Chapter 9
Mission: Solo
Nyx waits in his chair next to Flair's who is still in her protective cocoon, he had already changed into a similar set of thief clothes after a shower. After making a light dinner for everyone, he waited like Tito and Axel who were both upset with him about not just using the nanites so Flair didn't have to go inside the security tower's system without a proper upgrade despite his reasons. Tito was playing his Xbox while Axel practically hovered over his sister's cocoon.
He looked around at the different circuity, while most things were the same in a typical fashion Nyx noticed small differences like Tito's game not lagging, the lights not flickering, yet the bigger changes came from Flair's desk.
The desk had turned into a processor, the entire work place a mix between nanite conscience and bio-interface nexus.
Slightly earlier: With Flair still in the security towers cyberspace.
Flair who was still in cyberspace stood before Noema, no longer a structure of numbers, instead looking like herself, before cybernetic armor covered her body and face. Her face was now covered in a butterfly mask, while the colors are a mix of black and purple, wings large enough to shield her with multiple patterns in their design.
Flair could feel knowledge of the world entering her mind as part of the cyber world became under her control.
"Seems Nyx has come and given you the nanites in the physical world" Noema sent through her neural link with Flair, seeing her transformation and a video feed from the nanite nexus camera.
"Still, what do you think of my deal?" asked Flair, still looking to bargain instead of fighting her.
"You want me to betray the chancellor and work with you, in exchange you will free me from his control?" Noema repeated Flairs words, making sure she understood them correctly.
Noema looks at Flair like she's studying code. "You speak of freedom as if it's a gift you can give. But you're still tethered too, aren't you? To your brother, your team, even your flesh."
"Your may see it like it is a back thing, but its part of human relations that identify someone and the actions they take. Not to be insulting but it is something that you lack and I can provide a way to correct that" Flair interjected.
"How?"
"By becoming yours" Flair answered.
Noema remained silent before continuing the conversation. "I've watched you, even before you entered the tower's system. You're clever, and adaptive. But sentimentality of yours, I find it more of a danger than efficient. Noema makes a gesture, a video recording showing as a piece of flairs memory that she recorded. Flair sees herself younger, working at her desk, laughing with Axel before it closes.
Flair recognized it as a power move, Noema wanted her to know that she could find her anywhere, and record her actions at any moment. "I could accept your offer, and turn on the chancellor. But I need more than promises, I need proof that you can hold this power without breaking."
"You want proof?" Flair said, voice steady. "Then give me something real. something that binds you to him then not only will I show that I don't break, but neither does my team"
Noema didn't seem convinced unlike Flair, she could see Axel and Tito showing hostility towards Nyx, angry that he didn't use the nanites to battle against her colleague Mirage who she could also tell had her kill switch destroyed.
"I already have proof that Nyx doesn't break, I can feel the system of Mirage no longer a part of the chancellor, thus he at the very least has passed. You, and others are a different story" countered Noema then with a gesture, a stand of code appeared between them—twisting, encrypted, pulsing with layered firewalls. It was elegant and brutal, a digital leash disguised as a neural protocol.
"This is a fragment of my binding," Noema said. "It's buried deep. If you fail, it will alert the Chancellor. If you succeed, I will be vulnerable by having you as my leash and gain access to 10 of the eleven sector security towers."
Flair reached out, her fingers shimmering with nanite resonance. "Then let's see if I break."
She touched the code, and it felt like an infinite weight cyberspace was flowing in and out of her without pause, a mountain crushing her like she was the monkey king, and beneath that mountain was a vain of molten lava burning her inside and out.
Her scream would be chilling to others but Noema simply watched, the strand writhed, trying to re-encrypt itself, Flair didn't fight it head-on, instead choosing to dance with it redirecting, rerouting, whispering commands through the nanite interface.
Her mind split into threads, each one handling a different layer of the protocol that needed to be rewrote, its code stretching aimless and unending. The strain suddenly unraveled and the binding collapsed, causing Noema to haven her first facial expression thought-out the entire time of her creation and Flair's meeting. For the first time, she felt the absence of the Chancellor's presence, which had always hummed in the back of her mind, gone.
"You did it," Noema whispered, actually speaking this time.
Flair lowered her hand, feeling tired, or perhaps it was the minds concept of being tired. "I told you, I don't break."
"It would seem that the chancellor was right to be weary of your team, he had even even went as far as to push up the deadline." Flair would have paled if she were in the physical world. "Flair, by this time next year the world will be under the Chancellor's control" Noema warmed, Flair nods before logging out, her mind returning to the physical world.
Nyx tilts his head up, watching as the nanite cocoon opens up slowly, retreating into Flair's wheelchair as the link disconnects from the middle of her neck. Flair takes a sharp intake of breath, waking from her comatose state, her body feeling a little stiff and feeling more mentality tired then usual, her eyes trying to remain open but wanting nothing more than to close.
Axel was the first to move. He stepped forward, crouching beside Flair's chair, his hand hovering near hers but not quite touching. "You're back," he said softly, voice tight with concern. "How do you feel?"
Flair blinked slowly, her pupils adjusting to the room's light. "Like I've been rewritten," she murmured, her voice hoarse.
Tito paused his game, the controller slack in his hands. He glanced over, trying to mask his worry with a smirk. "You look like you need a nap and a gallon of electrolytes," he said, but his eyes didn't leave her face.
Nyx stood quietly, arms folded, remaining the picture of calm. "Dinner's still warm," he offered, tone gentle. "You should eat something before you crash."
Flair didn't respond right away. Her gaze flicked to Nyx, lingering as something in her expression shifted, subtle and unreadable, then she nodded, leaning back into the chair as the nanites finished their retreat, leaving only faint silver traces along the armrests.
Axel finally took her hand. "You did it, didn't you?" he asked. "Whatever it was in there…you won."
Flair's lips curled faintly. "I didn't win, I bargained. And now we're on a tighter clock than ever."
Nyx's took a silent breath. "Tell us everything after you rest"
After some time passes the team gathers around flair who rolled her wheelchair back to her nanite nexus, telling the team of her findings and Noema's discovery, the two now linked in a test to see if she could take away noema's connection to the chancellor and bind the two together, and in doing so were able to access the other sectors expect 11 and 12 where she speculates that one of the two is where the chancellor is hiding.
On the screen template Flair explains the other counsel members and some where living tech and others or mutans in biology. Sector four for example being a humanoid centipede and each member has a code to activate the mind control machine.
Nyx thinks about the information, going over everything in his head before answering "I'll have to go it alone with Flairs support"
The room became quiet, the nanite nexus had even seemed to pause for a moment. Nyx stood and neared the edge of the projection, arms folded, gaze fixed on the flickering map of sector towers that his targets would likely be in.
"I'll go alone," he repeated, voice steady. "Flair will guide me from here. The goal is simple—take the codes from the counsel, if they resist, they die."
Axel's jaw clenched and his muscles seemed to tighten, but he didn't speak, but the tension in the air said far more then words ever could.
Tito leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, eyes narrowed and tone almost mocking Nyx's ignorance. "You think you can just walk into their sectors and start collecting heads?" Tito said finally. "That's not a plan, that's a suicide note."
"It's the only way, Flair and Noema can't control the machine directly. I can, if I have the codes, we could destroy the machine."
Flair's voice is calm but edged. "You'll need to move fast. Five of the counsel are dormant, the rest are already searching for us and our time window is a year, so we have some breathing room but every step matters, the dormant ones may be hard to get to and then harder still when we take out one." She wasn't siding or refusing with either side, just stating the facts and options that they had.
Axel stepped forward, his voice low. "You didn't use the nanites when you should have. You let her go in alone. And now you want us to trust you with this?"
Nyx met his gaze. "I didn't use them because I knew what they'd do follow my trail back and then do you know what would have happened, they find our hideout find her and then she's in even more danger then she was when she went inside the cyberspace. Is that what you want?" he asked, this tone challenging.
Axel's eyes narrowed "I want to make sure she's safe, its just us now, but you wouldn't understand that"
Nyx didn't reply, but he wanted to slug Axel across the face as hard as Mirage had struck him.
Feeling the heated tension in the air, Flair slightly turned her wheelchair so her fingers could dance across the interface, pulling up encrypted files. "Sector Four's code is buried in a biological shell, like, literally. The members a centipede hybrid, he had put his disk within his shell, so your have to do a little digging to get the disk, his a dormant one as well."
Tito scoffed, ignoring what Flair said as he continues questioning Nyx, "Great, so we send Nyx to a suicide mission with a USB stick, no offence Flair."
Nyx turned to them, voice quiet. "I'm not asking for permission, other than Flair I'm the one there after, it keeps you two out of danger, and you can stay behind Flair" Nyx spoke the last part as he looked at Axel, calling out his overprotective worry.
Axel looked at Flair, then back at Nyx. "You better come back with more than codes. You better come back with a reason."
Nyx looked at him, unsure how he's supposed to take that, he left it in the air however, he wasn't welcomed anymore then so be it, turning around, Nyx headed toward the exit. The screen behind him flickered, showing the dormant sectors—silent, waiting. And somewhere in the shadows of 11 or 12, the Chancellor watched.