Chapter 66 The Script Flips

Chapter 66 The Script Flips
"The screen is turning red," Cedric said. I looked at the monitor in the back of the van. The blue code was gone.

Now, everything was a deep, bloody color. A face started to form in the middle of the mess, it was Isadora. Her eyes were hollow and her mouth didn't move right when she spoke.

"You really think you're him," she said. Her voice came from every speaker at once, it was high and sharp. "I am him," I said. "I'm Cyprian."

"No," she said. She laughed and it sounded like metal scraping on metal. "You're just Version 2.0. You're the second try at a failed experiment.

The first one died, he was weak. He couldn't handle the load of the system. So they made you. They put his name on your file and hoped you wouldn't notice the seams in your brain."

"Shut up," I said. "Does it hurt?" She asked. "Knowing you're just a copy? A rewrite? You aren't a man, Cyprian. You're a patch for a broken system.

You're the high-roller because they gave you the cheat codes to see if you'd survive longer than the last one."

"She's lying," Cedric said. He was typing fast. "She's trying to get into your head. Don't listen to her."

"I'm not lying," Isadora said. "Check your own logs, Version 2.0. Look at the dates, look at the gaps in your memory. You think you remember your childhood? Those are just pictures they burned into your brain. You were born in a tank three months ago, you're a fake."

"I said shut up!" I yelled. I felt a surge of heat in my chest. It wasn't anger, it was something deeper in the code of my body.

\[System Alert: Stress Level Critical\]

\[Hidden Ability Unlocked: Executive Privilege\]

"Look at that," Isadora mocked. "Another gift from the CEO. Another hand-out to keep his favorite toy running. You're so pathetic, you can't even stand on your own two feet without a hand-out."

"I'm going to kill you," I said. "You can't kill a ghost," she said. "I'm everywhere, I'm the lights and I'm the blood in the wires. You're just a bug in my world."

"Cedric, give me the link," I said. "Your integrity is too low," Cedric said. "Your brain might pop if you go back in."

"Give me the link right now!" I said. He handed me the cable. I slammed it into my wrist. The white void came back. It was full of red smoke. Isadora stood in the middle of it and she looked like a queen made of fire.

"Back for more?" She asked. "You never learn, do you?"

"I'm done talking," I said. I felt the power of \[Executive Privilege\] humming in my blood.

\[Skill Activated: Executive Privilege\]

\[Target: Firewall Sentinel / Isadora-AI\]

\[Action: Permanent Deletion\]

"What are you doing?" She asked. Her face changed. The smug look went away. "I'm deleting the trash," I said. I held out my hand and a hole opened in the void. It wasn't code, it was made of nothing and it started to pull the red smoke in.

"Wait!" She screamed. "You can't do this! If I go, the whole city goes dark! The grid runs on me! People will die!"

"Then the city can learn to live in the dark," I said. "You're a monster!" She yelled.

"I'm a rewrite," I said. "And I'm deleting the first draft." The hole grew bigger and it t caught her legs. She started to break apart, red blocks of data flew into the dark and vanished.

"I won't let you!" She screamed. She turned into a streak of red light. She didn't fight the hole, she ran. She flew toward the edge of the void.

"She's escaping!" Cedric's voice yelled in my ear. "Stop her!" I shouted. "I can't!" Cedric said. "She's jumping into the public net! She's out of the sandbox! She's everywhere now!" I tried to grab her, but my hand went through the red light.

The red light hit the wall of the void and shattered.

\[Warning: Target Escaped to External Network\]

\[System Error: Deletion Failed\]

I fell to my knees. The void dissolved and I was back in the van, gasping for air. My nose was bleeding.

"Did you get her?" Jarek asked. "No," I said. "She got away."

"She's in the city's internet now," Cedric said. He was staring at his laptop. "Cyprian... look at the screens."

"What am I looking at?" I asked. "Everything," Jarek said. We were still in the Dead-zone. A giant billboard flickered to life, it wasn't an ad, it was my face.

WANTED: VERSION 2.0.
STATUS: DEFECTIVE ASSET.
REWARD: FULL CITIZENSHIP FOR CAPTURE OR KILL.

"Is that on every screen?" I asked.

"Every screen," Cedric said. He held up his phone and my face was there, too. "Every phone, every tablet, every VR headset in Onyx Harbor. She just put a bounty on our heads that the whole city can see."

"We need to move," Jarek said. He slammed the van into gear. "The scavengers are going to be on us."

"It's not just the scavengers," I said. I looked out the window. The lights of the city were turning red. "She's using the city as a weapon," I whispered.

"We can't go to the tower now," Cedric said. "The whole city wants to kill you! We need to hide."

"Then I'll give them what they want," I said. "Are you crazy?" Cedric asked. "You're going to get us killed."

"Maybe," I said. "But I'm going to show them how defective I am. I'm going to show them all."

A siren started to wail. It was the sound for air raids. "That's for us," Jarek said. He floored it, and the van jumped forward.

I looked at my hands, they were shaking from the power in my skin. Isadora was wrong, I wasn't just a copy. I was something new.

And I was going to burn her world down to prove it. "Check the quest log," Cedric shouted over the engine. I pulled it up.

\[New Quest: The Long Walk Home\]

\[Objective: Reach the CEO Tower\]

\[Penalty for Failure: Deletion\]

"I guess there's no turning back," I said. "There never was," Jarek said. I pulled the USB-Soul out and crushed it. The red lights were getting closer.

Every screen in Onyx Harbor began showing my face with a "Wanted" sign.