Chapter 8 - Whispers in the DarkBack at the CrossTech compound, the autumn wind howled against the reinforced glass windows of the fiftieth floor. Lily sat at her custom-built ergonomic desk, the glow of three high-resolution monitors illuminating her focused face. She was deep into a complex simulation, trying to optimize the Prometheus Engine's thermal dissipation rates, when she noticed something strange.
A tiny, anomalous data packet was pinging the internal firewall from an unassigned terminal in the sub-basement—the exact level where the original janitorial supply closets were located.
Lily frowned, her small fingers hovering over the mechanical keyboard.
"That's weird," she muttered to herself. "The sub-basement network was completely hard-reset after Vale was arrested."
She typed a quick diagnostic command, tracing the ping back to its source. The IP address didn't belong to any active employee or automated maintenance system within the building. It was coming from an external relay router hooked directly into the legacy copper telephone lines that ran beneath the city streets—lines that predated the digital age by decades.
Suddenly, the screen in front of her flickered. The simulation she was running vanished, replaced by a completely blank black terminal window.
A single line of green text began typing itself out, character by character, at an agonizingly slow pace:
HELLO, LILY.
Lily froze. She instinctively reached for her desk phone to call security, but her hand stopped halfway. The text on the screen continued:
DON'T BOTHER CALLING ETHAN. HE CAN'T SAVE YOU FROM WHAT'S COMING.
A cold shiver ran down Lily's spine. She gripped the edge of her desk, her eyes wide as she stared at the glowing monitor.
WHO ARE YOU? she typed back with trembling fingers.
The response was instantaneous:
SOMEONE WHO KNEW YOUR FATHER VERY WELL, LILY. MUCH BETTER THAN HE EVER KNEW HIMSELF. AND WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT WHAT HE LEFT HIDDEN INSIDE THE PROMETHEUS ENGINE'S SOURCE CODE.
May you like
Before Lily could type another word, the screen went completely pitch black. A sharp, high-pitched electronic whine echoed from the air vents above her desk—the exact same three quick pulses, followed by a metallic click.
Ninety seconds.
