Chapter 19: The Breaking Point

Alden's mind faded in and out of consciousness, drowning in a haze of static. His body felt like dead weight, every limb useless, as if he had been stripped down to nothing.

He wasn't in control anymore.

His Overclock was gone.

And that terrified him more than anything.

Somewhere in the fog, he heard muffled voices, distant and distorted. His thoughts struggled to focus, to pull himself back, but his body refused to listen.

How long had he been out?

Where was Felix? Iris?

Had Null… killed them?

Alden forced himself to breathe, but even that felt wrong.

Like the very core of who he was had been rewritten.

A sharp, mechanical hiss filled the air.

Bright, sterile light seared through his eyelids.

Alden flinched, his mind snapping back into awareness. His body jerked automatically—or at least, tried to.

He couldn't move.

Thick, reinforced restraints locked him in place, holding him down against a cold metal table. Blue energy rings pulsed over his arms, his legs, his chest, keeping him pinned in a way that felt far too familiar.

His breath hitched.

Not again.

Not like this.

A soft beeping noise echoed beside him, and then he heard Specter's voice.

"Good. You're awake."

Alden's eyes snapped open.

Specter stood at the edge of the chamber, their sleek mask illuminated by shifting data streams. The dim glow of holographic monitors lined the walls, each one displaying detailed biometric readings of his body.

Alden's pulse spiked.

One of the screens showed a full scan of his nervous system.

Another showed his brain activity.

And in the center of the largest display—

Was a deconstruction of his Overclock.

Alden's throat went dry.

His ability had been mapped out, every data point logged and analyzed.

Specter clasped their hands behind their back. "Your power is fascinating."

Alden glared at them. "You… took it."

Specter tilted their head. "No. We extracted it."

Alden's stomach twisted. "Extracted…?"

Specter tapped a control panel. One of the screens shifted, displaying a new readout.

Alden's breath caught.

Because it was him.

Or at least, a model of him. A perfect replica of his Overclock's neural patterns, but—it wasn't inside him anymore.

It was being reconstructed.

Piece by piece.

Alden's chest tightened.

Specter's voice was eerily calm. "Overclock is an anomaly. A code that rewrites itself. Unlike the failed subjects, your body adapted naturally. You didn't fight the optimization process."

Alden gritted his teeth. "That's great. Give it back."

Specter didn't react. "You misunderstand. We're not removing it from you. We're rebuilding it."

Alden's fingers curled into fists, but the restraints held firm. "You—what?"

Specter exhaled. "Your Overclock is flawed. It's limited by your instincts, your emotions, your hesitation. If it were properly integrated—if we eliminated the inefficiencies—"

Alden's blood ran cold.

That's what this was.

They weren't just testing him.

They were rewriting him.

Specter stepped closer. "You should consider yourself fortunate. You're about to become something far greater than you were before."

Alden's mind raced. He needed to get out. Now.

He yanked against the restraints. "I don't know how to tell you this, but I actually like my brain intact—"

Specter lifted a hand.

A sharp pulse of energy shot through Alden's body.

He gasped, his back arching against the table. The restraints burned against his skin, locking him in place as waves of electricity pulsed through his nervous system.

Alden bit back a scream.

His entire brain lit up, like a thousand signals firing all at once.

Overclock tried to respond—but it wasn't there.

It was missing.

His body felt wrong, out of sync. His vision flickered, flashing between light and dark, past and present.

He saw himself in the vending machine incident.

The first time Overclock kicked in. The rush of power. The confusion. The chaos.

Then—Sentinel Academy.

Iris. Felix. Professor Riggs.

His mind jumped again. The cyborgs. The capture. The failed subjects. Null.

The pain intensified.

Alden gasped, his vision blurring completely.

He barely registered Specter's voice anymore.

"You were never meant to be a hero, Alden."

The monitors around him flashed red.

"Let us fix you."

Something snapped.

Alden's breath hitched.

His mind shattered into fragments.

And then—

A single, quiet voice cut through the chaos.

"…No."

Alden's eyes snapped open.

Specter stilled.

The energy flickered.

A sharp, distorted glitch rippled through the air, sending a pulse of backlash through the entire system.

Specter's mask flickered with unreadable data.

Alden felt something shift.

Like a thread pulling itself back.

A current running in reverse.

Something inside him had woken up.

Something they didn't plan for.

Specter took a step back. "What—"

The containment field cracked.

Alden grinned.

And then—Overclock came back online.