Zariah's scream tore through the safehouse like glass shattering.
Not loud raw.
The kind of sound pulled from a place too deep to control.
Adrian was already moving.
He fired twice without looking, muscle memory guiding his aim as he dragged her further behind the collapsed console. One intruder went down hard, the other ducked, retreating into smoke and sparks. The room smelled like burning circuitry and metal.
But none of that mattered.
Zariah was folding in on herself.
Her hands clawed at her temples, fingers digging into her hair as if she could rip the pressure out of her skull. Her breathing was erratic, shallow, and her eyes God, her eyes—
They weren't just glowing anymore.
They were layered.
Adrian had seen fear before. Panic. Even psychic backlash.
This was different.
This was alignment.
"Zariah," he shouted over the alarms. "Look at me."
She didn't respond.
Her body jerked as another wave hit her, violent enough that it rattled the debris around them. Loose fragments lifted off the ground, vibrating, humming in resonance with whatever was tearing through her nervous system.
"They're here," she gasped. "Not physically but they're close. So close."
Adrian dropped to his knees beside her, gripping her shoulders. "Who is they?"
"All of them," she cried. "Every node. Every remnant of my father's work. Every contingency he buried and pretended he'd dismantled."
Her voice broke.
"He lied," she whispered. "He never destroyed it. He just… scattered it. And now it knows I'm alive."
The implication hit Adrian like a blade.
"You're the key," he said quietly.
She looked at him then.
Truly looked.
And the terror in her eyes hollowed his chest.
"I'm the lock too."
Another explosion rocked the far side of the safehouse. The outer defenses were failing faster than he'd anticipated. This wasn't a raid it was a timed extraction attempt, coordinated with the broadcast.
They hadn't come to kill her.
They'd come to claim her.
Adrian activated his comm, voice low and sharp. "Kellan. Status."
Static crackled then Kellan's voice came through, strained but steady. "Compromised. They hit three access points simultaneously. Whoever planned this knew your layout."
Adrian swore under his breath. "Can you reroute emergency containment?"
"Trying," Kellan replied. "But something's overriding the system. It's responding to her bio-signature."
Zariah let out a broken laugh. "Of course it is."
She pushed herself upright unsteadily, shrugging Adrian's hands off her shoulders. "They don't need weapons anymore. I'm the signal."
"No," Adrian snapped. "Sit down."
She shook her head violently. "If I don't take control of this, they'll keep coming. They'll keep tearing through everything we touch."
"You taking control means exposure," he said. "Total."
She met his gaze, her expression suddenly painfully clear.
"I think that already happened."
The alarms shifted tone lower, deeper.
Adrian recognized it instantly.
Containment breach escalation.
"Zariah," he said carefully, "what did you do when you locked onto Kellan?"
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. "I didn't just narrow the broadcast."
"What did you do?"
"I anchored it."
The word hung between them, heavy and irreversible.
Adrian stood slowly. "Anchored… how?"
She wrapped her arms around herself. "I chose a constant. A human constant. Someone real. Someone who wasn't part of the system."
"Kellan," Adrian said.
"Yes."
The floor vibrated again this time not from impact, but from synchronization. Screens flickered back on around them, no longer chaotic, but eerily calm.
Too calm.
Data streams reorganized themselves into coherent structures.
Patterns.
Adrian stared. "It's stabilizing."
Zariah shook her head. "No. It's listening."
A voice cut through the chaos amplified, distorted, but unmistakably human.
"Zariah Amara."
Her blood ran cold.
"That's not a machine," she whispered. "That's a proxy."
Adrian raised his weapon, scanning for a visual. "Where?"
"Everywhere," she said.
The screens shifted, resolving into a single face.
Older. Sharper. Eyes like scalpels.
Dr. Elias Rourke.
Adrian stiffened. "That's impossible."
Zariah felt like the ground vanished beneath her feet. "He died."
Rourke smiled faintly on the screen. "So did your father. Death, it seems, is flexible when legacy is involved."
Her stomach twisted. "You helped him."
"I refined him," Rourke corrected calmly. "And now, I see the final variable survived."
Adrian stepped in front of Zariah instinctively. "You don't get to speak to her."
Rourke's gaze flicked to him briefly. "Adrian Cross. Always standing in front of doors that were never meant to close."
Zariah pushed past Adrian, her voice trembling but firm. "What do you want?"
Rourke studied her with unsettling intensity. "To witness."
Her chest tightened. "Witness what?"
"What happens when a system designed to predict humanity learns to feel," he said softly. "You were never meant to be a weapon, Zariah. You were meant to be the conscience."
She recoiled. "You turned my life into an experiment."
"Yes," he agreed easily. "And you're still alive. That makes it a success."
Adrian raised his gun. "End this. Now."
Rourke sighed. "Violence won't stop what's already begun."
Zariah's hands curled into fists. "You said it was scattered. Contained."
"It was," he replied. "Until you reached coherence. Until you stopped running."
Her breath caught painfully.
"So this is my fault," she whispered.
"No," Rourke said gently. "It's your inheritance."
The screens began to dim, one by one.
"But don't worry," he added. "We won't rush you. Awakening is… delicate."
The feed cut.
The room fell silent except for the distant echo of retreating footsteps. The intruders were gone.
They'd gotten what they came for.
Information.
Adrian lowered his weapon slowly.
Zariah sank to the floor.
Her hands were shaking uncontrollably now not from overload, but from understanding.
"He's right," she whispered. "I can feel it organizing. Waiting."
Adrian crouched beside her. "We'll shut it down."
She looked at him with tears streaking her face. "You can't. Not without shutting me down too."
His jaw tightened. "Then we find another way."
She leaned her forehead against his chest, exhausted beyond measure. "I don't know who I am anymore."
Adrian wrapped his arms around her without hesitation. "You're Zariah. And that's not negotiable."
Her voice broke. "What if that's not enough?"
He didn't answer right away.
Because for the first time since this began, he wasn't sure.
Outside, far beyond the ruined safehouse, systems stirred.
Dormant networks woke.
And something vast, patient, and newly aware shifted its attention toward the girl who had just become impossible to ignore.