The Uncoded bunker was not a place of healing. It was a cage painted with freedom.
Kael sat alone in a chamber that once served as an operations hub for pre-collapse metro lines. The walls had been ripped open, lined with exposed coils and flickering light nodes. The air tasted of metal and mildew.
He hadn't slept since the message came.
Rhea is alive.
The words didn't bring peace. They brought noise. They brought doubt.
And they brought memories.
Buried Code
He stared into the flickering monitor screen, watching its random static pulse like a heartbeat. His reflection trembled in the fractured glass — eyes too bright, skin too still, like he was caught between human and something... else.
She's still in there.That phrase repeated itself like a broken loop.
She—the girl from his vision. The one who whispered inside his mind.
"You are not the first. You are not alone."
Was it Ayla? Was she even real?
The more he tried to remember, the more the memory folded in on itself like corrupted code. He'd seen her in the lab — or maybe in the grid. A ghost in the system. A mirror of himself, sharper, colder.
And her scream — it was made of light.
Rogue Signal
Across the room, a console sparked.
Kael didn't move.
The wires above him trembled. The screen scrambled, cleared, then displayed a single word in faint green text:
"REMEMBER."
Kael blinked.
"What—?"
The text glitched again. A new line appeared.
"HELIX IS A LOOP. YOU ARE THE ERROR."
Suddenly, the air shifted.
The room darkened. Not like a blackout — like something was eating the light.
Kael stood quickly, breath frozen in his chest.
The static on the monitor melted into a figure.
Her.
The girl. Ayla.
Her face flickered in and out — not flesh, not code, but something between.
She didn't speak with her mouth. Her words formed inside his mind like data bleeding through corrupted memory.
"They call me A-1. But I was never the first."
Kael staggered backward. "You're... in me."
"In the grid. In you. In all of us who touched Helix."
He gritted his teeth. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because the loop is repeating. And you must break it."
Then she vanished.
The light returned. The monitor exploded in a burst of sparks.
Lorne burst into the room seconds later, pistol raised. "What the hell was that?"
Kael turned slowly, eyes glowing faintly. "A warning."
Gathering Storm
Minutes later, Kael met the others in the war room. The core Uncoded leadership had gathered — Lorne, the cyber-woman Ava, two twins with mirrored memory implants, and a man called Sisk who rarely spoke.
"I don't trust this," Lorne snapped, pacing beside the hologram display table. "She gets a message through a sealed Helix firewall and now we're supposed to follow it into the dead zone?"
"She saved our lives," Ava said firmly. "Twice."
"People change."
"Or get left behind," she countered.
Kael stood apart from the group, silently watching. His eyes weren't glowing anymore, but there was a different intensity there — a stillness.
"I'll go," he said quietly.
Everyone turned.
Kael stepped forward. "She stayed behind for me. I'm going back for her."
"That's suicide," Lorne said. "They'll be expecting you."
"I know."
Ava crossed her arms. "You've changed since last night. You saw something, didn't you?"
Kael hesitated.
"Yes."
Meanwhile…
Sector 49-B was nothing more than a hollowed-out train tunnel, collapsed at both ends. But in the center, nestled beneath the old Helix hubway, a temporary command post had been set up.
Ashar Valen stood over the tactical map, unmoving. His face was calm. Cold.
But his mind buzzed.
Kael.
The boy's face had haunted him for days.
Not because of what he was. But because of what he wasn't.
Ashar had fought dozens of Helix experiments gone rogue. Some turned wild. Others imploded under psychic pressure. None of them held that look.
That question in their eyes.
Kael did.
And Ashar couldn't forget it.
Behind him, a Helix officer approached.
"Sir. Signal picked up from the undercity. Brief data burst — untraceable origin. We believe Subject H-7 is attempting contact."
Ashar turned slowly.
"Let him."
Preparation
Back in the bunker, Kael pulled on a suit of scavenged armor — not for protection, but to blend in. The undercity was vast and dangerous, filled with old drones, defense grids, and scavenger gangs who trusted no one.
Ava handed him a compact pistol and a data crystal.
"That's a kill-code," she said. "If Helix captures you and tries to use your brain as a node… use it."
Kael nodded. "Thanks."
Lorne stepped forward, arms crossed. "You screw this up, we all burn."
Kael paused at the hatch.
"I didn't ask for any of this," he said.
Then he was gone.
Echoes in the Tunnel
The tunnel was colder than it should've been. Kael crept between twisted rails and broken drone husks. His breath fogged the air, despite the heat of the machinery buried in the walls.
He heard them before he saw them.
Footsteps. Precise. Mechanical.
Helix recon.
Kael ducked behind a column. A patrol of three moved past — eyes blank, expressions frozen. Brainwashed? No. Synced.
A different fear ran through him.
They weren't just Helix. They were enhanced.
Suddenly, a thought hit his mind — not his own.
"Don't run."
Kael spun, gun raised.
Ashar stood five feet away, weapon holstered, face unreadable.
"You're not very good at hiding," he said.
"I wasn't trying to."
Ashar tilted his head. "You know who I am?"
"You're the Codebreaker."
"You've read the files."
Kael's jaw tightened. "No. I felt it."
Ashar took a slow step forward. "Then you already know I can kill you before you blink."
Kael raised the gun.
"I don't care."
Ashar stared at him. For the first time in years, he hesitated.
"You're afraid," Kael said.
Ashar blinked. "No."
"Yes," Kael said. "Because I'm not obeying the loop."
Ashar's expression shifted — barely. "Who told you about the loop?"
Kael stepped forward. "Ayla."
Ashar's composure finally cracked.
"She's dead," he said.
"No," Kael whispered. "She's awake."
Lines in the Sand
Silence hung between them.
Finally, Ashar lowered his hand.
"I won't stop you."
Kael didn't move. "Why?"
Ashar stared into the darkness. "Because I think I remember what it feels like to choose."
Extraction
With Ashar's warning, Kael moved quickly to the extraction point.
Rhea was there.
Barely standing. Face bruised. Blood on her coat.
Her eyes lit up when she saw him.
"You made it," she breathed.
"So did you."
They embraced — brief, fierce, real.
"Did anyone follow you?" she asked.
"Not yet. But they're coming."
"I have data," she said, pulling a drive from her coat. "Not just about you — about all of us. Every experiment. Every failure. Every cover-up."
Kael nodded. "Then we burn them down."
She smiled. "You're ready now."
Kael looked out toward the lights growing in the distance.
"No," he said.
"I'm just beginning.".........
End of Chapter Three
To be continued...