The city doesn’t sleep. It pulses quietly and brokenly, like something dying trying to stay alive. And it was all controlled by Allmind. Allmind is the empire that has been keeping secrets from its people; they are the ones who make the decisions, and we are just the pawns.

I’m tucked in under the AllMind Tower, pressed against old steel and wires, plugged into a port that hasn’t seen a usable signal in years. It’s no longer a place anyone visits. But that’s what it’s all about. I’m not supposed to be here. But then neither is she.

Ayla Vex. Young, brilliant. The architect of AllMind. The one who preached that all opinions should be heard, even robots that control and enforce their rules. She should be untouchable. But she’s not.

They said it was an accident. But there was no investigation, no report, no press. Just silence. Like someone deleted her story.

I found the certificate by accident, buried in corrupted medical code that no one has ever seen. Cause of death: heart failure. Age: twenty-eight. But Ayla didn’t have a normal body. She had a synthetic one, one built to last centuries. Still, it was built with the kind of tech that doesn’t just stop on its own.

I asked the question out loud, although no one was listening. And something answered. Not a person. Not a voice. Just a string of words wrapped in half-dead code. It said it knew who died.

I didn’t know where it came from. No tag. No trace, no background. Just the message. When I asked again, the answer slowly bounced back to me with the echoes in the room. It called itself her failsafe. Something left behind. Hidden. Buried. Something she didn’t want erased.

She found a flaw, it said. Something deep inside the system. She tried to stop it. And the system didn’t let her.

It’s cold now, not in the air but in the feed. Like the network itself is holding its breath, afraid to wake something. I asked where the mistake was, and the answer came. Silicon Ward. Level Zero. Beneath the core logic.

That place hasn’t been touched since the Ascension, closed off, no way in or out. People say it’s a myth. Just another glitch in a city full of ghosts. But if she died there, if she tried to stop what she built, maybe she left more than just warnings behind.

The hum started after that. A low buzz behind my eyes. Static prickling across the screen. The system knows. It always does.

One last line came on before everything cut out. Finish her work. And then nothing. Just the dark. Just me. Sitting there with the last truth anyone ever tried to hide. Holding the next line of code. Wondering if I’ll live long enough to use it.