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THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 40
The Overseers’ OfferThe world dissolved around me.One second, I was reaching for Kane, begging her to remember. The next, I was nowhere.Not darkness. Not light. Not even the static void I had grown used to when the system reset itself. This was something else. Deeper. A place between places, where time didn’t flow and space didn’t hold shape.The air was thick, heavy, pressing against my skin like unseen hands trying to crush me into nothing.Then, I saw them.The Overseers.They stood in a line, stretching into infinity, figures draped in shifting code, their bodies flickering between forms—human, machine, something beyond either. Their faces were featureless, but I could feel their eyes on me, studying, measuring.And then I saw them.The frozen figures standing behind them, trapped mid-motion, their bodies flickering with incomplete memories. My heart slammed against my ribs.They were all me.Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Versions of myself, erased, rewritten, trapped in a moment
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 41
Infiltration BeginsThe facility loomed ahead, swallowed by nature’s slow reclamation. Vines strangled the rusting structure, their roots digging deep into the cracks of its concrete shell. From the outside, it looked abandoned—forgotten. But I knew better. Nothing the Overseers built was ever truly abandoned.I adjusted the earpiece. “Kane, I’ve got eyes on the target.”Her voice crackled through the comm. “Are you sure this is the place?”“Only one way to find out.”I crept toward the entrance, my boots crunching softly against the damp ground. The door was rusted, its edges corroded with time. I pulled out the stolen access card, swiped it through the scanner, and waited.A single beep. A mechanical whir. The door groaned open.Cold, stale air hit me like a wall. The scent of rust, decay, and something metallic—blood, maybe—curled in my nostrils.I exhaled slowly. “I’m going in.”The moment I stepped inside, the door slammed shut behind me.I froze. The dim lights flickered erratic
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 42
Echo’s WarningThe tunnels beneath the facility stretched on endlessly, a labyrinth of forgotten steel and decay. My boots echoed against the damp floor, each step swallowed by the oppressive silence. I adjusted the grip on my weapon, fingers tense. The air was thick, heavy, and charged with something unnatural.“Kane,” I murmured, pressing two fingers to my earpiece. “I’m deeper in. No sign of patrols.”Static crackled. Then her voice clipped and sharp. “That’s not a good thing, Tony. Stay alert.”I didn’t need the warning. Every inch of this place screamed danger. It felt… wrong, like stepping into a place that had been abandoned by time itself. The walls seemed to ripple when I wasn’t looking directly at them, shifting subtly, as if something beneath the surface was trying to push through.Then I heard it.A low, wet whisper.At first, I thought it was another hallucination, another trick of the facility. But then the whisper turned into a garbled sob.I tightened my grip on my gun
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 43
The Overseers' True WorkThe corridor was silent except for the hum of electricity running through unseen circuits. My pulse was still uneven from my encounter with Echo, but there was no time to dwell on it. I had to keep moving. I had to know the truth.At the end of the hallway, a reinforced door stood waiting, its metal surface reflecting the dim emergency lights overhead. This was it—the data vault. Whatever the Overseers were hiding, it was behind this door.I reached into my pack, pulling out a drive loaded with a decryption program Kane had built."Kane, I’m at the vault," I whispered, inserting the drive into the access panel. "Talk to me."Her voice came through, steady but tense. "I’m patching in now. Hold tight."Seconds ticked by. My skin prickled with anticipation.Then—click.The door hissed open.I stepped inside.The vault was smaller than I expected. A single console stood in the center, cables running from its base into the walls like veins feeding a living organism
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 44
The Facility AwakensThe walls groaned.Not metal under stress. Something deeper. Something alive.I stood frozen in the secured data vault, clutching the stolen drive against my chest. The dim lights flickered above me, casting erratic shadows along the walls. The facility—no, the system itself—had detected my presence. I could feel it."Kane," I whispered, my voice barely audible over the eerie hum growing around me. "I think it knows I’m here."The console in front of me glitched violently, the text warping and reshaping into unrecognizable symbols. The words I'd been reading seconds ago were gone, replaced with something watching me back.Then, the walls moved.Not a trick of the eye. Not my imagination.The space around me was shrinking.A sound filled the vault.Not from the speakers. Not from an alarm.It came from everywhere.A voice—disembodied, layered, as if multiple tones were speaking in unison. Some deep, some light, some whispering too close to my ear, sending cold need
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 45
Escape and a New ThreatPain snapped me back into reality.The cold bit into my skin as I gasped for air, sprawled across the hard ground. My body ached—bruised from the fall, but I was alive. Barely."Tony! Tony, respond!" Kane's voice crackled through the comm, frantic."I'm here," I managed, groaning as I forced myself upright. My limbs felt like lead, and my head pounded, but I didn't have time to rest.The air around me shifted.Wrong. Something was wrong.I turned.And there he was.Echo.Or what was left of him?His body glitched uncontrollably, his limbs phasing in and out of existence. Pieces of him stretched, then collapsed inward, folding in impossible directions. His face—what remained—was locked in a silent scream, eyes wide but unseeing.I swallowed hard."Echo…"He twitched violently. Then, his head jerked toward me—like he had finally noticed me."Run."The word barely made it through his fractured voice. Layers of static. Of pain. Of something broken beyond repair.Th
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 46
Kane’s InterventionI barely made it out alive.My body was a mess—bruised, aching, lungs burning with every breath. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind the crushing weight of exhaustion. But I couldn't stop. Not yet. The stolen data drive pressed against my ribs, still tucked safely in my jacket. I had risked everything to get it. And now, I needed to know why it felt like the world itself was unraveling around me.The sky above flickered. It wasn’t natural, not anymore. The edges of the buildings stretched and bent when I wasn’t looking directly at them. The world was glitching, struggling to hold itself together. And I was the reason why.A sharp buzz in my ear made me flinch. My comm crackled to life, and Kane’s voice exploded through it, raw and furious."Are you out of your goddamn mind, Tony?"I winced. "I missed you too, Kane.""Shut up!" Her voice was sharp, but beneath the anger, I heard something else. Something close to fear. "Do you have any idea what you just did?"
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 47
The Mind of an OverseerI stared at the screen, and the screen stared back.The stolen data was laid out in front of me, scrolling endlessly as if it had no beginning or end. Lines of text flickered, twisted, and reshaped themselves while I watched. It wasn’t normal code. This was something else. Something alive.I leaned closer. The words weren’t just changing randomly. They were responding to me.“What the hell…” I muttered.My own thoughts were rewriting the data. Every time I tried to focus on a particular piece of information, it moved, shifting itself like a living thing avoiding my gaze. The moment I thought I understood a sentence, the meaning warped, like reality itself bending under the weight of something unseen.A cold shiver ran down my spine.This wasn’t just stolen data. This was a conversation.The screen flickered, and suddenly, my name appeared.TONY.Not typed. Not rendered by the system. It just was. Like it had always been there, waiting for me to notice.A deep,
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CHAPTER 182
Darren's PromiseThe lies were gone, like old skin peeling off. I saw the truth: they had made me a servant. This made me angry, wanting revenge.I found Tony in a broken room. He was my old friend, but now he seemed lost, not knowing what was real. I felt bad and also really loyal to him. He sat on a broken chair, smiling and talking nonsense. The bright Tony I knew was gone. He looked at me for a second, the old Tony in his eyes."Darren?" he whispered weakly. I felt a little hope."Tony, it's me," I said, my voice shaky. I knelt down.He smiled more, but his eyes didn't. "The stars are singing, Darren. Can you hear?"My heart sank. He was lost. The Overseers had messed with his mind. I felt guilty. I was so busy with my own problems, I didn't see how bad Tony was.I felt a strong loyalty to him. We were friends. I couldn't leave him like this.I took his cold hands in mine. "Tony," I said firmly. "The stars aren't singing. It's just me, Darren. I'm here."He looked
CHAPTER 180
Echoes of ControlDust floated in the moonlight coming through the broken windows of the Overseer's main place. I felt a cold fear, like sharp glass in my stomach. Kane moved quietly beside me in this dead computer world. Her fingers, usually so good at finding secrets in computers, now just touched cold, still metal.Damn it, I thought, grinding my teeth. We broke their network, bit by bit, but winning felt empty. It was like beating the boss but finding a whole army behind him."Anything?" Kane whispered. Her forehead wasn't as she looked at the smashed computer.I shook my head. The smell of burnt wires hurt my nose. "Just memories. Like the computers remember being in charge, but nothing real. They erased everything."Elias stood nearby, eyes closed, head tilted like he was hearing something we couldn't. A faint shimmer moved around him. It was what was left of their mind control. He looked sick, sweat on his face."Something's here," he whispered, voice tight. "Layers
CHAPTER 180
The Untouched ShadowThe broken metal and wires of the Overseers’ control room were all around us. We had done this. We had broken their system, bit by bit, and fought through their guards. But looking at the mess, I didn’t feel good. Just empty and annoyed.Kane kicked a broken piece of a machine. It made a noise in the big, ruined room. “We took down their system, destroyed their buildings…” Her voice was tight like she was trying not to be angry. “…but it feels like we didn’t even touch the real problem.”Elias nodded, looking sad, as he looked at the mess. “The Overseers were just tools. Complicated ones, but still just a way to get what they wanted.” He looked out at the empty land through a hole in the wall. “The real power… it’s still out there, untouched.”Darren sat in a corner, looking white and tired. The memories he found had hurt him a lot. “And if they could control something like the Ascension System…” His voice was soft, like a whisper. “…what else can they
CHAPTER 179
The Unseen WatcherKane walked back and forth in the room we were using as a lab. Her boots made soft sounds on the floor. The air felt heavy like we hadn't done anything right. Tony… I still saw his fading eyes. What had that thing done to him? Was he still… Tony?Elias played with his machines, looking annoyed. “It’s like we’re fighting a ghost, Kane,” he said quietly. “A power that doesn’t follow any rules we know. The Overseers… they were just toys, weren’t they?”That thought made me cold. Toys. And we were so focused on them, we didn’t see the real person in charge.I suddenly felt cold, even though the room was warm. It wasn’t just cold; it was… something else. A feeling. Like when you know someone is behind you, even if you can’t see them.“It’s not just the system,” I said slowly, looking around the room. Nothing looked wrong. The machines hummed softly, the lights made long shadows. But… “I feel like… someone is watching us.”Elias stopped what he was doing and l
CHAPTER 178
Slipping AwayThe white light still hurt my eyes, even if I wasn’t seeing it now. Was I? Everything felt blurry, like a bad dream. Kane… her face… was she there? I remember a quick look like she was worried. Or maybe the bright light tricked me.The sounds around me were wrong. They twisted and broke, like talking underwater. Or maybe there was no sound, just a buzzing in my head that ate my thoughts. Words floated around, pieces of talk, but they didn’t stay. They didn’t make sense anymore.My own hand looked far away. Like it belonged to someone else. I tried to close my fingers, but it felt slow, like moving through thick mud. Was this still my hand? Was I still me?A cold fear grabbed me, worse than before. Not fear of pain, but fear of… disappearing. Like a picture in the sun, the colors faded away until nothing was left.Don’t forget me… please… The thought went around in my empty head, a soft cry against the growing confusion. Who was I asking? Kane? Elias? Darren…
CHAPTER 177
The Glitch in the MemoryMy fingers moved fast on the screen. The broken data from the Overseers jumped and changed. Kane looked closely, her face showing she was thinking hard. “If they were scared,” she asked quietly, “why did they want to control Tony so much?”Elias touched a black, shiny piece they found. His small machine showed strange power inside it. “Maybe,” he said slowly, “control was how they protected themselves. Maybe it was a way to use what they didn’t understand as a weapon.”Darren, still looking white and shaky, moved restlessly. He didn’t want to think about the things put in his mind, but we needed answers. Now, his eyes moved around the room like he could still hear bad things. “There was a name…” he whispered, his voice soft. “I think I heard… something about a ‘Conduit’…”Conduit. The word stayed in the quiet room. It felt important and dangerous. Kane and Elias looked at each other, knowing this could be something big. My own mind raced. Was I t
CHAPTER 176
A Pledge of AidBlue light from Kane’s key blinked in the dark. Fake Kane made a scary noise. My head still hurts from the changed memories. Kane’s light helped."I don’t know all they did, but they feared something… something they couldn't control."A voice cut through the air. Darren stood in the doorway. He looked sure now, not unsure. His eyes looked at Kane with hope.Kane looked at him, not sure but hoping. "Why now, Darren? After all the bad things?"Darren stepped in. He looked at Kane, then Elias with his weapon. "Because I see what they took from me… from all of us. I won’t let it happen again."I need to think clearly. My body felt heavy. The floor was cold.His words felt important. Darren used to work for the bad guys. Trusting him felt wrong.Kane looked hard at Darren. "Feared what, Darren? They controlled everything. What scared them?"Darren looked worried. "There were whispers… about something old. Before everything changed. They called it… the Unmake
CHAPTER 175
The Rewriting BeginsMy breath was short. The shiny building across the street felt wrong. I looked hard, a cold knot in my stomach. The bright picture Kane made on the wall was gone. Now there was a plain, creepy shape.Need to be strong. My muscles hurt, but it felt a little real."The street… not… different…" I said quietly. The air felt still and wrong. The buildings looked a little off, the signs making weird shadows.A quick thought of Kane and me here, laughing about her drawing. Her smart face… it felt far away. Did that happen here? Or was my brain playing tricks?More. Focus, Tony, focus. The metal hurt, but it felt real.I tried to remember talking to Kane about the bad things coming, the quiet talks about a power that could change everything. But the words were mixed up. Her voice sounded strange."Did I say that? Or… someone else?" The question stayed in my head, making the bad feeling worse. The outside and my memories felt wrong.I felt dizzy. I leaned on the
CHAPTER 174
Tracking the Ghost SignalsMy back hurts. It always did after bending over Elias’s weird machine for hours. Wires snaked all over the dusty floor like metal snakes connecting old parts. The air buzzed a little, like the nervous lights on the screens. The screens showed numbers and letters that didn't make sense. It felt like they were asking questions we couldn't answer.“There!” Elias said suddenly, his voice tight. He pointed at a tiny light that flashed and disappeared on a screen. “A weak signal… it’s not coming from anywhere we know.”Kane leaned closer, her dark eyes looking hard. The dim light in our hidden room made her face look serious. “Can you find it?” she asked, her voice quiet but strong.Elias shook his head. “It’s like a ghost. It shows up and then vanishes. One second it’s strong, the next… nothing.” He messed up his hair with his hand, something he did when he was frustrated.“But it’s connected to the leftover energy from their system, right?” Kane asked
