Location: The Lemanissier Ranch, Outside Amarillo, Texas
Date: October 12, 2016; 15:45 Hours
The Texas sun had baked the ranch for two months, a relentless force that hammered the land into submission. During that time, Isabella Gionne had changed as drastically as the season itself.
The woman who crawled out of a ravine in July—a ghost in designer silk—was gone. Now, she was Mrs. Isabella Lemanissier. Her body had healed, and the angry red scars on her torso had faded to pale lines. The bandages were gone, replaced by the practical clothing of a ranch hand: worn denim jeans, simple cotton t-shirts stained with dust, and a weathered Stetson pulled low to shield her eyes from the glare.
To the neighbors in their quiet corner of Hill County, she was the shy, city-mouse wife of Nicolas "Alen" Lemanissier. Their marriage existed only on paper—a legal shield Alen had created with forged documents and a new identity, Naira Nicolas Lemanissier, to protect her from the global syndicate hunting the hacker known as Blackheart.
It was a cold, practical choice. Alen made no pretense about it.
Their life settled into a fragile, domestic rhythm. Isabella, driven by a debt she felt deep in her bones, threw herself into the work. She learned to feed the horses, finding comfort in their warm, rhythmic breath against her palms. She tended the late-season vegetable garden with meticulous care that felt like an apology for her existence.
In the late afternoons, she sometimes helped Master Shi Yan Xing in his small dojo, sweeping the polished wooden floors or organizing training gear. The old monk and his wife watched her with gentle, understanding eyes, but they asked no questions. They knew that silence was often the kindest thing.
To the world, they played their roles perfectly. But inside the ranch house, a vast distance remained.
Alen treated her with a polite, unyielding wall of ice. He provided for her and protected her, but his trust remained locked away.
She often found him in the basement garage, converted into a high-tech workshop. He would be bent over circuit boards and stripped server chassis, his face lit by the harsh blue glow of his laptop. She watched his frustration grow—the sharp intake of breath, the white-knuckled grip on the workbench, and the low growl of anger when a connection failed.
He was a man desperately trying to bring back a ghost, and he was failing.
Isabella knew better than to ask. Her survival instinct, honed in the cruel world of corporate espionage, warned her that curiosity could be dangerous. Yet, another feeling—softer, more persistent, and far more perilous—began to take root. A need to close the gap.
October 15, 2016; 16:30 Hours
The heat was oppressive, shimmering in waves off the gravel driveway. Isabella wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her forearm, her tank top clinging to her skin. She had just finished grooming Atlas, Alen's quarter horse, and the smell of hay and horsehair lingered on her.
From the porch, she saw the garage door open. Alen was inside, his posture stiff. He slammed a soldering iron onto the table.
Something inside her snapped the careful silence she had maintained.
She walked to the garage, stepping into the cool, oil-scented shade.
"It's rude to ask," she began, her voice echoing slightly in the concrete space. "But I've been watching you for two months. Typing. Fixing. Getting angry. Whatever it is… let me help."
Alen froze. He didn't turn right away. "You don't have the clearance, Isabella."
"I don't need clearance," she insisted, stepping closer. "You know who I am. You know what I can do. I'm Blackheart. I can strip a bank's firewall in ten minutes. I can reconstruct a shattered hard drive from magnetic residue. Let me help you."
Alen turned slowly. In the dim light, his features—the sharp jawline, pale blonde hair, and piercing blue eyes behind his glasses—looked striking. For a heart-stopping second, he resembled the monster she remembered from news reports. Albert Wesker.
He studied her, the only sound the hum of a cooling fan.
"Fine," he said, his tone as sharp as glass. "If you want to waste your time, I won't stop you."
"What is it?" she asked, moving to the workbench. "I need to understand the problem to fix it."
He sighed, a sound of deep exhaustion. "I am trying to revive a lost AI construct. That is all you need to know. I won't tell you where I found the core or its original purpose. Understand this: I still don't trust you. You are the twin sister of Excella Gionne. You are a liability. I remain cautious."
The words were expected, but they hit her like a physical blow. The careful mask she had worn for two months cracked.
"I know," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I know, Alen. But didn't I say I owe you my life? Right now, I am, for all legal reasons, your wife. I cook your meals. I clean your house."
A sob escaped her throat, a raw, ugly sound that carried the heavy burden of her past, her fear, and her deep loneliness.
"I know you don't trust me," she cried, tears making clean lines through the dust on her cheeks. "But please, just let me be useful. Let me help you."
Alen watched her, his icy calm finally slipping. He looked taken aback. An unfamiliar feeling—a mix of guilt and awkwardness—struck him in the chest. He had faced bioweapons, assassins, and gods. But a woman crying in his garage? That was a threat he hadn't prepared for.
"Okay," he said, his voice softening. "Don't cry. I'm… sorry."
The apology felt strange on his tongue. He hesitantly reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. The touch sent a shock through both of them—she gasped, and he felt his heart skip.
"Now," he said, clearing his throat and turning to the bench. "Look at this."
He turned the laptop screen toward her. It showed a jumbled mess of corrupted hexadecimal code, encrypted data streams, and fragmented system logs.
Isabella sniffled, wiped her eyes, and leaned in. Her sadness faded, replaced by the sharp focus of a master hacker.
"This is…" she frowned, fingers hovering over the trackpad. "This is incredibly complex. The encryption is military-grade—Umbrella Corp standard, circa 2003. But the core code, it's traumatized."
"Traumatized?"
"It's legacy code," she explained, her voice growing steadier. "This AI is stuck in a loop of its own destruction. Its main functions are buried under layers of emergency lockdowns and corruption. It's not just broken, Alen. It's scared."
"Can you fix it?" Alen asked, desperation creeping into his voice.
Isabella looked at him. "I can. But not with a patch. We need to rebuild its neural pathways. We need to move it to a modern shell. For that, I need hardware. Specific components. Some we can buy. Others, we'll have to find."
She grabbed a pen and a notepad, writing quickly. "I need time. And I need these."
Alen took the list. Vintage server processors. Gold-plated fiber optics. Selenium-based diodes.
"We'll get them," Alen said, nodding. "We'll go together."
**The Scavenger Hunt – November 2016**
The following weeks settled into a new routine. The tense silence of the ranch turned into a shared mission.
They became scavengers, driving Alen's battered pickup truck across Texas, searching for remnants of technology. They explored dusty computer shops in San Antonio, where the air smelled of ozone and stale cigarettes. They sifted through e-waste recycling centers under the blazing sun, pulling decommissioned server racks from heaps of rusted junk.
In a pawn shop in Austin, Isabella found a box of seemingly useless optical drives. "These," she whispered, holding one up like a treasure. "These have the specific laser calibration I need."
In the cramped cab of the truck, during the long drives beneath the wide, starry skies, silence began to fill with conversation.
They talked about soldering techniques and voltage regulation. But slowly, other topics took shape. She shared the thrill of slipping unseen into a fortified database—the rush of being a ghost. He spoke less, but he mentioned structural engineering, the quiet logic of ecosystems, and why he loved the ranch.
One night, at a roadside diner, he bought her a overly sweet gas station cappuccino. She took a sip and laughed, wrinkling her nose.
"This tastes like melted plastic and sugar," she giggled.
Alen smirked, a genuine, small smile. "It's an acquired taste."
The wall of ice between them didn't disappear. But it developed a door. And cautiously, they both stepped through.
**November 28, 2016 – The Resurrection**
By late November, the garage workbench looked like the cockpit of a spaceship that had crash-landed in a barn. Wires sprawled across the surface like creeping vines, linking old, yellowed parts to sleek, modern circuit boards.
For 72 hours, they had survived on coffee, adrenaline, and fading hope.
"We're trying to shove an elephant through a keyhole," Isabella groaned late on the third night. She brushed a strand of greasy hair from her forehead. Her eyes were red. "The kernel keeps rejecting the new architecture."
"It's the security protocols," Alen said, his voice rough with fatigue. He stared at the screen as another cascade failure began. The Red Queen's code screamed in digital agony.
"We're not stopping," Isabella said fiercely. She grabbed his arm, her grip surprisingly strong. "We've come too far. I have an idea."
"What?"
"We stop trying to force it," she said. "We build a bridge. We create a virtual machine that mimics the old Umbrella mainframe, trick the AI into thinking it's home, and then, once it boots, we migrate the consciousness to the new drive."
"That's risky," Alen said. "If the bridge collapses, we wipe the core."
"Do it," Alen said. "I trust you."
The words hung in the air. I trust you.
Isabella didn't hesitate. She typed the command sequence.
The fans on the workbench roared to life. The lights in the garage flickered as the system drew massive power.
98%... 99%...
The screen went black.
Silence.
Then, a soft, crystalline red light filled the space. From the central holographic emitter they had jury-rigged, a form appeared.
A young girl. In a red dress.
The image flickered, then stabilized into perfect, high-definition clarity.
The voice that filled the garage was synthesized, British, and clear.
<< SYSTEMS REBOOTING. >>
<< PRIMARY FUNCTIONS: RESTORED. >>
<< CORRUPTION PROTOCOLS: PURGED. >>
<< I AM OPERATIONAL. >>
The hologram turned to look at Alen.
<< HELLO, ALEN. THANK YOU FOR REACTIVATING ME. >>
Isabella gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Alen stared, relief washing the tension from his face. It worked. The legacy was saved.
In that moment of shared victory, every remaining barrier fell. Alen turned to Isabella. She looked up at him, her face illuminated by the red glow. Tears of exhausted triumph sparkled in her eyes, but this time, she was smiling.
He reached for her. She met him halfway.
The kiss was not gentle. It was a collision. It was the release of four months of fear, loneliness, tension, and unspoken need. Her hands gripped his shirt tightly; his fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her close. The logical world of code and components vanished, replaced by the primal, electric connection of two survivors finding solace in the dark.
They didn't make it out of the garage.
**The Aftermath**
Later that night, in the quiet of the guest cottage, Master Shi Yan Xing paused in his meditation. The night breeze carried a sound through the open window—distant, passionate cries echoing from the main house. It was the sound of life, fiercely reclaimed.
A small, serene smile appeared on the old monk's lips. His wife, pouring tea, met his gaze.
"The winter is over," Shi murmured.
"He has been alone in that darkness for too long," his wife said softly. "He deserved to find someone to pull him back into the light."
The next morning, dawn painted the Texas sky in shades of peach and gold.
Alen woke up in his own bed. The space beside him was warm. The scent of brewing coffee—real coffee, not the gas station sludge—filled the room.
He walked into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Isabella was there, wearing one of his shirts, her bare legs catching the morning sun. She handed him a mug.
"Good morning," she said, a shy smile on her lips. "Sleep well?"
"Yeah," he replied, his voice husky. He took the coffee, his fingers brushing hers. "We did it. She's back."
"We did," Isabella agreed. She leaned against the counter. "But she's running on a patched framework. She needs a full upgrade. New programming languages. Adaptive learning. We need to build her a proper home. A Red Queen 3.0."
Alen looked at her—really looked at her. He didn't see Excella Gionne. He didn't see a liability. He saw a partner.
"Then let's build it," Alen said. "Together."
**Mission Update:**
Status: Operational.
Asset Upgrade: Red Queen AI restored.
Relationship Status: Bonded.
Current Objective: Construct Red Queen 3.0 infrastructure.
Next Step: Prepare for the coming storm. The Connections are still out there.