The phantom Code

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Chapter 8 – Phantom Code

Sapphire spun and fired again.

The bullet carved a hole in the wall, dust spraying like shrapnel—but there was no one behind her.

Only the empty, red-lit corridor.

She stepped back, heart thundering. Her breath came in fast, sharp bursts. Elira was already at the control panel, trying to reboot the systems, fingers flying over the manual switches. Sparks still hissed from the blown interface.

"That voice," Sapphire said. "It was in the room."

Elira nodded grimly. "It wasn't human."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean they've upgraded their operatives. S-03 isn't just enhanced—he's interfaced. Direct-link communication. Neural projection. That voice was real, but the body wasn't."

Sapphire tightened her grip on the gun. "So it's in my head?"

"No," Elira said. "It's worse. It's in the network."

She pointed at a wall of servers now dimmed by the power loss. "This place was dark for years. The moment we plugged in that drive, the signal pinged something dormant. Something waiting. You woke it up."

"Why do I feel like that's not just a metaphor?"

Elira gave her a look that said you're catching on.

"I need to hard-reset the firewall and isolate the node that triggered the breach," she said. "That'll take time."

Sapphire looked toward the hallway again. She could still feel it—that presence, like static behind her eyes. Not a memory. A signal. A shadow clinging to her skin.

"Do they know where we are?"

"Not yet. But if we stay, they will."

Elira tossed Sapphire a flash cartridge—small, metallic, and warm to the touch. "Backup of what we pulled. The sequence. Take it. If I don't get this place secured in twenty minutes, you run."

Sapphire stared at her. "I'm not leaving you."

"You might not have a choice."

Suddenly, the door at the far end of the hallway slid open.

Not creaked—slid. Smooth. Mechanized.

A tall silhouette stepped into the red light. Not a man, not exactly. Too precise. Too fluid. His eyes glowed faintly, like twin sensors scanning reality itself.

"Identification: S-01 confirmed," he said. "You are considered property of Directive Orion."

Sapphire's blood froze.

She raised the gun again, but her instincts screamed it wouldn't be enough.

"You don't own me," she said.

"You were made for us," the figure replied. "You escaped before activation. But you can still be restored."

Sapphire shot him in the chest.

The bullet struck—then ricocheted off with a hiss. His body absorbed the impact like it was cloth.

"Not good," Elira muttered.

The figure advanced. Sapphire stepped back, trying to aim again, but he moved faster than anything she'd seen—one second he was ten feet away, the next his hand was reaching for her neck.

Elira threw something.

A blinding white flash exploded in the corridor.

Sapphire dropped, ears ringing. The synthetic screamed—a horrible, digital tearing sound—and staggered back.

"EMP grenade," Elira gasped. "Temporary disable."

Sapphire scrambled to her feet, her vision swimming. "That was S-03?"

"No," Elira said, dragging her to a back door. "That was a decoy unit. If he shows up, we're dead."

Sapphire clutched the flash cartridge in her hand.

"Where do we go now?"

Elira looked over her shoulder, eyes sharp. "Now we run dark. No power. No signals. And we find the others."

Sapphire blinked. "Others?"

"Not just the failed prototypes. Survivors. Rebels. People who escaped the system."

The door slammed shut behind them.

And in the blackness, for the first time, Sapphire realized:

She wasn't the last.

She was the beginning.