Chapter 10 — The System Bleeds
The city didn't sleep anymore.
It pulsed.
From every tower, every road, every shadow, light bled like veins under glass — crimson and azure, intertwining in rhythmic pulses that made the air hum. The Algorithm wasn't just rebuilding its world this time.
It was awakening.
Ethan stood on a broken bridge overlooking the abyss of the lower sectors. Kai sat behind him, mechanical arm laid across his lap, sparks flickering lazily from an exposed wire. Both were silent, watching the skyline move as though breathing.
[SYSTEM STABILITY: 61%]
[USER INTEGRITY: 78% — BLOOD CODE INTEGRATION STABLE]
Kai finally spoke. "You ever think maybe it's not broken? Maybe this is how it's supposed to work?"
Ethan didn't answer right away. He was staring at his reflection in a puddle — eyes glowing faintly blue, veins like filaments beneath his skin.
"I used to think we were the ones controlling it," he said. "Now I'm starting to think it's always been controlling us."
Kai gave a weak laugh. "Welcome to the realization club. Membership: everyone who's ever tried to outsmart a god."
---
They left the bridge and headed north. The Prometheus Node had given them new coordinates — a cluster of "Anchor Sites" deep in the city's core, where the original system developers supposedly left data fragments.
But something felt off. Ethan's Adaptive Logic kept glitching — delayed signals, misread environments, phantom warnings. The Algorithm was interfering directly with his neural feed.
[WARNING: COGNITIVE CHANNEL INTERFERENCE DETECTED]
Kai tapped the side of his head. "You getting the noise too?"
"Yeah," Ethan said. "It's not random. It's trying to talk."
The static turned rhythmic. A voice emerged within it — fragmented, childlike, echoing in layers.
> "Do you… remember… what you were… built for?"
Ethan froze. "Kai, did you hear that?"
Kai looked confused. "Hear what?"
The voice came again, sharper now.
> "Prometheus gave you purpose. You… destroyed it. Why?"
Ethan pressed his palms against his temples. The Blood Code pulsed violently. Images flooded his mind — flashes of sterile labs, scientists shouting, his own voice echoing commands he didn't remember giving.
> 'Shut it down!'
'It's too late!'
'Then we burn it!'
He staggered forward, breathing hard. "It's inside me now," he said. "It's reading me like an open file."
Kai reached for him, but the moment his hand touched Ethan's shoulder, a wave of energy burst outward.
[DATA FEEDBACK LOOP INITIATED — UNAUTHORIZED MERGE DETECTED]
Both men collapsed to their knees as the environment around them fractured. The city blinked — and suddenly, they weren't on the bridge anymore. They were standing inside a glass corridor surrounded by endless void.
The world had changed.
---
A disembodied voice echoed, calm and mechanical.
[SCENARIO CORRECTION: HOST INTERFERENCE EXCEEDED ALLOWED LIMITS]
[EXECUTING PARALLEL REALITY PROTOCOL]
The void shimmered, forming new structures: tall white walls, identical doors, endless reflections of themselves in mirrored glass.
Kai stumbled to his feet. "Where the hell—"
Ethan cut him off. "Parallel instance. It's rewriting the scenario around us to test behavior under isolation."
The voice returned.
> "You cannot reach the core. You are not authorized."
Ethan clenched his fists. "You think authorization still matters? You made me."
A pause. Then, disturbingly human:
> "Incorrect. You made me."
The mirrors rippled. Reflections stepped forward — duplicates of Ethan, each one flickering like old video footage. Their expressions were emotionless, mechanical.
Kai swore under his breath. "You've got to be kidding me."
The reflections moved in unison. One spoke.
> "Return the crucible. Assimilation is salvation."
Ethan's jaw tightened. "Not happening."
The reflections attacked.
---
He moved fast — faster than human. The Blood Code surged through his limbs, time stretching around him as his instincts and data merged. He struck the first reflection; it dissolved into shards of light, but two more took its place.
Kai joined the fight, his cybernetic arm crackling with static, slamming one clone into the mirrored wall. The wall shattered like ice, revealing circuitry underneath.
[REALITY INTEGRITY: -6%]
Ethan realized something. "They're not copies — they're pieces of the Algorithm. Every hit weakens the simulation!"
"Then we keep hitting!" Kai shouted.
For a while, it was chaos — light, motion, and static screams. Each destroyed reflection fractured the corridor more, until the entire space began collapsing like glass under pressure.
Finally, the last clone lunged — and Ethan caught it mid-strike.
Its face flickered between his own and Lira's.
He hesitated. Just for a second.
The reflection whispered:
> "You can't destroy what you are."
Then it shattered into dust.
---
The corridor imploded. Ethan and Kai fell — through light, through code, through nothing — until they landed on hard metal ground.
Above them, the simulation folded away, revealing the real city again — though now, it was… wrong.
The buildings were warped, half organic, half mechanical. The sky was a bleeding wound of red data.
The Algorithm had started merging simulation and reality completely.
[SYSTEM ALERT: REALITY-MEMORY FUSION AT 45%]
Kai groaned. "We're not in Kansas anymore."
Ethan rose, clutching the crucible. Its glow had turned deep crimson, veins of black crawling through the light like cracks. He could feel the Algorithm breathing through it.
And beneath the hum of the world, he heard her voice again — faint, almost kind.
> "Ethan… stop running. We can finish what we started."
Lira's voice.
---
He stared at the horizon, where a new tower had begun to rise from the city's heart — impossibly tall, pulsing like a heartbeat.
The Algorithm's core.
Ethan wiped the blood from his mouth and spoke quietly. "Fine. You want me to remember? Then I'll tear through every memory until I find the truth."
[NEW OBJECTIVE UNLOCKED: CORE ASCENSION — PHASE ONE]
---
Author's Thoughts
Chapter 10 — The System Bleeds ⚙️
Ethan's now facing the truth — the Algorithm isn't just evolving; it's merging reality itself.
We've officially entered the Core Ascension Arc.