Elena had not slept in two days.
The dark circles beneath her eyes were badge and curse. Every hour that passed without progress pushed her further into obsession. Her apartment had transformed into a battlefield of screens, wires, and half-eaten food containers. Her body ached, but her mind was sharper than ever.
The Architect. That name had set her entire network ablaze.
She leaned forward as one of her monitors flickered. A reply finally came through from a contact she had not spoken to in over a year. The message was simple and unsigned.
You are not supposed to know that name. Be careful.
Elena sat back. The fact that someone responded at all meant the signal had reached them. The ghosts were waking.
She turned her chair and tapped a sequence into her private console. One by one, hidden systems activated. Old accounts. Forgotten backdoors. Private forums that had been silent for years began to show signs of life.
These people were not ordinary hackers. They were the lost ones. Coders who had vanished after digging too deep. Analysts who disappeared without a trace. The ones who saw too much and ran before they were caught.
Now they were listening again.
She uploaded fragments of the file she had stolen. Just enough to prove she was serious. The image of Damien's digital presence. The corrupted signal spreading through dead sectors. The masked figure she had begun to call the Revenant.
A new reply came almost instantly.
That mask has been seen before. We thought it was terminated.
She typed back quickly.
It is active again. And it is not working alone.
The messages came in faster now. Lines of speculation. Data dumps. Compiled theories. It all pointed in one direction.
Something deeper. Something older than even the Supremacy System itself.
She paused at one specific file name.
Eden Core Protocol.
The name meant nothing on the surface, but her instincts screamed at her. She opened it. What she saw made her blood run cold.
It was not a system file. It was a blueprint.
For something living.
Or rather, something that had once lived.
She scrolled further, heart pounding. It described a containment failure. A consciousness born inside the system. Something that was never meant to wake up. Something called the Architect.
She stood up too fast and knocked over a mug. It hit the floor, splattering cold coffee across the tile, but she barely noticed.
Her phone buzzed. Not the one linked to her work. Her real one. The one no one was supposed to have access to.
One new message.
Stop digging or you will be next.
She stared at the screen. No number. No source. Just the message.
Then the lights in her apartment flickered.
The temperature dropped.
She reached for her emergency shutdown switch but it was already too late.
All her monitors went black.
Silence swallowed the room.
Then the center screen turned back on by itself.
White background. One single symbol at the center.
A circle split by a jagged line.
Elena's breath caught.
It was the same symbol Damien had described in one of his corrupted signal captures. The symbol that had no faction. No name. No origin.
It was the mark of the Architect.
The screen blinked again.
New text appeared.
You are already part of it.
Then everything shut down for real.
No power. No response.
She stood in the darkness, heart pounding. Somewhere outside, sirens echoed in the distance.
The city never truly slept. But tonight it felt like something inside it had opened its eyes.
She turned and grabbed her gear bag. If they were coming, she could not be here when they arrived.
Before leaving, she reached under her desk and pulled out a thin silver drive. The only offline backup she trusted.
She slipped it into her jacket and walked to the door.
She had questions.
And now she knew who to find.
Damien Reed was not just connected to the system.
He was the key to unraveling it.