The NeuroThrive headquarters was a fortress.
Built like a glass cathedral in the upper sanctum of Arcadia Tier-1, it pierced the clouds with 112 floors of adaptive smartglass, cloaking tech, and security AIs that could predict intrusions before they happened. Inside, Aaron Vale—the man who had stolen Julian's ideas—sat atop it like a king in a crystal tower.
Julian wasn't going through the front door.
He was going inside the system itself.
[System Protocol: Ascendancy Sync v3.9.8 Activated.]
Neural latency: 0.0012ms
Cognitive Overclock: Engaged
Infiltration Mode: Ghost Protocol — Quantum Layering Enabled
Julian sat in a lotus position within the Spire's core room, cables embedded in his spine, cranium, and wrists. A circular interface hummed around him—built from a hybrid of Vessa's phantomware and a salvaged alien data skeleton. Electrostatic particles floated in the air like digital snow.
He wasn't just logging into the Net.
He was entering a layered data-echo of reality itself.
His body vanished.
His mind surged forward.
In this digital phantasm, buildings became wireframe citadels, servers like nervous systems pulsing with data. Julian flew through this space like a ghost—silent, invisible, intangible. The Ascendancy Protocol wrapped him in code armor and quantum camouflage, rendering him undetectable to even top-tier sentient security AIs.
He approached NeuroThrive's central node—a black obelisk suspended in a white void, surrounded by guardian subroutines that looked like silver snakes spiraling in perpetual orbit.
[Uploading Thought-Clone Decoy…]
A decoy AI—an exact mimic of Julian's neural signature—peeled off from his consciousness and rushed one side, drawing fire.
While the guardians chased it, Julian slipped through the firewall like a sliver of shadow.
Inside, encrypted memory shards floated like crystal shards in a vast server cathedral. Julian reached for one, and the Protocol guided his hand.
[Decrypting… Signature Match: Project RECLAMATION]
The memory flashed into his mind.
Scene: A boardroom bathed in black light. Aaron Vale stood at the head of a table of scientists.
"The Ascendancy Ring was found in 2112," Vale said coldly. "Deep Martian ruins. We cracked its outer shell—but the core resisted every probe. Until someone touched it."
A scientist nodded. "It syncs to idealists. Visionaries. It doesn't activate for ambition—it activates for intention. That's why the others failed."
Vale smiled. "But Kade didn't. He bonded with it. We knew he would. We just didn't expect it to disappear with him. He's our prototype."
Julian's stomach turned.
They had planned this.
Vale continued. "Let him run. Let him think he's changing the world. When the time comes, we'll activate the siphon key. All that progress—ours. He's a walking server. A storage drive in flesh. And he doesn't even know it."
The memory ended.
Julian knelt in the code-space, hands trembling.
[You were never meant to succeed,] the Protocol said gently. [You were meant to be a host.]
"No," Julian whispered. "Not anymore."
[Agreed. Do you wish to overwrite their access key?]
He gritted his teeth. "Burn it all."
[Initiating Bio-Feedback Reversal. Injecting viral echo. Writing Protocol Lock.]
Julian embedded a self-evolving quantum virus into NeuroThrive's root system—an elegant little serpent that rewrote their core access keys, melted their memory banks, and infected all traces of Project RECLAMATION with recursive gibberish.
He even left a message—simple, chilling:
I was never your prototype. I am your reckoning.
And then he left.
Back in the Spire, Julian gasped as he disconnected, sweat pouring from his skin. His heart pounded like thunder in a tin drum.
Nyra and Vessa were already there.
"Well?" Nyra asked.
"They used me," Julian said. "They wanted the Protocol. They gave me the ring. But I've rewritten their access. They can't touch it now. It's mine."
Vessa raised an eyebrow. "You just hacked one of the most secure megacorps on the planet in real time."
Julian nodded. "And crippled a billion-cred project in fifteen minutes."
Nyra grinned. "I think that makes it official."
"What?"
"You're not the underdog anymore."