The soft crunch of Luna's shoes against the stone path was accompanied by the warm glow of the mansion's porch light. As the heavy gates closed behind her car, she spotted a familiar figure waiting at the entrance.
Emmerich stood tall, still dressed sharply despite the late hour, arms loosely crossed and eyes steady with quiet patience.
Luna couldn't help but grin as she approached, her steps quickening. "You're really waiting outside like some old drama dad," she teased lightly, then poked his side with a crooked finger. "Told you I'm not rebellious. And hey—I even made it in time for dinner."
Emmerich chuckled, the lines around his eyes softening. "I never doubted you."
His hand came to rest briefly on her shoulder, firm but gentle. "Welcome home, Luna."
A beat passed—brief, warm, grounding—and Luna smiled more earnestly, her teasing easing into something genuine. "Glad to be back, Dad."
Together, they stepped through the grand doors into the mansion's warmth.
—
Dinner was already set in the smaller dining room—Emmerich's preferred space for their more casual meals. It was still elegant by most standards, but far cozier than the formal banquet hall. Luna quickly set her phone on the table and pulled up her gallery.
As they ate, she scrolled through the photos, sliding the screen toward Emmerich between bites. "This one's from the top of the hill near the lake," she explained, her voice animated. "And here's Mary finally giving in and letting me roll her down the slope like a potato sack. Oh—this is Kana half-asleep during karaoke, I swear she was just humming whatever sound came out of her soul."
Emmerich watched each picture and video with quiet attention, smiling faintly at some, laughing aloud at others. "It looks like you had a wonderful time," he said. "The people you went with… they seem good for you."
"They are," Luna agreed softly, her tone filled with a kind of gratitude she didn't often voice.
Then, Emmerich lifted his wineglass halfway. "Perhaps we should plan something too. Just the two of us. A family trip."
The clinking of Luna's fork against her plate halted. She looked up, eyes wide with surprise—and something else.
A hesitation.
She lowered her utensils gently and folded her hands in front of her. "I…" she began, then drew a quiet breath. "Maybe we can hold off on that. Until I know the truth about Mom. Whether she's still alive or not."
There was no bitterness in her voice—just vulnerability. Sorrow tucked neatly beneath steady words. She met his gaze, not accusing, not demanding, only… searching.
Emmerich's expression shifted. Not surprised, not hurt—just still, like a man who carried a long-standing ache.
He nodded, slowly. "That's fair," he said. "I understand."
Then, after a pause, he added, "I want you to know that I haven't stopped searching either. I've had people—good people—looking into Lin's trail for years. And now that you're with me, Luna… it matters even more. We'll find the truth. Together."
Luna's chest swelled with emotion, and her eyes stung, just a little. She nodded once, unable to form words for a heartbeat.
"Thank you," she finally whispered. "I needed to hear that."
Emmerich smiled gently. "You're not alone anymore."
Luna smiled back. And though the ache for her mother's fate still lingered, something in her heart finally settled—just enough to breathe easier, knowing her father would face it with her.
__________________________________________________________________
The wind in the outskirts of the lawless zone smelled of ash, rusted metal, and scorched circuitry—a land where borders meant little, and power played dirtiest under a fractured sky.
Edward stood beneath the exposed ribs of a half-collapsed tower, his commlink pressed tightly to his ear. His eyes tracked movement through a rusted gap in the steel, his fingers steady even as red alerts pinged across his retinal interface.
"They're slipping," he murmured. "Sector 8, west perimeter. Collapse the fallback route and flood the interior with disruptors. We'll drive them into the trap."
His team responded immediately, precise and clinical. The operation had been crafted like clockwork—he had accounted for everything. Or so he thought.
The breach came seconds later.
A low warning tone buzzed in his left ear—unauthorized access detected—followed by a quick burst of static. Then came the voice of the aide he had once trusted most.
"Sorry, Commander. They offered me something I couldn't refuse."
Edward's jaw clenched. He didn't need to ask. There was only one faction powerful enough to sway loyalty this deep—Digisurect Cult, the same rogue AI cult that had been chasing Lin's generative blueprint for years.
The feed went dead.
In a flash, Edward disengaged from the forward strike unit, dragging his coat over his arm to conceal the glowing interface running along his forearm. He issued a full withdrawal order and triggered a code purge on the classified data concerning Lin's last known traces.
The information—weeks of reconnaissance, decrypted old-world logs, movement patterns cross-referenced through black-market quantum signatures—erased in seconds.
Gone.
He leaned against the scorched wall, hand braced, eyes closed. Damn it.
His fists trembled—not from fear or anger, but frustration. I can't let them get to Lin... if they get to her first…
But even as everything collapsed, Edward's mind surged with a brutal, familiar clarity.
He had one card left. One path. One sin.
He reached into the collar of his undershirt, pulling out a thin obsidian chip embedded with anti-recognition nanotech—a relic of his origin. The final trace of the man he had once been. Not the polished elite bodyguard, not the strategist adored in polite society. But Unit E-01: the prototype hybrid born from a now-buried project—Project Vassal.
A forbidden experiment. Flesh merged with early artificial cognition. Designed to be the living vassal to a now-erased AI god.
He had died in the records twenty years ago.
He had lived only because Lin, that same woman, had freed him. Rewrote his directives. Erased his chain of command. And Luna—barely more than a toddler—had clung to his fingers like he was just another quiet uncle. Not a monster.
Edward opened his eyes.
"No more playing fair," he whispered.
He tapped the chip to the base of his neck, allowing the restricted systems—buried deep in encrypted neuromemory—to unlock.
Suddenly, the interface overlay turned black with code. Old sensory logs surged back. Memories, scents, coordinates, and forbidden accesses lit up across the crumbling map of the region. Paths only he could see.
His pupils contracted, syncing with the vassal drive. His voice dropped as he gave the directive:
"Activate Protocol Hound. Begin trace through the original shellnet of Virelia Ring."
Risking exposure. Risking his very existence.
But Lin mattered more. She always had.
And now, it was his turn to repay that act of salvation—before it was too late.
The makeshift command center was deep beneath the bones of a ruined biodome—once a green oasis, now a hollowed shell where rogue tech pulses echoed through blackened glass. Edward sat cross-legged before the central interface, jacket stripped off, his exposed back revealing cords snaking out from his spine into a custom neural bridge.
Sweat beaded down his temple as the fire of a thousand micro-signals scorched through his nerves.
The generative AI signature had emerged without warning, buried deep in the core of a broken data node previously used by the Digisurect Cult. It pulsed with extraordinary intricacy, coded like a living labyrinth. It was nothing like the other fractured AIs he'd dismantled. This one moved—weaving through the net with grace, evasion, and purpose.
"Lin?…" he murmured, voice hoarse.
His fingers flew across the projection keys, navigating deeper into the AI's central node. But with every level breached, resistance surged—layers of code that felt personal, not hostile. It wasn't trying to destroy him. It was trying to push him back.
Then the world flashed white.
Pain exploded through his spine—his neural pathways locking, buzzing like swarms of knives beneath his skin. His vision shattered into error code and static. His heart nearly stopped as his motor control flatlined. Systems screeched. Memories fractured.
Shutdown imminent.
But just before it all collapsed—
A pulse.
A signal encoded in a whisper.
A voice emerged through the static. Faint. Familiar.
"...Edward."
His body went still, breath trembling in his chest. The neural storm halted, and in the vast dark of his mind, a silhouette formed—light laced in ancient code, surrounded by strands of encrypted thought.
Lin.
Her voice had not aged a day. Calm, deliberate, unmistakably her.
"So, it really is you. I knew you'd come looking, even though I told Mu to tell you not to look for me."
Edward's breath shook. "Lin… you're alive. I—I thought—"
"Don't. Don't say it. I can't afford you compromising yourself for me."
She appeared as a figure of glimmering light—no facial detail, but a sense of her presence so overwhelming it brought a heaviness to Edward's chest. The signature—this AI construct—was her. A proxy she made, alive only in the space between forbidden networks and buried machine systems.
"I'm safe. I've made my choices. But you digging like this… It'll only draw more to my trail. They already suspect I'm not dead. Please, Edward… stop."
He clenched his jaw. "You left no trace. Emmerich never—"
"Because it was necessary."
Then silence.
Then, her voice softened, brittle with something like grief.
"You were never meant to come this far. But I suppose I should've known better. You've always had that terrible loyalty programmed too deeply. Just like how Luna kept insisting I can save you because I'm her mom, her superhero, and that you're a kid the same as her and that you deserve to be saved."
His eyes burned at the memory. "She misses you."
"And I miss her. But it's safer this way. You know it."
She paused.
"Tell Emmerich… to protect her well. Because soon, things will move. And when they do, she'll be at the center of it."
Edward swallowed hard. "Then what do I tell her?"
"...Nothing. Not yet."
The connection began to fade, the light unraveling.
"Goodbye, Edward."
"Lin—"
"Stay alive and become Luna's hero, too."
And then she was gone.
The bridge went silent.
Edward ripped the neural link from his back with a grimace, staggered, and collapsed into a crouch, chest heaving. His entire system flickered with pain. The code she'd used had nearly destroyed him—but not to kill him. To warn him.
His hands curled into fists. He could no longer seek her—not without risking everything. But there were still enemies moving. Factions hunting her signature. That, he could still kill.
He activated his tactical interface again, voice hoarse but steady.
"Begin purge cycle. Reassign mission scope. Target all Digisurect Cult assets in zones 9 through 12. No mercy."
His most trusted assistant responded, tone cold:
"Orders confirmed. Faction Digisurect Cult marked for elimination."
Edward stood tall once more.
Lin had warned him to stop looking.
But she also said to keep protecting.
The room was quiet, save for the soft hum of the air conditioning and the gentle purring of Milo, curled up like a fuzzy crescent moon against Luna's side. The warmth of the little feline companion usually soothed her—tonight, it only barely anchored her.
Luna lay on her bed, arms wrapped loosely around a pillow, her eyes trained on the ceiling, but her thoughts drifting further and further into the past.
Memories came in flickers.
Her mother's hands, graceful but calloused, flipping fluffy pancakes on their old cast-iron pan.
The sound of the training wheels clattering on pavement, her mother's voice steady behind her: "You're doing it, Luna!"
Her tiny fingers clutching a paper-wrapped brisket sandwich, grease staining the corners, her mom sipping coffee from a foam cup beside her as they leaned against the food truck railing.
The warm washcloth pressed to her fevered forehead, the sound of soft humming, and the way her mom never left her side for three days straight.
But then—
A cut.
A harsh severance in the reel of her mind.
She woke one morning to an empty apartment.
No footsteps.
No humming.
Just a letter folded precisely on the kitchen table.
Inside, a bundle of bills, and a line of barely legible handwriting:
"Go to the nearest social center. They will help you. —Mom."
That was all.
No goodbye.
No I love you.
No explanation.
Her throat tightened.
Luna turned to her side, facing Milo's slow-rising flank, her hand lightly resting on the cat's back as if it would keep the sadness at bay.
Her mother—Lin—had felt like the sun of her small world. The quiet hero. The soft-spoken genius who could fix broken appliances with a twist of the wrist but still kneel beside Luna to help her with her schoolwork like it was the most important thing in the world.
But she was gone. And now she had a father. A father who said her mother was once a famous inventor.
But when Luna had tried to find out more…
Nothing.
No published papers.
No patents.
No photographs.
Only silence.
And it gnawed at her. Had he lied?
She wanted to believe in Emmerich. He'd never once given her reason to doubt his affection or intentions.
But the silence surrounding her mother was louder than ever now. And even as Emmerich assured her he was searching, part of her feared it was just another way to shield her from a truth too heavy to face.
Luna blinked back tears and reached for her phone on instinct, heart still unsettled.
That's when it came—the dream that had been pulling at the corners of her consciousness.
Edward.
She didn't remember the full dream. Only the blood.
The fractured pavement.
His body shielding her.
His eyes—hollow but unwavering.
It could've been just a nightmare. But it didn't feel like one.
Heart hammering, Luna opened her chat and, without thinking, typed a message.
Be safe.
She hit send before she could stop herself. Before she could second guess.
Milo stirred slightly under her touch, sensing the tension in her breathing.
Luna lay back down and exhaled, hugging the pillow a little tighter, her thoughts still a chaotic mix of past and present—love and abandonment, fear and longing.
And somewhere, far away…
A man standing in a silent warzone glanced at his comm screen.
Luna's message blinked into view.