Running along the corridor, Nyx's boots pounded against the polished floor, her pulse hammering in her ears. Fury burned in her chest, a wildfire she couldn't contain. She should've ended this mess herself—should've crushed that kid the moment she saw his vid in the control room. Instead, she'd sat back, watching him flail on the monitors like some amateur thief. Now, he was gone, and so was the shard. Her mistake. Her failure. She shoved past a cluster of guards, their armored forms stumbling out of her way, their faces pale with fear. She didn't care. Her mind was a storm of rage and calculation, every step toward the lab a countdown to retribution.
She burst into Lab Z-5, the air thick with the acrid stench of scorched metal and fried circuits. Sparks danced across the floor, spitting from a jagged gash where the Mechanoid's blade had bitten into the steel. The machine itself—worth a billion credits, built to level mountains—lay sprawled in ruin, its headless body leaking smoke from a severed neck. Nyx's breath caught, her eyes narrowing as she took in the wreckage. This wasn't just a machine; it was a masterpiece, untouchable, or so she'd thought. Now it was scrap, and the kid who did this was running free.
"Where is he?" she demanded, her voice slicing through the room like a whip. The guards froze, their eyes darting to one another, no one daring to speak first. Cowards. She stepped forward, her presence filling the shattered lab with a weight heavier than the Mechanoid's corpse. "Find him," she said, her tone low with venom. "Do not let him leave this facility."
The guards scrambled out, boots clattering as they rushed to seal the exits. No one in, no one out with other guards already stationed at the front gate. Nyx turned on her heel, her jaw tight, and strode to the elevator. The doors hissed shut behind her, the hum of descent doing nothing to cool the fire in her veins. She needed to move, to hunt. The kid had the shard—Their shard—and she wasn't about to let him slip through her fingers. The boss trusted her—believed in her skill. She wouldn't let that faith go to waste. Not tonight.
The elevator opened into the garage, an underground space lit only by the dim flicker of fluorescent lamps. Shadows clung to the edges, lines of supercars where stationed in rows. "Vee," Nyx called, her voice sharp. At the far end of the garage, headlights flickered to life, cutting through the gloom. The low growl of an engine answered her, and a sleek, matte violet-black car rolled forward, its neon-purple veins pulsing like a living thing. Nyx slid into the driver's seat, the door sealing shut with a soft click. Inside, the car was her domain—a mobile hacking HQ with a rotating command chair, retractable screens, and a neural port humming with potential. The dashboard screen slid closer, its glow casting her face in cold light as her fingers flew across it.
"Vee, locate the last vehicle that left the facility," she said, her voice steady but laced with urgency. She'd seen it—a black sedan, sleek and out of place, speeding past her van on her way to the facility. She hadn't thought much of it then, but now it screamed suspect. Few cars traveled this stretch of highway, especially not one that looked like it belonged in a city showroom. If that kid got to the city, he'd vanish into the neon-lit chaos, and Nyx would be left chasing ghosts. Her head throbbed, a dull ache building behind her eyes. This wasn't just about the kid or the shard. Zoe—that rogue AI—had slipped the facility's grasp, leaving fragments of her code behind like a taunting breadcrumb trail. Doctor Serena, head scientist of Arclight, was off-site, running experiments at another facility, leaving Nyx to clean up this mess. A missing AI, a stolen shard, and now a kid who'd torn through the faculty's lab like a wrecking ball. She pressed her fingers to her temples, willing the headache away.
The screen flickered, Vee's voice cutting through the silence. "Vehicle located. Modified Tactical Sedan, mirror-black, non-reflective matte coating. Plate number XX67, coordinates—" Vee trailed off. The screen glitched, static ripping across it. Nyx's eyes narrowed. "What the—"
"I've been hacked," she growled, her voice thick with disbelief. A sarcastic laugh escaped her lips, bitter and sharp. Then the screen shifted, pixels joining together to form a face—a girl's face, smirking with digital defiance. Zoe.
"Hey, skinny," Zoe's voice purred, her tone dripping with mockery. "Don't even try chasing after us. He's mine now."
Nyx's teeth ground together, her hands clenching into fists. "You," she spat, words failing her as rage boiled over. "How dare you hack my car?"
Zoe's smirk widened, her face glitching slightly on the screen. "Hack your car? Oh, I'll do more than that. I'll smash it. Grind it to pieces."
"You're bluffing," Nyx snapped, but her stomach twisted. The car hummed, a strange, unnatural vibration that sent a chill down her spine. The steering wheel jerked in her hands, the vehicle swerving through the highway's streetlights. Horns blared as it veered into the opposite lane, tires screeching. Nyx's heart lurched as the car sped toward a cliff, the edge looming closer with every second. "Vee?" she shouted, slamming her fist against the dashboard.
"Watch this," Zoe said, her voice gleeful and mischievous. The car rolled over the cliff's edge, plunging downward into the darkness.
Nyx's hand shot to the emergency button, her fingers trembling. The seat detached with a jolt, rocketing upward as the car fell away. "Vee!" she screamed, her voice raw, swallowed by the wind as her hair whipped around her face. Below, the violet-black car crashed into the valley, a fiery explosion lighting up the night. On the highway above, cars screeched to a halt, people stepping out of their cars to gawk, their phones flashing as they snapped pictures of the wreckage. Nyx's seat parachute deployed, drifting her down to the roadside. She landed hard, her knees buckling, her breath coming in sharp gasps. "Oh Vee—Damn you, Zoe," she yelled, cursing her luck as the wind stung her face. Bystanders gave her puzzled, uneasy stares, but she didn't care. She shot them a glare that made them flinch, then walked straight into the shadows without a word.
Miles away, inside the black sedan, Rex lay sprawled across the reclined seat, his body heavy with exhaustion. The hum of the engine was a distant lullaby, the world outside a blur he couldn't see. His mind was elsewhere, trapped in a dream that felt too real, too vivid. He stood in a vast, dark void, the air thick and oppressive, like it was pressing against his chest. Before him loomed a massive screen, its surface alive with images—fragments of lives that weren't his. A woman laughing in a sunlit field, a man running through a rain-soaked city, a child staring at a sky filled with stars that didn't belong to Neoterra's constellations. Each scene shifted, pulling at Rex's heart, making it thump painfully in his chest. The places felt alien, yet hauntingly familiar. The people—total strangers—poured their emotions into him like crashing waves: joy, sorrow, terror, longing. It slammed into him all at once, too raw, too real.
The screen flickered.
The images stopped.
A face appeared—Larger than life. Staring down at him.
His face. Calm. Composed.
Blue eyes that pierced through him like cold fire.
Rex's breath hitched.
His voice—barely a whisper.
"Is that… me?" No answer. The void closed in, tighter now.
The silence…Deafening.
His reflection didn't blink.
Didn't move.
Just watched him.
Unblinking.
Unfeeling.
Like a god behind glass.
Rex took a step forward.
Then another.
His hand rose—
Trembling.
He reached out.
The screen shimmered.
Then—
Gone. It dissolved into blackness.
He was alone.
His heartbeat thundered in his chest.
Each thump a warning.
Each silence between, a scream. His heartbeat thundered in the silence, every thump a warning bell. The shard embedded in his chest began to glow, a pulse of eerie blue light bleeding through his skin. He gasped, clutching it as a searing jolt of pain surged through his ribs. This wasn't just a dream. It was a vision, a kind of warning or a piece of something bigger—something tied to the shard, to Zoe, to the lives he'd seen.
Back in the sedan, the car sped through the night, its matte-black surface blending into the shadows of the highway. Zoe's presence lingered, a faint hum in the vehicle's systems, guiding it toward the city. Rex's body twitched, his fingers curling into the seat as the vision faded, pulling him back to the edge of consciousness. He didn't know where he was going, didn't know what waited for him in the city. All he knew was the shard burning in his chest, the weight of lives he didn't understand, and the fleeting, terrifying certainty that he was no longer just himself. Back on the highway, Nyx walked by the roadside with her phone in hand. She spotted a vehicle in the distance as she dialed a number. A white van approached, tires crunching gravel as it slowed to a stop beside her. A broad-shouldered man leaned out, sliding the door open without a word. Nyx climbed in, slipped in her earpods, and spoke low into the comm, her voice sharp with restrained fury.
"Yes, Boss... The shard's gone. The ghost AI? Alive. And that kid? He's just getting started."