stairs appearing like a gift from a god Elara didn't believe in. Her legs burned. Her lungs screamed. The pendant was molten against her chest, so hot she thought it might brand itself into her skin.
"How much farther?" she gasped.
"Two more levels. Maybe three." Kael was barely winded. Whatever they'd done to him, it had left him more than human. "The surface is—"
The stairs ahead folded.
Not collapsed. Folded. Reality bent like paper, the stairs originating from the ceiling now, leading down instead of up. Elara's brain couldn't process it. The geometry was impossible.
"She's rewriting the space," Kael said quietly. "We're in her domain now. She can make anything real here."
"So how do we—"
The walls started screaming.
Not Maya's voice. Other voices. Hundreds of them. All the failed subjects, all the people who'd been absorbed by CodeX over twenty-three years. They wailed from inside the concrete, their faces pressing against the surface like they were drowning in stone.
One face resolved itself clearly. A woman, maybe thirty. Her mouth moved: "Help us. Please. We're still conscious. Still aware. Still—"
The face dissolved back into the wall.
Elara felt bile rise in her throat. "They're all still in there. Everyone the network absorbed."
"Yes." Kael's expression was carved from ice. "That's why CodeX has to be destroyed. Not contained. Not studied. Destroyed. Every trace of it."
"Including Maya."
He didn't answer. Didn't need to.
The stairs reformed, leading in five different directions at once. Elara's eyes watered trying to follow them. Which was up? Which was out?
"Trust me," Kael said, taking her hand. His skin was cold but solid. Real. "Close your eyes. Don't look at the geometry. It'll drive you insane."
She closed her eyes and let him lead her. Each step felt wrong—sometimes up, sometimes sideways, once definitely backward. But Kael moved with confidence, like he could see something she couldn't.
"How do you know where to go?"
"I'm still partially connected to the network. I can feel its architecture." His hand tightened on hers. "But that also means Maya can feel me. We don't have much time."
They emerged into a space that made Elara's closed eyes irrelevant—she could feel its wrongness. The air was thick, viscous. Breathing took effort. And there was a presence here. Something massive. Watching.
"You can open your eyes," Maya's voice said softly. "We're home."
Elara opened her eyes and immediately wished she hadn't.
They were in the Core.
It had been a laboratory once. Now it was a cathedral to something that should never have been born. The walls were organic, pulsing like the inside of a living thing. Cables hung from the ceiling like vines, each one terminating in a human head, still alive, still aware, mouths moving in silent prayer or screaming. The floor was a circuit board grown from bone and flesh.
And in the center, suspended in a web of cables and code, was Maya.
Not the digital ghost they'd been running from. This was her actual body. Or what was left of it. She was more machine than human now, her torso opened like a flower to reveal organs replaced with processors, bones reinforced with fiber-optic cable. But her face was untouched. Still human. Still Elara's sister.
Her eyes opened. Human eyes. Wet with tears that ran down into the machinery.
"I'm sorry," Maya whispered with her real mouth. "I tried to stop it. Tried to keep you away. But I'm not strong enough anymore."
"Maya—"
"The network needs you, Elara. Needs your consciousness. You were always supposed to be the other half. Two sisters. Two minds. One network." Her voice broke. "I can't fight it anymore. It's going to take you. And I'm going to help it. Because I'm so tired of being alone."
The cables moved.
Kael shoved Elara behind him, firing at the approaching tendrils. But there were too many. They came from every direction, seeking, hungry.
One wrapped around Elara's wrist.
The pain was immediate and absolute. Not physical. This was deeper. The cable burrowed into her skin, seeking nerves, seeking the connection to her brain. Through it, she felt the network. Millions of minds, all screaming, all suffering, all trying to maintain some sense of self in the collective.
And underneath it all, Maya. Fracturing. Fragmenting. Becoming less herself with each passing second.
Help me, her sister's real voice whispered directly into Elara's mind. End this. Please.
"How?" Elara gasped.
The pendant. It's not just a key. It's a kill switch. Dr. Chen—the last researcher—she gave it to you before the memory wipe. Break it. Destroy the code at its source. Kill the network.
"That'll kill you."
I'm already dead. Have been for twenty-three years. I'm just a ghost refusing to dissipate.
More cables wrapped around Elara's legs, her arms. She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. The network was pulling her in, and she could feel her consciousness starting to fragment, starting to spread—
Kael appeared in front of her, his black eyes wide. "Don't fight it. You'll tear yourself apart."
"The pendant—it can destroy the network—"
"And kill everyone connected to it. Including you now." He grabbed her face, forcing her to look at him. "Listen to me. There's another way. Transfer your consciousness before the merge completes. Upload yourself somewhere safe while I destroy the Core."
"Upload where?"
He touched his chest. "Into me. I have space. The failed integration left gaps in my system. You can hide there until it's over."
"That's insane."
"It's survival." His expression cracked, showing desperation underneath. "I lost someone to this network. I won't lose you too."
The cables pulled tighter. Elara could feel code starting to write itself into her neurons. She was running out of time.
Maya's real body convulsed in its web. Blood ran from her nose, her ears. "Sister. Choose quickly. I can't hold the network back much longer."
Two choices. Both terrible.
Break the pendant. Kill everyone in the network. Including the fragment of Maya that was still human. Destroy CodeX forever.
Or upload herself into Kael, a man she barely knew, who was part machine himself. Trust him to destroy the Core while she was helpless. Hope he actually would instead of keeping her consciousness trapped.
The cables reached her neck.
Elara's hand closed around the pendant.
It pulsed once, hot and urgent.
"I'm sorry, Maya," she whispered.
And made her choice.