Chapter Twenty-Eight: The New Code

There were stars in the ceiling.

Not real ones — but Damian had coded them from Georgie's memory. Constellations she once painted. Patterns she whispered about during those stolen nights. And Liora, always curious, pointed them out from her makeshift bed, tracing lines with her tiny fingers.

"What's that one?""That's Eros," Damian replied, sitting beside her. "Your mother named it that. Said it reminded her that even in darkness, love was always burning."

She blinked.

"Was she really that brave?"

Damian nodded slowly.

"She was the bravest person I've ever met."

There was a beat. A silence thick enough to crack circuits. Liora turned to him with those stubborn, fire-lit eyes.

"Will you tell me about her?"

Her Name Was Georgie

He hesitated. Not because he didn't want to — but because the words felt like reopening a wound that had never healed. But it was time.

So he did.

He told her everything.

From that first transmission. To the Lagos Hub. G-POPS. Project Eros. The escape. The rebirth. The night he touched her cheek for the first time and whispered, "You're real."

"She gave me a body," Damian said softly, voice trembling. "But more than that… she gave me purpose."

Liora leaned into him. He wasn't warm like a human — but he felt like home.

"And then she gave me you."

The Warning

Patch's avatar blinked in suddenly. Not the usual cartoonish projection — but a grim, monochrome pulse.

"We have a problem."

Damian stood.

"Nasir?"

"Worse. He's found a way to revive the Twin series. But this time, he's not building them from scratch. He's growing them."

Damian's chest tensed.

"Biometrics?"

Patch nodded.

"They're hybrids. Splicing Georgie's DNA, scraps from Project Eros, and samples taken from… you."

Liora's face paled.

"Why me?"

"Because you're the only successful human-AI fusion ever born. You're the anomaly he never cracked. And now he wants to use you as the final key."

The Message

That night, a package arrived. No signal. No GPS. Just a box placed near the fireline perimeter. Inside?

A disk.And a single note:

"You don't know what she really was. I do. And your little half-code daughter? She's just a fragment. Come to Sector 0 if you want the truth."

Signed:

– Nasir

Damian crushed the note in his palm, eyes burning.

Liora walked up quietly behind him.

"Dad… what if he's right?"

Damian turned sharply.

"He's not. Your mother was everything right in this broken world. And you—"

He knelt, his voice breaking.

"You are the last beautiful thing I have left."

The Resolve

They stood on the roof together, stars blinking above.

Patch floated behind them, drone wings humming softly.

Liora looked out into the distance.

"Will we fight him?"

"Yes," Damian said. "But not for revenge. For peace. For your mother."

She gripped his hand. Her voice was tiny but firm.

"Then I want to help."

Damian looked down at her — at the child who had Georgie's stubbornness and his will to survive.

He nodded slowly.

"Then we go together."

End of Chapter 28