The Lock

Cipher stared at the flickering text on the screen, his name branded with an unshakable finality.

Priority Target.

Terminate.

He exhaled slowly, gripping the cold metal edge of the maintenance tunnel. The city above them pulsed with distant neon lights and the hum of electric surveillance, but down here, the silence was suffocating.

Nova crouched beside him, the black drive resting in her palm like a ticking bomb.

"We need to move," she said, her voice steady.

Cipher forced himself to focus. "Where?"

Nova's eyes flickered in the dim light. "To someone who can crack this open." She lifted the drive. "There's a lock on it. A nasty one."

Cipher narrowed his eyes. "What kind of lock?"

Nova hesitated, then pressed a small button on the side of the device. The moment she did, the air around them seemed to thicken, like the world had just skipped a beat.

The device pulsed.

Cipher shivered. "That's not normal."

Nova smirked. "Nope."

The screen on the device flickered with unreadable symbols—shifting, reforming, encrypting themselves the moment they were perceived. Cipher had seen sophisticated encryptions before, but this was something else.

Something alive.

Nova clicked the button again, shutting it down. "We need a decoder."

Cipher exhaled. "And you know someone?"

Nova nodded. "Ghost."

Cipher blinked. "Ghost?"

Nova grinned. "You'll love him."

Cipher doubted that.

They moved cautiously through the tunnels, emerging two blocks away from where they'd gone underground. The city was still awake—holo-ads flickered on the sides of buildings, drones hummed lazily above, and the streets were packed with people who had no idea their world was an illusion.

Cipher pulled his hood lower as they weaved through the crowd. Nova led the way, her steps confident, her presence barely noticeable.

Cipher wasn't as smooth. He kept glancing over his shoulder, waiting for something—someone—to appear.

Nothing.

Yet.

They reached an old shipping yard on the east end of the district. The moment they stepped inside, the air smelled of rust, old wires, and damp concrete.

Nova knocked twice on a metal door.

Silence.

Then, a voice crackled through a hidden speaker. "No refunds."

Nova rolled her eyes. "It's me, Ghost."

A pause. Then the door slid open.

Inside, the room was cluttered with tech—old monitors, cracked keyboards, towers stacked haphazardly like forgotten relics of a digital graveyard.

At the center sat a man with dark goggles and a cigarette, typing furiously on a keyboard that had long since lost half its keys.

He didn't look up. "You look like hell, Nova."

Nova smirked. "And you still look like you never leave this room."

Ghost exhaled smoke, then finally turned to Cipher. His gaze—hidden behind reflective lenses—scanned him like an algorithm running a thousand calculations per second.

"So," he said. "You're the dead man walking."

Cipher tensed.

Nova threw the black drive onto the desk. "We need this cracked."

Ghost picked it up, turning it over in his fingers. His expression didn't change, but Cipher could tell—he recognized it.

Ghost whistled low. "You stole from them?"

Cipher exhaled. "She did."

Ghost snorted. "Then I hope you're fast, kid."

Cipher crossed his arms. "Can you unlock it?"

Ghost sighed and pulled out a cable, connecting the drive to his rig. "I can try. But if this thing is what I think it is… we're gonna need more than just code."

Nova leaned in. "What do you mean?"

Ghost cracked his knuckles. "I mean, this lock? It's biological."

Cipher frowned. "Biological?"

Ghost nodded. "It's tied to a genetic sequence. A specific one." He tapped on the screen, pulling up a display of shifting code. "And unless you have the DNA it's looking for, this thing stays locked forever."

Cipher and Nova exchanged a glance.

Cipher hesitated. Then: "Can you bypass it?"

Ghost smirked. "I didn't say forever was impossible."

He reached into a drawer, pulling out a syringe-like device. "But I need a sample."

Cipher took a step back. "From who?"

Ghost turned to him.

Nova's eyes widened. "Wait—you think Cipher is the key?"

Ghost shrugged. "His name's on the list, isn't it?"

Cipher felt the weight of the moment settle on his chest. If Ghost was right—if this thing was tied to him—then there was something much bigger at play.

Cipher clenched his fists. "Fine. Do it."

Ghost grinned. "That's the spirit."

He pressed the device to Cipher's wrist. A sharp sting, then a beep. The screen flickered.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then—

The lock broke.

The drive powered on.

And the screen filled with data.

Nova inhaled sharply. "Holy shit."

Cipher's stomach twisted. "What is this?"

Ghost leaned forward, scanning the text. His smirk disappeared.

His voice was almost a whisper.

"It's a kill switch."

Cipher's blood ran cold.

Nova stiffened. "A kill switch for what?"

Ghost didn't answer immediately. He just turned the screen toward them.

Cipher's breath caught in his throat.

It wasn't just names. It was entire identities.

Hundreds. Thousands.

People that didn't exist anymore.

And at the bottom, a single phrase burned in white text:

"Initialization: Cipher Voss."

Cipher took a shaky step back. "That's… that's me."

Ghost nodded grimly. "Yeah, kid. And according to this?"

He tapped the screen.

"You were never supposed to exist in the first place."