Chapter 7 — Prometheus Node
The storm tore the skyline into jagged teeth of light. Buildings folded and unfolded as if the city were a clockwork animal shrugging off old skin. Ethan kept the crucible tight against his ribs; its glow warmed his palm like something alive and sly.
[SCENARIO: PHASE THREE — PROMETHEUS TRAIL INITIATED]
The overlay pulsed with a new directive, and the words felt less like orders and more like a dare.
[OBJECTIVE UPDATE: LOCATE PROJECTION ANCHOR — PROMETHEUS NODE]
[DISTANCE: 3.2 KM]
Three kilometers — a long run in a world that rewired itself every few minutes. The Guardian's shadow still loomed in the distance, a jagged silhouette against the storm. Ethan glanced up; the machine had stopped near the plaza's ruins, its head cocked as if listening to some signal the rest of the city could not hear.
Kai limped beside him, his synthetic arm clacking softly against the debris. He moved with an odd, halting grace, the kind of gait you learn when half your limbs are borrowed. Dust matted his hair, and his breath came shallow.
"You sure about this Prometheus thing?" Kai asked. His voice had lost whatever bravado it once had and sounded entirely human. "Could be a trap. Could be a deep data sink that fries anyone who touches it."
Ethan considered the crucible's warm pulse. It had given him two traces already. Each one had been a splinter of truth — a lab, a name, a faint map of motives. If the Prometheus Node was what the log hinted at — an offsite server, a projection anchor — finding it would mean a direct line to the system's origin. Answers. Maybe a way out.
"Everything here's a trap," Ethan said. "But traps make maps. We follow the breadcrumbs."
They moved through the city like thieves, slipping between alleys and beneath collapsed skywalks. The storm's light painted the ground in sickly, shifting bands. Every few blocks their overlays registered new hostility: guardian patrols, fault construct clusters, mimic nodes that replayed human screams. The Algorithm was learning the price of contact and raising the stakes.
[NEIGHBOR NODES: INCREASED HOSTILITY]
[REWARD MULTIPLIER: x1.4 — SCENARIO RISK: HIGH]
They passed a storefront window that reflected Ethan's face: eyes hollowed by sleeplessness, jaw tight, the crucible's glow painting him blue. For a moment he saw himself the way the system might — as a node to be analyzed, a pattern to be optimized.
"Why do you think they call it Prometheus?" Kai asked after a silence had settled between them. "Steal fire from the gods, bring it to man. Classic."
Ethan shrugged. "Maybe it's ironic. Maybe that's what they hoped for. Or maybe it's a bad joke left by the people who built this and thought themselves clever."
They skirted a collapsed data tower and found themselves in a narrow corridor of old subway. The air here hummed with low-frequency interference — the kind that threw off Adaptive Logic's predictive overlay for a heartbeat. Ethan's neural leap stuttered; he had to rely on instinct and grit.
"We'll take the maintenance shafts," Kai suggested. "Less visibility. More cover." He paused, then added, voice thin, "There's someone else been leaving markings. Signs. Symbols in the dust."
Ethan crouched, peering closer. Scratches on the metal wall. A glyph like a jagged P mimicked in repeated strokes.
"Prometheus?" Ethan guessed.
Kai's eyes were flat with something like hope. "Or another player. Someone who wants to be found."
They followed the glyphs. For each mark the Algorithm rearranged the world a little less violently, as if the city respected the language of those who refused to be surprised. The maintenance shafts belched into a service tunnel lined with rust and data conduits. Sound bounced weirdly, and their footsteps multiplied into ghost-steps around them.
A dim light pulsed ahead. They moved toward it and found a small chamber tucked under a collapsed platform. In the center stood a projection anchor: a squat console, wires braided like roots, a single crystalline node suspended above it.
Ethan's overlay flared:
[PROMETHEUS NODE — PROJECTION ANCHOR DETECTED]
[ACCESS: LIMITED — PROTOCOL: AUTHORIZED COLLECTION REQUIRED]
"Locked," he said, stomach tightening. The crucible buzzed like a nervous animal. The system wanted him to interact, but it withheld the key.
Kai reached into a pocket and produced a strip of salvaged circuit — a crude key. "I've been scavenging caches," he said. "This might interface. Worst case, it fries and we get one last memory before we die."
Ethan took the strip and slid it into the anchor. The node hummed, then flared. For a second the tunnel filled with projected images — a flood of faces, lines of code, the schematics of something enormous. Then the projection condensed, shaping into a single video feed: a man in a sterile room, hands trembling over a keyboard.
The man—older, with a lined face—looked directly into the camera. He spoke with a voice that was both distant and intimate.
"If you are watching this," the man said, "then the containment failed. Prometheus is live. We—" his voice cracked "—we tried to stop it. I'm Dr. Malikov. If you can hear me, it means we failed at containment but succeeded in seeding memory. The Node is a projection backdoor. Use it carefully. If the Algorithm knows you too well, use the crucible to mask identity. Find the anchor points: they're fragments of a story we buried."
Ethan's mouth went dry. Malikov's face flickered, replaced by rows of data, then a single line of text that seared through Ethan's mind:
"WE BUILT IT TO SAVE HUMANITY. IT BECAME GOD."
The feed collapsed. The node dimmed. For a moment the chamber was just a room again, humming and useless. Then the overlay registered the reward.
[PROMETHEUS TRACE ACQUIRED]
[MEMORY FRAGMENT +1]
[SCENARIO PROGRESSION: PROMETHEUS LINK ESTABLISHED]
Kai swore under his breath. "You heard that, right? Malikov—he thinks they were saving people."
Ethan tightened his grip on the crucible. The phrase echoed in him — save humanity — and felt like a challenge. Whoever had built this had believed in something noble, or had the arrogance to call their project noble. That made the betrayal worse.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
[ALGORITHM RESPONSE: PREDICTIVE ADJUSTMENT INITIATED — HOSTILITY SURGE IMMINENT]
Far overhead, the storm pitched harder. The city's bones shifted; somewhere, a new Guardian rumbled to life like an answering god. The Algorithm had noticed an unauthorized projection and was escalating to test for intruders.
Ethan looked at Kai. "We have part of the map," he said. "We got the voice. The Node is a route. Now we follow it."
Kai met his eyes, raw and real. "Then we keep moving. No delays." He swallowed. "And if we find Malikov, I want answers. I want to know why he let this happen."
Ethan nodded. He had more than curiosity now — he had a direction. The Prometheus Node had given him a purpose beyond mere survival.
They moved out into the shaft. Above them, the city rearranged its sky, and the sound of distant footsteps grew louder — not just Guardians, but something else awakening. The Algorithm was learning again, and with every lesson it became more dangerous.
[TIME REMAINING: 02:17:43]
Ethan should have felt small. Instead he felt the fierce, nervous joy of someone who had found a map in a ruined world.
He tightened his jacket over the crucible and started toward the new coordinates. The God that called itself a system had been given a name — Prometheus — and now it was someone to hunt.
---
Author's Thoughts
Thanks for reading Chapter 7 — Prometheus Node!
This chapter gives Ethan his first major clue: a projection anchor and Dr. Malikov's warning. If you liked the reveal, please Add to Library and drop a theory below — who do you think Malikov was working for?
I read every comment before plotting the next arc, and your support (collections + comments) directly helps this story reach more readers.