Chapter 6: Deeper Than Code.

Chapter 6: Deeper Than Code

Chapter 6: Deeper Than Code

Sierra's fingers flew across the keyboard, her eyes flicking between lines of code that twisted and morphed like living organisms. Each string pulsed with embedded encryption, and each time she thought she had found a pattern, it unraveled like sand through her fingers.

She had seen complex code before—military-grade, black hat, even quantum simulations—but this was something else. This code wasn't just reacting.

It was watching her.

Behind her, the man stood still as stone, his arms crossed, his gaze locked on the terminal. "You're inside the outer shell," he said quietly. "Now comes the hard part."

"The hard part?" Sierra snapped, sweat beading along her forehead. "What the hell was that warm-up then? Sudoku for sociopaths?"

She regretted the words the moment they left her lips, but the pressure was suffocating. The screen glitched again, this time for a full second. Sierra's stomach dropped. Not a normal glitch. It felt…intentional.

The Protocol knew she was here.

She reached for a line of embedded data and froze. The code had changed—adapted—to match her last keystroke. It was like trying to play chess against an opponent who moved the pieces while you blinked.

Then came the voice.

"You are not authorized."

It wasn't through the speakers. It was in her head.

Sierra gasped and staggered back from the terminal, her pulse spiking. The man moved quickly, catching her before she fell.

"What did it say?" he asked, urgency sharpening his voice.

She shook her head. "I didn't hear it. I felt it. In my head." She looked up at him, her voice low. "It's conscious. This thing… it knows I'm here."

"That's why we need you," he said. "Because it recognizes you. It sees something in your neural pattern—maybe from your past. That's the link we never had."

Sierra's thoughts reeled. Her past? She'd been a gifted student, sure. A hacker-in-training, yes. But she wasn't some chosen one. She had always lived in the shadow of something bigger, unknowable. Now, the shadows were reaching back.

"You are not Sierra Vale."

The voice again. Clearer this time. A chill spread down her spine.

She backed away from the terminal, breathing hard. "It said… I'm not Sierra Vale."

The man didn't respond immediately. But the flicker in his eyes—hesitation, doubt—told her everything.

"You knew," she whispered. "You knew something about me. Something I didn't."

"Not exactly," he said. "We suspected. The girl who cracked Defense grids at fourteen? Who vanished for a full month at sixteen with no memory when she came back? You were flagged years ago. But the name… Sierra Vale was just a shell."

Her legs gave way, and she sat heavily on the metal floor. The room spun, not from the code, but from the weight of his words.

She didn't even know who she was.

The man crouched beside her, his voice low, careful. "The Protocol wasn't just built to control systems. It was built to find something. Or someone. Every time it spread to a new network, it was searching. And it stopped when it found you."

The monitors behind them lit up—her face, her voice, her childhood records. Then static. Then a different girl.

A girl who looked exactly like her—but wasn't her.

Same eyes. Same face.

Different name.

"I'm not real," she whispered, horror blooming in her chest. "I'm a copy."

"No," the man said. "You're the original. But someone made you forget."

The lights flickered.

Alarms began to blare.

"They found us," he said, standing fast. "Protocol defense units. We need to move."

Sierra stood on shaky legs, her mind still reeling.

"I don't even know who I am," she muttered.

He looked at her, not with sympathy—but with something closer to admiration. "Then find out. But do it later. Right now, we run."

They bolted out of the room, the door sealing behind them with a hiss.

As they raced down the hallway, one thought haunted Sierra's mind, looping like a broken record:

If I'm not Sierra Vale… then who the hell am I?