POV: Cole (within Nico)
The sensation of being two people at once was no longer a novelty—it was a war. Inside Nico's mind, Cole had grown louder, more present. His memories bubbled up uninvited. Smells, sounds, snippets of conversations in opulent boardrooms, bloodstains on white marble. Cole Harker was a ghost with fingerprints.
Nico sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor of the safehouse's lower vault, a cracked tablet in front of him playing archived NeuroLease advertisements. The bright smiles and euphoric taglines were a jarring contrast to the gnawing dread in his stomach.
Across from him, Lira watched with cautious interest.
"You're different now," she said.
Nico looked up. "He's... always there."
"Can you separate him?"
"I don't know anymore."
Cole's voice drifted in like smoke. Why would you want to? You've seen what we're up against. You need my edge.
"No," Nico whispered aloud. "I need to stay me."
Surveillance Breach
The door to the vault buzzed. Sura entered, eyes wide with panic.
"We've got a problem."
"What kind of problem?" Lira asked.
"NeuroLease just deployed the Specter Units."
The room fell silent.
Specters weren't soldiers. They were body-leased mercenaries, elite minds embedded in disposable combat shells. No memories, no identities—just task execution.
"They're sweeping the city," Sura said. "Looking for anomalies. Anything with a mirrored neural signature." She glanced at Nico. "You're glowing like a flare to them."
Nico's breath hitched. "What do we do?"
"We move," Lira said. "We can't afford to be found. If they extract you, they won't stop at your body. They'll dig into your mind until nothing is left."
A Fleeing Fire
The team gathered what they could. Old tech, makeshift weapons, data cores—each one a lifeline. Echo Root's network had already begun evacuating from surface shelters. The city was becoming a cage.
As they moved through old sewer tunnels, Cole kept whispering.
You know where they're going, Nico. You've seen the war table. Let me help.
Nico hesitated. "What do you mean?"
A secret relay station under Southpoint Tower. It's where they route emergency protocols. We can cut into the Specters' hive link. Reprogram them.
"You're guessing."
I'm remembering.
Nico looked to Lira. "There might be a way to intercept the Specters. Feed them false directives."
She gave him a wary look. "That's Cole talking."
"It's both of us."
Southpoint
Reaching the relay meant crossing through Sector Twelve—now a red zone. Drones hovered like mechanical vultures. Surveillance lights carved the darkness into bright cages.
Lira and Nico moved at night. They slipped through maintenance shafts and shadowed alleys. The city's cold heartbeat echoed in their bones.
At the base of Southpoint Tower, they found what Cole remembered: a locked security panel, disguised as an access conduit.
Nico's fingers trembled over the keypad.
Cole's voice was firm. Override 6-1-8. Confirm with Harker's internal ID string: Kilo-Eight-Seven-Theta.
The door opened.
Inside, the relay room glowed a sterile white. A single console pulsed with a data stream. Nico stepped forward.
"What now?" Lira asked.
"I plug in."
He inserted the stolen drive from the vault. The console buzzed violently, data flooding into the air like digital pollen.
Lines of Specter protocols emerged. Command chains. Behavioral scaffolds. Kill orders.
Nico stared at the list of targets. His name was at the top.
"Can you overwrite it?" Lira asked.
"I can try."
Cole's voice sharpened. Let me handle it.
"No." Nico clenched his jaw. "You're not taking this from me."
He began coding—redirecting execution directives, altering priorities. Instead of attacking Echo Root operatives, the Specters would target dummy signals scattered across the industrial zones.
Nico's fingers moved faster than his thoughts. He didn't even notice the moment Cole stopped whispering and started doing.
Blowback
A wave of heat slammed into Nico's skull. His eyes rolled back as he convulsed, collapsing beside the console.
"Nico!" Lira dropped to his side.
He blinked, gasping, vision fractured. Voices overlapped in his head—some his, some Cole's, some that weren't either.
"I did it," he groaned. "But they'll know. They'll trace the loop."
"We have to leave—now."
Alarms began to sound.
Escape and Echoes
They fled through a maintenance corridor just before security bots breached the relay room. Explosions rattled the walls. Debris chased them down the tunnel.
They emerged into the outskirts as dawn bled into the sky—pale and bruised.
From a rooftop, they watched Specters pour into the wrong district.
"We bought time," Lira said.
"Not enough," Nico replied, his voice distant. "They'll evolve the command structure. They'll patch the exploit."
"But you shook them. That matters."
He turned to her. "I saw something when I was in the console. Files I didn't open. One was labeled: TRUTHGATE."
Lira's expression tightened. "That was Cole's classified access project. Even the board feared it."
"What is it?"
"I don't know," she said. "But if it's still active, it's the key to all of this."
Cole's voice returned—calm, measured, certain.
Truthgate isn't just a project. It's a person.
Nico froze. "Who?"
Cole hesitated.
Me.