The safehouse was a tomb of rusted iron and humming silicon. To the outside world, it was an abandoned basement in the industrial district. To Arthur's Overseer Eyes, it was a "Sandbox Zone"—a tiny pocket of reality he had claimed, now riddled with the "infection" of a traitor's signal.
[STATUS: SYSTEM OVERSEER (LVL 5)]
[ACTIVE DETECTION: OUTBOUND PACKET 'K-7' – ENCRYPTED]
Arthur stepped through the heavy steel door. He didn't make a sound. His boots didn't click; he had simply Edited the friction between his soles and the floor to zero. He moved like a ghost through a machine.
Elena sat in her swivel chair, the blue light of three monitors reflecting in her glasses. Her fingers were a blur. She looked like a genius at work, but the Architect's Eyes saw the truth: a violet thread of code stretched from the base of her skull, tunneling through the safehouse walls and connecting directly to the Man in White.
"The HARP-04 crash is all over the dark web," Elena said, her voice steady. She didn't turn around. "The world is calling it a 'meteorological anomaly.' Good work, Arthur. With four fragments, we can finally start building a permanent firewall against the System."
Arthur stood exactly three feet behind her. He could hear her heart. It wasn't beating with the rhythm of a hero. It was the frantic, uneven pulse of a cornered animal.
NAME: Elena
HIDDEN TRUTH:Neural Link Hijacked.
SUB-ROUTINE:'Judas Protocol' – Execute when Target is within 1 meter.
LOYALTY: 8% (Hostile / Compelled)
"Who is 'K-7', Elena?" Arthur asked. His voice was no longer his own; it carried the resonance of the Chrome King, a deep, vibrating bass that made the water in the glasses on the table ripple.
The typing stopped. The server racks seemed to hold their breath. Sarah, who was at the back of the room loading a fresh magazine into her rifle, looked up. The color drained from her face as she saw the golden glow radiating from Arthur's eyes.
"Arthur... I don't know what—"
"Don't lie to the man who can see your thoughts as text," Arthur interrupted.
[The Neural Trap]
Arthur stepped into the one-meter "Kill Zone."
Elena spun. She wasn't holding a gun. She held a Data-Spike—a jagged shard of pure, concentrated System-corruption. It glowed with a sickening ultraviolet light. It was designed to do one thing: "Format" a System-user's brain.
"I'm sorry!" she screamed, lunging at his chest. "He told me you'd destroy everything! He showed me a vision of you on that throne, Arthur! You were treading on the skulls of everyone we saved!"
Arthur didn't flinch. He didn't move his arms.
[SKILL: AERO-KINESIS – COMMAND: 'PRESSURE LOCK']
The air around Elena's arm solidified into invisible concrete. The Data-Spike stopped an inch from Arthur's heart. She strained, her muscles tearing under the effort, but she was fighting the atmosphere itself.
"He didn't show you a vision, Elena," Arthur said, leaning in until his golden eyes were all she could see. "He showed you a mirror. And you were too weak to look away."
[The Architect's Mercy]
"Arthur, stop!" Sarah ran forward, her hands out. "She's being controlled! You can see the link, right? Just cut the link!"
"If I cut the link, her brain fries," Arthur said, his tone clinical, as if he were discussing a broken laptop. "The Man in White has rigged her neural pathways to detonate if the connection is severed. She is a biological bomb."
[SYSTEM PROMPT: ASSET 'ELENA' IS CRITICALLY COMPROMISED]
ANALYZE:Total erasure of personality would yield 100% security.
ANALYZE:Partial rewrite would leave 'bugs' of resentment.
Arthur's hand moved toward her forehead. His fingers were shimmering, flickering between flesh and golden pixels.
"Arthur, please," Elena sobbed, the pressure of the air making it hard for her to breathe. "Just... kill me. Don't let me be his puppet."
"I have a better idea," Arthur whispered.
[SKILL: REALITY EDIT – COMMAND: 'FORGET THE KILLER']
He didn't just cut the link. He reached into the "History" file of her mind and began deleting entries. He deleted the Man in White. He deleted the Kill Order. He deleted the last six hours of her life.
[NOTIFICATION: MENTAL STABILITY DECREASED TO 65%]
[SYSTEM DEBT INCURRED: TEMPORARY ANHEDONIA (Inability to feel joy)]
Elena's eyes rolled back. The violet light in her pupils shattered like a broken bulb. She slumped forward, the Data-Spike falling harmlessly to the floor. Arthur caught her, his face showing absolutely no emotion—no pity, no relief, just the cold satisfaction of a job completed.
[The New Map]
He laid her on the cot and turned back to the monitors. Sarah was staring at him, her gun lowered, her eyes filled with a new kind of terror.
"You just... you just took a part of her," Sarah whispered. "You didn't ask. You just reached in and took it."
"I saved the asset," Arthur said. He looked at his hands; they were steady, but he felt nothing. No satisfaction. No warmth. The Anhedonia penalty had kicked in instantly. "The 5th Fragment is calling. It's in the Abyssal Forge."
He pointed to the screen. A new map was generating, showing the deepest trench in the Atlantic.
"The Man in White failed here," Arthur said, grabbing his coat. "He'll try to meet us at the Forge. He thinks the 'Old Code' monsters down there will stop me."
Arthur looked at Sarah, his golden eyes devoid of light.
"Pack the pressurized suits. We leave in ten minutes. And Sarah? Don't worry about Elena. When she wakes up, she'll be happy. That's more than I can say for the rest of us."