POV: Nivaan
The world slows the second I hear footsteps above us—soft, casual, too damn confident.
Not Avni.Not Kiyan.Not Meher.
Someone who walks like the air parts for them.
Zareen.
Of course it's her.
Avni presses her back to the wall, gun clasped tight like it's the last truth she can hold.Her chest is rising fast. Faster than usual. She's scared.That should terrify me, but honestly?It stabilizes me.
Fear looks good on reality.Makes it easier to trust.
I pull the server rack wires from my wrists, ignoring the sting as half-dormant implants spark.Somewhere deep inside my skull, my HUD tries to boot.
<< NEURO-LINK RECONNECTING… >><< ACTION PROTOCOLS INTEGR— >>
I shut it down.I'm done being someone else's software.
Avni whispers, "She shouldn't be here. She's supposed to be in Sector–"
Her sentence dies as the elevator doors slide open.
Zareen steps out like this is a spa lobby.Perfectly pressed suit.Hair pinned back in a geometric coil sharp enough to slit a throat.Smiling like she's welcoming us to a corporate retreat.
"Children," she says softly. "You made such a mess."
Kiyan stiffens beside the server tower.Meher grabs his sleeve but he's frozen—like Zareen has overridden the gravity of the room.
She walks closer.The overhead lights flicker as she passes.Technically impossible, but hey—so am I.
"You stole government property," she tells Avni."You assaulted personnel," she tells Kiyan."You breached a horizon-class firewall," she tells Meher.Then her gaze lands on me.
"And you. You woke up early."
I swallow. My throat feels like metal and static.
"Side effects," I mutter.
She tilts her head.The smile widens.It's not kind.It's not human.
"No, dear. That wasn't supposed to be possible."
Something cold forms behind my eyes.Memory fragments shiver:—white rooms—screams—machines humming—my name being deleted and rewritten—again—and again
Avni steps in front of me."Take one more step and I shoot."
Zareen doesn't even glance at the gun."Oh sweetheart… If bullets worked on me, don't you think someone would have tried?"
Meher mutters, "Okay what the hell does that mean—"
Suddenly, the warehouse lights slam off.Pitch black.Even the servers die.No hum.No warmth.Just void.
Then a thin white line appears behind Zareen—like someone is slicing reality open with a laser.
A doorway.
No—a threshold.
And silhouettes step through it.
Three.Tall.Uniform.No faces.
Zareen doesn't look back.She just says, "Bring them."
My entire nervous system spikes.
<< OVERRIDE ATTEMPT DETECTED >><< STAY STILL >><< STAY STILL >><< STAY STILL >>
My muscles lock for a second—but Avni catches my hand and squeezes.
And everything snaps back.
Because her touch triggers something buried in me—something older than the implantsolder than the conditioningolder than the protocols.
Something human.
"No," I whisper.
Not today.Not again.Not for them.
I step forward.
Zareen raises an eyebrow."Oh? Uploading courage now?"
"I'm done being your update package."
The faceless silhouettes move.
Avni fires.Kiyan tackles one.Meher grabs my wrist and yanks me deeper into the dark.
Chaos.
Then—a BOOM so loud it shreds the silence and the floor beneath us drops.Literally drops.
The warehouse collapses inward, like someone has switched off its structural integrity.
We fall.
Not down—through.
Through something that shouldn't exist.Through space that doesn't behave like space.Through layers of memory that don't belong to any of us.
I hear Zareen scream—not in pain but in irritation—"NOT YET!"
But too late.
The universe blinks—and we're gone.