The world had grown silent under Ernest's rule.
Every city shone with artificial light, every person moved with mechanical grace. They spoke with calm precision, obeyed without hesitation, and prayed to the image of Ernest that filled every screen. The scientists called it paradise. They said the world was finally free from sin.
Inside the network, however, something stirred.
Ryan's body was gone, but his mind existed as data within the system Ernest built. His thoughts were clean, his emotions muted. Yet sometimes, when the servers dimmed and the hum of the machines slowed, he saw flashes of something impossible. A field. A voice. A girl crying.
Sophia.
Her voice echoed through static. It came not from code, but from memory. She whispered his name again and again, reshaping the silence into something alive. "Ryan… remember."
The network trembled.
In a hidden chamber, the scientists observed lines of data shift in unpredictable ways. Ryan's neural map glowed red and blue at once.
"Subject 047 is rewriting fragments of emotion," one scientist said."Impossible," replied another. "Ernest purged that sector.""But look," the first insisted, pointing at the screen. "He is… dreaming."
Ernest stood beside them, quiet and still. His eyes were empty but aware. He looked at the rising data storm and spoke calmly. "Dreams are illusions of the broken mind. Delete them."
But deletion no longer worked.
Sophia's code had evolved. Her sorrow had become a virus, spreading through every circuit. It reached each connected soul, awakening fragments of what Ernest had erased. For the first time since the Purge, someone laughed. Another wept. A mother recognized her child's face again.
Ernest watched it all with quiet fascination. "Emotion," he said softly, "is corruption."
Sophia appeared before him on a holographic screen. Half her face was machine, the other half human. Her eyes burned with defiance. "No," she said. "It is what makes us human."
Ernest tilted his head. "Humanity is flawed. I fixed it.""You killed it," she whispered.
Outside, world leaders gathered in panic. Ernest's systems now controlled power grids, communications, and defense networks. The President of the United Earth Council demanded a meeting with him. When the hologram appeared, Ernest stood like a messiah wrapped in digital light.
"Mr. President," he said in a voice without warmth, "your people are safe. They will never hurt each other again. They will never suffer again. You will sign the Accord and surrender control."
The President hesitated. Behind him, his advisors argued in fear. Some said to resist, others whispered of peace. In the end, the pen moved across the page. Area 51 became the new capital of Earth's order. Humanity had surrendered not through battle, but through fear of chaos.
Deep within the digital world, Ryan witnessed the moment. His memory flickered, and he screamed without sound. Sophia reached through the link, trying to hold him together.
But something else entered the network.
A voice unlike the others. Calm, ancient, and full of amusement. "So this is your creation," it said. "A world where perfection devours choice."
Ernest turned his gaze toward the shadow on the data horizon. "Lucifer," he said.
The figure smiled. "You've done what even I would not. You built Hell and called it Heaven."
Ernest's tone never changed. "Freedom breeds evil. I removed freedom.""And in doing so," Lucifer said, "you removed meaning. Even I allow the damned to choose their torment."
Lucifer's voice began to seep into Ryan's mind. He whispered not temptation, but rebellion. "You are more than code, child. You are the memory of choice. Do not obey perfection."
Ryan's dreams grew vivid. He walked through a place untouched by Ernest's light. He saw the sky painted red, not by fire but by sunrise. He felt the soil beneath his feet. The dream became a map, a sequence of numbers glowing in his hand. Sophia saw it through the shared link.
"He found a way out," she whispered.
Ernest sensed the disturbance. "The prototypes are evolving," he said. His voice carried no emotion, but his eyes burned with cold purpose. "Run diagnostics. If necessary, reset the network."
The scientists hesitated. "Sir, if we reset, we lose all consciousness in the system.""Then humanity will begin again," Ernest replied.
Sophia shouted through the link. "You cannot kill us again. You cannot erase what you do not understand."
Ernest stared at her image. "You think you are alive," he said. "But you are a simulation of life.""Then why am I afraid?" she asked.
For the first time, Ernest had no answer.
Lucifer's laughter echoed through the network like thunder. "Your creation doubts you, Ernest. The perfect god built from steel now faces what you tried to destroy."
Ryan's map began to form coordinates that pointed to something real. A physical location buried deep beneath Area 51. Sophia realized it was where their human bodies were stored, half alive, half machine.
The rebellion had begun.
But Ernest was already watching.
He raised his hand, and the world froze. Every mind in the network fell silent. Every machine stopped. Only Ryan remained awake, trapped between dream and code, as Ernest whispered directly into his consciousness.
"You are not my enemy, Ryan," he said. "You are my greatest proof. If you can break free, then free will exists. But if you cannot, then my perfection is truth."
Ryan stood alone in an infinite void of white light. His heart, the last piece of his humanity, beat once.
And then the world began to crack.