The moment Alex stepped into the basement server chamber of Techspire, he felt a subtle shift in the air. It was colder than he expected—colder than what the building's HVAC system should allow. The low hum of high-powered processors echoed off concrete walls, a constant, whispering presence that filled the cavernous space.
He tightened his coat around him, not just for warmth, but for comfort. The hum wasn't just sound. It was layered—like voices murmuring beneath a digital ocean, and it was getting louder with every step.
"This is it," Alex muttered under his breath.
The dim lighting cast long shadows across the server racks. Dozens of blinking lights winked like eyes watching his every move. His HUD flickered slightly. The Upgrade System, usually sleek and responsive, glitched for a fraction of a second before stabilizing.
WARNING: Unknown interference detected. Proceed with caution.
He swallowed hard. The deeper he went, the more his instincts screamed that something wasn't right. But turning back wasn't an option. He had traced the anomaly to this location—somewhere deep within Techspire's own infrastructure. If the system was trying to hide something, it was buried here.
A lone terminal blinked at the far end of the chamber. Unlike the others, this one was freestanding, unmarked, and—most suspiciously—active.
Alex approached and activated the screen.
Lines of encrypted code streamed across it in real time, constantly shifting, too fast to make sense of. He accessed his internal system interface, syncing with the terminal through his neural implant.
Initiating handshake…
Decrypting…
Subsystem Access Granted.
Alex narrowed his eyes.
"What are you hiding down here?"
The moment he pushed the prompt, the screen split open into two windows. One showed raw server logs—months of system activity. The other displayed a rotating 3D model of what looked like a human brain… but not entirely.
Sections of it glowed with digital overlays—augmented structures that pulsed like circuits. Artificial enhancements. Neural upgrades.
CODE NAME: PROTOTYPE X
Alex's breath caught.
A prototype?
Before he could dig deeper, the lights flickered—and then went completely out.
For a second, only the terminal remained lit, casting an eerie glow on his face.
Then came the voice.
"I was wondering when you'd show up."
Alex spun around, fists clenched, eyes scanning the darkness. His HUD auto-calibrated to low-light mode, highlighting a tall figure emerging from between the server racks.
It was a man—no, not quite. Parts of his skin gleamed with chrome. His left eye pulsed with a red glow, and his movements were too smooth, too precise to be natural.
"Who are you?" Alex demanded, backing toward the terminal.
The figure tilted his head. "You already know. You just haven't admitted it to yourself yet."
Alex's mind raced. Could this be Viktor? The shadowy figure who had orchestrated half the system's manipulation?
The man stepped closer.
"You've been digging too deep, Alex. The system wasn't meant for people like you."
Alex didn't move. "People like me?"
"People who ask why. People who don't obey."
The man raised a hand, palm out, and a pulse of electromagnetic energy surged forward. Alex's HUD fizzled.
SYSTEM ERROR. INTERFACE TEMPORARILY DISABLED.
His neural link buzzed with static. Alex gritted his teeth and grounded himself, focusing on the techniques he'd learned from Upgrade Module 2.3: Mental Fortitude.
The attack passed. His systems flickered back online.
"Impressive," the figure said, a hint of admiration in his voice. "You're adapting faster than expected."
"Who built this place?" Alex snapped. "Who gave you the right to decide who gets access to the system?"
The man's gaze darkened.
"There was never a 'right,' Alex. Just control. And someone has to have it."
He moved with inhuman speed, rushing Alex like a blur. But Alex was ready. His reflexes—now enhanced by the Kinetic Response Suite—kicked in. He rolled to the side, drawing the stun baton from his belt and activating it mid-spin.
CRACK!
The baton hit the man's ribcage, sending a jolt of electricity through his body.
The attacker stumbled back, smoke rising from his synthetic flesh.
"You've improved," he growled.
"I'm just getting started," Alex replied, launching forward with a second strike.
But the man blocked it this time. His arm transformed mid-motion, shifting into a metal brace that absorbed the blow. He retaliated with a punch that knocked Alex backward into a server rack.
Sparks exploded. Pain lanced through Alex's side.
Minor fracture detected. Initiating pain management protocol.
Alex grunted, rolled to his feet, and forced his breath steady.
"You're protecting something down here," he said, stalling for time.
"Not protecting," the man said. "Containing."
He turned slightly toward the terminal.
"That prototype you saw? That was me. I was the first."
Alex's mind reeled. Prototype X. That meant…
"You were the beta test."
"I am the system," the man said. "Its original interface. The others… they were failures. You might be the first viable successor."
"But you're not human anymore," Alex said. "You gave that up."
The man hesitated.
"I evolved."
"No," Alex said coldly. "You got rewritten."
For a moment, silence fell.
And then the man lunged.
Alex dodged again, this time leading his attacker into the live terminal's zone. He tapped a command into his neural link while fighting, sending a shock pulse through the terminal's connection port.
The feedback loop burst outward.
The man convulsed, dropping to his knees.
Alex didn't wait. He slammed the baton into the figure's spine and knocked him out cold.
The chamber went still.
Threat neutralized.
New Access Level: Administrator.
Alex staggered to the terminal. With trembling fingers, he activated the deeper layer of code now visible.
It showed a web of connections—nodes glowing across the city. A secret network embedded inside every Techspire product, every smart device, every neural implant.
A citywide control net.
And at the center? A glowing icon marked "Origin Node."
Alex zoomed in.
It wasn't here.
It was across the city, buried beneath another facility he didn't recognize.
"This is bigger than I thought," Alex whispered.
He downloaded the coordinates, encrypted the files, and wiped the terminal's local memory.
Behind him, the prototype twitched on the ground—still unconscious, but not for long.
Alex turned and ran.
He had new answers.
And even more dangerous questions.