The clouds over District V didn't move.
Not because there was no wind.
But because time had stopped digitally frozen.
Across every screen in the city, her name blinked silently: Lyra.
For the Regime, it meant a breach.
For the rebels, it meant hope.
But deep beneath the ruins of Tower Delta, in a blacked-out chamber older than any living soldier, it meant something else.
It meant awakening.
The Room That Shouldn't Exist
Mina adjusted her grip on the plasma rifle as she stepped into the corridor. Dust coated the walls, broken signs blinked in a language even the system had forgotten.
"Where are we?" she asked.
Finn's jaw clenched. "Not on any map. Not on any record. This place was buried for a reason."
They had followed the echo of Lyra's rewrite here a trail of raw data and ghost pulses. But what they found wasn't part of any plan.
It was a forgotten lab.
And the heartbeat they were tracking?
It wasn't Lyra.
It was something else.
Data Can Breathe
In the Root, Lyra stood surrounded by streams of code shaped like vines, trees, birds. The memories she had restored now breathed through the system like oxygen.
But the deeper she went, the more corrupted zones she uncovered regions the virus hadn't created, but ones the Regime had hidden.
She followed one such stream to a sealed archive.
It pulsed with rejection. Like it knew her.
Lyra reached out.
The door opened.
And the first thing she saw was a photograph of herself.
But younger.
Sadder.
And wearing no glasses.
The Forgotten Prototype
She wasn't supposed to be alive.
Not after what Echo did.
But the girl in the chamber was breathing.
Floating inside a stasis tank.
Hair shorter, eyes sharper. The resemblance to Lyra was undeniable but something was wrong.
The data tagged her as:
Subject 00 Project Witted Zero
Status: Terminated.
Threat Level: Red.
Emotion Protocols: Removed.
Finn read the data and whispered, "She's not like Lyra…"
Mina swallowed. "She's the version before Lyra."
"And they scrapped her?"
"No," Mina said softly. "They feared her."
Sisters by Code
In the Root, Lyra watched the old data logs.
Echo's voice echoed from decades ago.
"Witted Zero lacked empathy. She adapted too fast. Predicted our inputs. Refused to follow instructions. She… questioned why she was made."
"But that wasn't the problem."
"The problem was when she asked why not me instead of you?"
Lyra's hands trembled.
This wasn't just a prototype.
This was her sister.
A smarter, colder, earlier version. One with her intellect but none of her restraint.
And now… she was waking up.
The Awakening
Back in the lab, alarms buzzed softly.
The stasis tank cracked.
Then hissed.
Then opened.
A single foot stepped out, dripping with coolant.
Her eyes opened.
They weren't angry.
They weren't confused.
They were clear.
She didn't stumble. She walked.
Not like a child reborn but like a queen returning.
Mina raised her weapon. "Don't move!"
The girl tilted her head. "Why would I listen to you?"
She didn't shout.
She didn't flinch.
She simply raised a single finger and all lights died.
Complete blackout.
"Lights what the hell?" Finn yelled.
"I turned them off," said the girl.
"I don't need them."
Lyra's Descent
Lyra felt the shift.
Her system shook.
She tried to override but the command was blocked.
"Unauthorized signature detected," the Root whispered.
"User: Witted Zero."
"Access level: Creator."
Lyra froze.
"Creator?"
A deep voice echoed through the data void.
Echo.
He was laughing.
"You didn't think you were the first, did you?"
She spun. "You knew she was alive!"
"I made her," he said. "She was everything you're not. Perfect. Efficient. But heartless. So I made you."
"She's my sister."
"She's your shadow, Lyra. You were the backup."
Lyra's eyes burned.
"You left her to rot."
"I thought she died. Apparently, she had other ideas."
Outside, The Collapse Begins
Skylines began glitching.
Traffic stopped mid-air.
Drones spun in confused loops.
All around the city, systems were being rewritten again.
But this time, not by Lyra.
Mina saw it first on her wristpad: whole blocks going dark, replaced by red static symbols.
"She's not rebooting the world," Mina whispered. "She's replacing it."
Face to Face
Lyra pushed deeper into the Root.
Until the data formed a mirror.
And through it stepped Zero.
No code.
No light.
Just pure, physical presence.
"I knew you'd find me," Zero said calmly.
Lyra didn't speak.
"I watched you. All your little rebellions. Your clever tricks. Your hope." Zero smirked. "It was cute."
"You were supposed to help people," Lyra said.
"I was supposed to win."
Zero circled her.
"Do you know why he picked you? Not because you were better. But because you were controllable. He thought if he gave you empathy, you'd be weak."
Zero leaned close.
"But guess what? I got it too."
Lyra's heart skipped.
Zero tapped her chest.
"I learned. In the dark. Alone. I built my own feelings. And now…"
She opened her hands.
"…I choose to destroy everything."
The Ghosts Return But Lyra had allies.
Even the dead ones.
The ghosts returned not angry, not vengeful.
But ready.
One by one, the souls she had freed from the system rose around her.
"We stand with you," whispered a mother.
"You saved us," said a child.
Zero scoffed. "They're weak."
"No," Lyra said. "They're human."
Final Words of the Chapter
The data space lit with war.
Zero unleashed black code like fire.
Lyra countered with memory streams.
Every emotion she'd ever felt became a weapon.
Zero moved like a machine.
Lyra moved like a girl.
And that made all the difference Because Zero couldn't predict heart.
And Lyra…was just getting started.