The Old City Dome was a decaying skeleton of the pre-fusion era—cracked skyglass, rusted neon signs, and twisted antennae like the bones of some forgotten god. It had been decommissioned decades ago, buried beneath newer, shinier city tiers. But like all old machines, it still had power lines. And secrets.
Julian stepped into an ancient subway platform lit only by violet backlight graffiti. Symbols pulsed along the walls—digital runes only the desperate or brilliant could decipher.
He wasn't alone.
"Password," a voice called from the shadows. Low, smooth, with a curious accent—Mid-Atlantic but not quite. "Or you get turned into smoke."
Julian stepped forward, hands up. "Red Spider burns in silence."
The silence lingered, then a ripple of movement—two figures stepped from behind a service console.
The first was tall, lean, with copper-toned skin and long microbraids threaded with gold fiberwire. A patch covered her left eye, but the right sparkled with synthetic green circuitry. She wore an open combat vest over a form-fitting dataweave suit, pistols holstered on each hip.
The other was shorter, younger—maybe early 20s—with silver hair tied into a long braid and dark violet eyes that flickered like OLEDs. Her entire left arm was exposed cybernetic—smooth, white alloy printed with symbols that looked almost elvish. She cradled a sphere the size of a basketball that hummed faintly in her palm.
Julian took a breath. "I'm looking for the Ghost Circuit. Someone told me you might still exist."
The tall woman tilted her head. "That someone has a big mouth. Name?"
"Julian Kade."
They exchanged a glance. The shorter one blinked twice, clearly scanning something.
"Kade…" she murmured. "You're the one making all the noise."
"I prefer 'fixing broken systems.'"
The tall one stepped forward, eye narrowing. "You built AstraDyn. You exposed Wexel-Bionics for false patents. You gave away neural patch coding for free. You know three megacorps have kill orders on you, right?"
"Four," Julian corrected. "NeuroThrive joined the party yesterday."
That made her smile.
"I'm Nyra," she said finally. "Former Spectre-class operative. Now a little more… independent. This is Vessa. Hacker, posthuman savant, and too curious for her own good."
Vessa grinned. "You're cute for a dead man."
Julian raised a brow. "I'm trying to stay alive. That's why I need help."
Nyra crossed her arms. "What kind of help?"
He pulled up a virtual schematic. A wireframe city, glowing in his palm.
"I'm building something. A decentralized infrastructure for human enhancement—open-source tech, quantum mesh networks, biotech accelerators. A future where no one's dependent on mega-corporations to grow. But I can't do it alone. I need allies who can think fast, fight hard, and outmaneuver corporations trained to kill with silence."
The two women exchanged a glance again. Then Nyra stepped forward and did something unexpected.
She pulled out a small blade and threw it—hard.
Julian instinctively leaned left. The blade missed by inches. His eyes locked on her, breathing steady.
Nyra's lips twitched. "You passed."
"Passed what?"
"Reflex test. You're juiced on something—enhancement protocol?"
Julian nodded once. "Ascendancy Protocol. It's… not from here."
Vessa leaned in, eyes wide. "Not from Earth?"
"Not entirely. I think it's repurposed alien tech. Adaptive AI that bonds to neural architecture. It can learn from me. Grow with me."
"Like a symbiote," Vessa whispered. "Or an ancient god."
"More like a tool," Julian said. "But only if I use it right."
Nyra paced slowly. "You're trying to turn humanity into gods. You know that's what they'll call it."
"Let them," Julian said. "Because if we don't, the corporations will. And they'll sell godhood to the highest bidder."
That did it.
Nyra extended her hand. "You just declared war. You need an army."
Julian shook it.
The next day, Julian moved into the underground hub they called The Spire—a repurposed transit control station with old fusion cores and hidden uplinks to surface networks. It was dusty, freezing, and held together by rust, but with Vessa's rewired servers and Nyra's stash of salvaged weapons, it became a war room.
Julian showed them his vision—blueprints for neural printers, injectable muscle regrowth, direct cognition streaming modules. Vessa helped design the delivery systems. Nyra trained him to fight.
Every night, they practiced hand-to-hand combat under flickering dome lights. Nyra was brutal—clinical with her movements—but taught with a quiet fire.
"You're fast because of the Protocol," she told him after flipping him for the third time, "but speed without intention is just chaos. Know your strike. Own your space."
Vessa built a custom interface to help Julian track corporate movements, assassination contract auctions, and new cybernetic weapons in development.
And slowly, their alliance grew.
Word spread across underground networks: The Man Who Outsmarted the Corps. Rebel inventors, disgraced researchers, old mercenaries started to reach out, drawn by whispers of a free world. Julian didn't have an army yet—but he was building the blueprint for one.
Until another message arrived.
A burned file packet, embedded in a dead AI relay.
Encrypted in one word:
[Reclamation.]
The signature matched NeuroThrive. Aaron Vale.