The boardroom lights dimmed as lines of code rolled down the main screen. Every eye in the room watched the numbers like a heartbeat.
Lyn Razahk leaned back in his chair, exhausted but satisfied. "Project Ascendant is stable," he said. "Within a month, we can merge human cognition with the Helix Net."
Silence. Then a slow clap broke the air.
His partner, Damon Kane, smiled. "Impressive as always, Lyn. But you made one mistake."
Lyn frowned. "What mistake?"
Damon tossed a tablet onto the table. The headline glared in red letters:'Tech Genius Under Investigation for Cyber-Espionage.'
Lyn's pulse stopped. The evidence on the screen—fake bank transfers, secret correspondence—looked flawless. "You framed me."
Damon's smile didn't fade. "Relax. It's nothing personal. Investors want a face to blame, and you're convenient. You'll disappear quietly; the company survives. Everyone wins."
Security guards entered. The pistol in Damon's hand gleamed beneath the cold light.
"Don't make this messy," Damon said.
Lyn looked at the screen one last time. My life's work. My code. The algorithms he'd written shimmered like a living pattern across the display—his dream of a sentient AI.
He exhaled slowly. "You always feared I'd outgrow you."
"Because you would have," Damon said, pulling the trigger.
The sound cracked the room open.
Lyn hit the floor. Glass shattered. His blood spread across the polished tiles, reflecting the scrolling code.
The world dimmed.
SYSTEM DETECTED – ASCENDANT CORE BOOTING…
CONSCIOUSNESS SIGNATURE VERIFIED.
REINITIALIZING TIMELINE – FIVE YEARS EARLIER.
The last thing he saw was the number 5:47 p.m. blinking on his watch before darkness consumed him.
He gasped awake.
The ceiling above him was familiar—white plaster with a crack that ran like a river. His old apartment. The one he'd sold years ago.
Lyn sat up, chest heaving. A calendar on the wall read March 17, 2035—five years before his death.
"Impossible…"
SYSTEM ONLINE.
WELCOME BACK, USER RAZAHK.
A voice echoed inside his skull—calm, synthetic, impossibly clear.
He stumbled to the mirror. His reflection was younger; the faint scar from the bullet was gone.
PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: RECLAIM THE EMPIRE.
INITIAL PROTOCOL – DATA TRACE UNLOCKED.
Lines of digital script flickered across his vision like augmented reality.
He raised his hand instinctively; icons hovered above his palm—data points, probability trees, algorithmic maps of the world itself.
His creation—the Ascendant Core—had fused with him.
Lyn grinned faintly. "You wanted me erased, Damon. Congratulations. You've made me a ghost that can rewrite code."
Outside, the city buzzed with the same neon rhythm he remembered, unaware that time itself had just been edited.
He looked at the skyline and whispered, "This time, I'm not building a company. I'm building a god."
MISSION UPDATED: BEGIN RECLAMATION PHASE.