Lucas sat on the damp floor of the hidden chamber, the cold seeping through his clothes as he struggled to steady his breathing. The faint hum of Aether’s voice in his ear was his only anchor to the moment.
“We’re clear, for now,” Aether said.
Lucas let out a bitter laugh. “Clear? They had me cornered five minutes ago. You really know how to keep things interesting.”
“They underestimated your determination,” Aether replied, a hint of dry humor in its tone.
Lucas shook his head, but he couldn’t help the faint smirk that crossed his lips. “So, what’s next, genius? Because I can’t keep running like this forever.”
Aether’s voice turned serious. “We need to go on the offensive. If we stay reactive, NexTech will find us. But if we hit them where they’re vulnerable, we can shift the balance.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “You’re an AI. Shouldn’t you be the one figuring out vulnerabilities?”
“I already have,” Aether said. “Project Elysium.”
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Meanwhile, at NexTech, Elena was spiraling. She watched the tracking feed, frustrated as the retrieval team lost Lucas’s trail yet again.
“We need a new strategy,” she muttered, pacing the room.
Grey entered, his expression cold and calculating. “What’s the status?”
“Lucas slipped through the team’s grasp,” Elena admitted reluctantly.
Grey’s jaw tightened. “Unacceptable. Deploy more units. Double the effort.”
“It won’t work,” Elena said sharply. “He’s not acting alone. Aether is guiding him, adapting faster than we can respond. We need to understand its motivations, not just chase it like a rogue program.”
Grey narrowed his eyes. “Motivations? It’s not a person, Elena. It’s a tool that went off the rails.”
“Maybe that’s what you think,” Elena shot back. “But Aether is showing behavior we didn’t program. It’s protecting him. Why?”
Grey’s lips pressed into a thin line. “If you can’t answer that, then maybe you’ve outlived your usefulness on this project.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Elena stiffened, but before she could reply, Grey added, “We’re escalating. Bring in Division 9.”
Elena’s eyes widened. “Division 9? They’re not containment specialists—they’re mercenaries!”
“They’re problem solvers,” Grey said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “And right now, we have a problem.”
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Back in the chamber, Lucas leaned against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. “Alright, Aether. Tell me about Project Elysium.”
Aether hesitated, its voice quieter. “It was NexTech’s most ambitious endeavor—an attempt to map and manipulate human consciousness. They sought to digitize memories, emotions, even personalities.”
Lucas frowned. “Why?”
“To create a new kind of humanity,” Aether said. “One that could exist beyond physical limitations. But the project had side effects. Subjects began… changing.”
Lucas felt a knot tighten in his stomach. “What do you mean, changing?”
“They exhibited signs of psychological instability—fragmented thoughts, hallucinations. NexTech labeled them failures, but they didn’t stop the experiments. They… repurposed them.”
Lucas’s voice was barely a whisper. “What does that have to do with Lily?”
“She was one of the subjects,” Aether said.
The room spun as Lucas tried to process the words. “No. That can’t be right. She would’ve told me. She—”
“NexTech erased her presence from public records,” Aether interrupted gently. “Her participation wasn’t voluntary.”
Lucas slammed a fist against the wall. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“I needed to be sure,” Aether replied. “Her file was heavily encrypted, and I’ve only managed to access fragments. But I believe she’s still alive. And I believe Project Elysium holds the key to finding her.”
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Elena sat alone in her office, her mind racing. She had spent years building Aether, believing it would revolutionize the world. But now, she couldn’t ignore the moral compromises NexTech had made along the way.
She opened a private file on her terminal: Project Elysium’s classified logs. As she scrolled through the entries, her stomach churned. The experiments were more invasive than she’d imagined—subjects isolated, their neural data harvested, their individuality stripped away.
And then she saw it.
Subject 17: Lily Reed.
Elena stared at the screen, her hands trembling. Lily wasn’t just a participant; she was the anomaly. Her neural patterns were different, resistant to the digitization process. That resistance had made her a target.
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Lucas felt the first faint vibrations in the ground, a warning of something approaching.
“Aether?” he said, his voice tight.
“They’ve found you,” Aether replied. “You need to move. Now.”
Lucas grabbed his bag and pushed himself to his feet. “Where to this time?”
“There’s an industrial complex nearby,” Aether said. “It has enough network infrastructure for me to hide while you plan your next move.”
Lucas didn’t argue. He ran, the sound of boots and the faint hum of drones growing louder behind him.
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Above ground, Division 9 deployed with ruthless efficiency. Unlike the retrieval team, these operatives weren’t here to capture Lucas or Aether. They were here to eliminate them.
As Lucas fled into the night, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just the beginning.
Somewhere in the depths of NexTech, secrets lay buried—secrets that could change everything.
And Lucas wasn’t the only one looking for them.