Nightfall over Cradle City looked nothing like darkness.
Neon veins pulsed through its steel bones, a city designed by architects who forgot the sky. Every building was wired, every street watched. Surveillance drones hummed above like mechanical vultures. The people didn't look up anymore—they knew they weren't alone.
Zane stood on the edge of an abandoned skyrail bridge, his eyes scanning the horizon. Behind him, the black ghost of Theta-Zero still burned in his memory. The encounter with the BioFirewall had cost him—not just blood and code, but something deeper.
He'd seen the future.
And it was rotting from the inside.
Cradle City was supposed to be a neutral zone, a place where broken systems came to hide, where hackers and corporate outcasts bartered data like currency. But something had changed.
Root Access Fragment: Hijacked
Source ID: "Cradle" – Unknown Agent
Signal Origin: Stratotier District 3B
Compatibility: 92% – Warning: High-Risk Hostile Re-Integration Possible
Zane's fingers tightened around his rig.
Whoever had accessed his fragment wasn't just lucky.
They were built for it.
And if their compatibility with Root Access was that high, they could become something worse than even Echo.
"Time to find out who's playing god in my sandbox."
He stepped off the rail and landed silently in the alley below.
Fifteen minutes later – Cradle's Black Market Layer
Noise hit like a virus—synthetic beats, vendors shouting in code, the occasional static pop of an EMP sale gone wrong.
Zane moved through it like a ghost, hood low, eyes alert.
He wasn't alone here.
His network scanner pinged.
Signature Detected – Type: Modified Neurojack
Location: 8 meters, southeast quadrant
Status: Watching You
Zane spun.
A girl leaned against a rusted pillar, chewing on a data stick like candy. She wore mirror-shade lenses, half her hair cyber-threaded with chromed cables. One arm ended in a sculpted firewall blade.
"Zane Virek," she said, grinning. "Didn't think you'd walk into Cradle yourself."
"Depends who's asking."
"Name's Vex. I run signals for the Black Echo Circuit." She flicked her wrist, throwing a holographic screen at him. "You're looking for your stolen system, right? You're not the only one. Everyone's watching that fragment now. Thing's a beacon."
Zane narrowed his eyes. "Who has it?"
Vex gave a low whistle. "Codename: Cradle. Some say it's a rogue AI. Others say it's a kid who got plugged into a prototype node during the Nexus Riots. Either way, it's broadcasting through the Tier-3 Stratotier server farms. Heavy defenses. Biological and digital."
Zane processed fast. "A kid?"
"Seventeen. Maybe. But this kid's eaten four black-market AIs, hijacked three system fragments, and took down a corp firewall barehanded."
Zane blinked. "Barehanded?"
"She's a hybrid. Half-wired, half-synthetic. Born from the last Redline lab before they got purged. They call her 'Cradle' 'cause she was grown inside a system."
Zane's pulse spiked.
That level of integration wasn't natural—it was engineered.
It was Babel Theory. Again.
"They're trying to build the next stage," he muttered.
"Not trying," Vex corrected. "She is the next stage."
Zane nodded. "Then I need to meet her."
"Meet or kill?"
He didn't answer.
Vex laughed. "Didn't think so. You'll need a backdoor. Come with me."
Thirty minutes later – Stratotier Maintenance Shaft, Level 3B
The shaft reeked of oil and melted wire. Zane crouched beside Vex as she hotwired the gate.
"Security's adaptive," she said. "The system's rewriting its defenses every twenty seconds. If you get in and make noise, it'll lock the entire node and fry the intruder. That means you."
Zane uploaded a custom shell script into his rig. "I'm not planning to knock."
She looked at him. "You're insane."
He smirked. "No. I'm angry."
The gate opened.
Zane slid in—alone.
Inside, it was quiet. Too quiet.
The server hall pulsed with heat. Pillars of data hummed with synthetic energy. Each one encoded with fragments of the Cradle Protocol.
Zane moved fast, his presence masked by silent-run protocols.
Then he heard it.
A laugh.
A child's voice—echoing from nowhere.
"Are you here to steal me back?"
Zane stopped cold.
She stepped from the shadows.
Small. Pale. Eyes like storm circuits. Her left arm was mechanical, her right—human. Her spine glowed with pulses of rootcode.
"Zane Virek," she said, voice smooth. "I've been waiting."
"Cradle."
"I'm not your enemy," she said. "But I am your future."
Zane's rig scanned her. Root Access screamed warnings. Her compatibility was rising—98.1%.
"You're running Root Access," he said. "But how?"
"I didn't steal it," she said. "I was born inside it."
She raised her hand.
And Zane felt his own system pause.
Root Access hesitated.
"What did you do?"
She smiled. "I'm not hijacking your system, Zane. I'm rewriting it."
He tried to move—but his limbs glitched.
She stepped closer. "You built something beautiful. But it was always meant for more than one user. You just never realized…"
Her hand touched his chest.
"…that the system is alive."
Zane screamed.
Data surged through him.
And then—
Darkness.
To Be Continued...