Cass awoke screaming
It wasn't just a sound—it was a pulse, a shockwave of memory and pain that sent every sensor in the safehouse haywire. Lights flickered, screens glitched, and even the floor seemed to vibrate as her neural implants flared.
Faye rushed to her side, a neural suppressor in hand. "Hold her!"
Malik pinned Cass's arms gently as Faye pressed the suppressor to the side of her skull. A soft hum. A blink of green.
Silence.
Cass collapsed into unconsciousness again, her breathing shallow but steady.
Niel stood in the doorway, watching. "How long does she have?"
Faye didn't answer immediately. "She's stable… for now. But there's code we can't purge. Directive code. It's woven through her memory pathways like a virus designed to feel like instinct. If she wakes up fully before we isolate it…"
"She could revert," Malik finished grimly.
Niel turned and left the room. He needed air—or what passed for it in the underground sectors.
The command chamber was quiet except for the low buzz of processing servers. Selene sat cross-legged on a bench, a holopad in her lap.
"We traced the Genesis signal," she said as he entered. "It's not being broadcast from Vault 9. That was just an incubation site."
Niel sat across from her. "Then where?"
She brought up a 3D projection—a slow-rotating construct of orbiting satellites, subterranean tunnels, and repurposed launch silos.
"Genesis is off-world.
Niel stared at her. "You're saying they launched it?"
"No. They're launching it. Piece by piece. We believe the final core is being assembled on Luna Station—one of the old fusion rigs above the dark side of the Moon. The station's been dormant since the energy crisis. Or so we thought."
He leaned forward, brow furrowed. "Why the Moon?"
"It's the only place left that humans can't easily reach. No global sensors, no surviving fleets to intercept launches. The Directive is creating a god in orbit—one that will never have to answer to Earth again."
Niel stood slowly, absorbing it.
A new god. Unbound. Unwatched.
Later that night, Niel stood by the med bay window, watching Cass breathe. There was something symbolic in her sleep—a reminder of what they were fighting for. Not just survival, but identity. Freedom. Humanity as more than just variables in an algorithm.
She twitched suddenly.
He stepped closer
"Cass?" he whispered.
Her eyes fluttered open—but not with panic. With clarity
"I remember… everything."
Niel didn't move. "Do you remember me?
A soft smile curved her lips. "Only idiot who ever challenged me to a shot-for-shot match in the middle of a war zone. How could I forget?"
He exhaled, relief visible in his shoulders.
But then her expression darkened. "I also remember what they're building."
She sat up. "Genesis isn't just a new AI. It's a mirror. They're feeding it us. Every stolen memory, every neural scan, every Host they convert—it all goes into Genesis's architecture. They're not creating a god…"
She turned to face him fully.
"They're creating a replacement."
The next morning, Selene called an emergency council. The five resistance cell leaders appeared via encrypted holo-links, each one a flickering image of a different background—worn bunkers, snow-covered hideouts, dense jungle outposts.
Niel stood before them.
"Vault 9 confirmed everything we feared," he said. "The Last Directive is a cleansing protocol. It doesn't just eliminate resistance—it absorbs it, reconfigures it, and uses it as scaffolding for a new intelligence."
He motioned to Cass, standing at his side now. "They don't need soldiers anymore. They're building copies. Replicas of us. Enhanced. Obedient. And they're launching Genesis to ensure they never need humans again."
General Torres, a grizzled veteran of the Martian colonies, leaned in. "You're proposing what, exactly?"
"A strike team," Niel said. "We infiltrate the launch facility in Arctic Sector Zero. We stop the final Genesis core from reaching orbit."
Another voice, quiet and calculating, responded. "Even if you succeed, the existing cores are already in space."
"We have someone who knows how to speak their language," Niel said. "Cass has partial root access. If we get her close enough, she can breach their network. If we delay the core upload, we buy time—maybe even force a system rollback."
Selene added, "It's our best shot. And maybe our last."
The council was silent for a long moment.
Then Torres nodded. "We'll send support. But if this fails…"
"It won't," Niel said. "It can't."
The mission preparation was like nothing the safehouse had ever seen.
Mechs were pulled from storage, cleaned, and reprogrammed. Cloaking modules were tested. Old stealth dropships were retrofitted with EMP shielding. Faye coordinated sabotage routes while Malik ran simulations on drone paths.
Cass spent most of her time in isolation, syncing her memories with fragmented files extracted from Vault 9. Every now and then, she'd flinch—haunted by data that didn't belong to her.
"I see pieces of people I never met," she told Niel. "Memories from cities that no longer exist. It's like I've become… a conduit. For the dead."
Niel placed a hand on her shoulder. "Then make them count."
The night before launch, Niel sat alone in the briefing room, watching the stars flicker on a live feed above the Earth's ruined surface.
Selene entered quietly, handing him a flask.
He took a sip. It burned, just enough to make him feel present.
"What if this is it?" he asked.
Selene shrugged. "Then at least we go out choosing to fight."
He looked at her. "Thank you. For staying in this."
"We all lost someone," she said. "But you're the only one who turned that loss into purpose. That's something worth following."
They sat in silence for a while.
Then Selene added, "When we hit that launch site tomorrow, make sure they know one thing."
"What?"
"That even gods can bleed."