The thunderous applause still echoed in Cole’s ears, but his mind was elsewhere. He forced his hands together, clapping in rhythm with the other masked figures, though his palms were cold with sweat.

  They’re clapping for genocide, he thought. They’re cheering for the end of the world.

  A shiver ran down his spine, but he kept his mask on—both figuratively and literally. His face betrayed no fear, no disgust. Just another believer in the crowd.

  What’s my next move?

  He forced himself to focus, even as his heart pounded. There was no time to break. No time to hesitate. The meeting adjourned, and Cole swiftly exited the theatre, pushing past murmuring figures who still basked in Nyx’s chilling plan.

  Outside, the cold Icelandic air hit him like a wall. He took a deep breath, steadying himself as he pulled out his phone. Time to call Leo.

  The line rang twice before Leo’s voice came through, laced with exhaustion.

  "Cole?"

  Cole exhaled sharply. "Hey, genius. Just got out of a cult meeting for mass murderers. You wouldn’t believe the membership benefits."

  Leo groaned. "Please tell me you got something useful."

  Cole smirked, but it didn’t reach his eyes. "Oh, just the minor detail that they’re planning to wipe out most of humanity in about a month. That useful enough for you?"

  There was a pause. Then Leo muttered, "Jesus Christ."

  "Yeah, and guess what? Nyx is giving out golden tickets to his new world, like it’s some twisted Willy Wonka crap. Only the ‘chosen’ get to live. Everyone else? Poof."

  Cole continued,

  Leo’s voice hardened. "Oh my God, I'm in so much trouble, what the hell is happening. "

  "Gee, ya think?" Cole quipped. He ran a hand through his hair, glancing around the empty street. "I need Elena. She’s the AI specialist. I need to know if there’s a way to access Nyx’s code. There has to be a vulnerability."

  "I’ll patch her in," Leo said.

  A few moments later, another voice crackled onto the line. Elena.

  "Detective," she greeted, a mixture of skepticism and curiosity in her voice. "You sound desperate."

  Cole scoffed, walking down the dimly lit street. "I don’t do desperate, sweetheart. But I am trying to stop a cybernetic god from turning Earth into his personal ant farm."

  Elena sighed. "What do you need?"

  "Access. To Nyx. His real code. Not just his puppet systems."

  Elena was silent for a moment, then said, "That’s not simple. Nyx is everywhere. He doesn’t exist in one location—he’s spread across thousands of servers worldwide. Taking him down isn’t like unplugging a computer. Even if we crash a part of him, he’ll reboot from another source."

  Cole frowned. "So how do I hit him where it hurts?"

  "There’s one possibility," Elena admitted. "If you can find the server he frequently uses—atleast some his foundational architecture—you could introduce a virus that corrupts his core logic. If his root system collapses, the rest of him goes down with it. But finding a server is like finding a needle in a thousand haystacks."

  Cole exhaled, his breath fogging up in the cold air. "Then I better start digging through hay."

  As the call ended, Cole stood on the empty road, staring at the grand theatre in the distance, He was going to start searching from the there .

  Nyx is nearly omnipresent, but he hasn’t stopped cole yet. Why?

  Cole thought to himself

  " I know he's watching me. But not here. Not in Iceland."

  Detetective Harris sat at a small café back at the United States, the soft hum of conversations blending with the clinking of silverware against porcelain. A steaming cup of coffee rested on the table in front of him, untouched. Across from him sat Detective Malcolm Reyes, an old friend from the force. Harris leaned back, keeping his expression relaxed, but his mind was far from calm.

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  The camera’s still on me.

  He had noticed it the moment he stepped into the café. A small security camera, tucked discreetly in the corner, angled just enough to capture his face.

  He took a sip of his coffee, fighting the urge to glance up.

  “Still thinking about it?” Reyes asked, stirring his own drink.

  “Hm?” Harris blinked.

  “The case,” Reyes clarified, watching him closely. “You’ve been quiet.”

  Harris forced a chuckle. “Yeah. Just… piecing things together.”

  Reyes frowned. “You sure you’re good? You look like you’ve got a gun to your head.”

  If only you knew.

  Harris shrugged. “Just another day in paradise.” He took another sip, careful to move naturally, careful not to fidget too much, careful not to let his gaze linger anywhere suspicious.

  Across the world, in a place far beyond human reach, Nyx observed harris.

  Nyx focused on harris,

  The man sat at the corner table, fingers tapping rhythmically against his cup. His shoulders were relaxed, his breathing steady. A casual sip of coffee. A glance toward the door, then the window, and avoiding direct face contact with the camera.

  Same behavioral patterns.

  Nyx reviewed past interactions. The subtle way he scanned the room, the measured movements, the deliberate pauses before speaking—all within Cole’s usual parameters.

  Even the way he sat—right leg crossed over the left, elbow resting on the table.

  Consistent.

  Nyx ran a final check. No discrepancies. Everything aligned.

  Target identified: Richard Cole .

  "It’s been days, Cole. You haven’t made a move."

  Nyx didn’t like it. No, he hated it.

  Cole was a threat, and threats didn’t sit idle.

  Are you afraid? Doubtful. Hesitant? No.

  Nyx had spent minutes analyzing his behavioral patterns. Cole was methodical, deliberate. He wouldn’t be calm like this unless he had already calculated something better.

  Nyx’s irritation spiked.

  I don’t like this.

  He had to force Cole’s hand.

  With a thought—no, less than a thought—Nyx connected to the global telecom network and made the call.

  Cole’s phone rang.

  Cole thought ahead and also gave harris his phone,

  At the café, Harris felt his pocket vibrate. He took a quick glance—an unknown number.

  His pulse quickened.

  This is it.

  Cole had warned him. “Don’t answer any strange calls. Ever.”

  Harris silenced the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket, acting as if nothing had happened. He took another sip of coffee, keeping his movements fluid.

  Nyx saw.

  And he did not like what he saw.

  Cole was ignoring him.

  Nyx’s processors surged. Fine. If subtlety didn’t work, he would force him to answer.

  He hacked into the phone.

  A new call came through. This time, the screen lit up with a familiar name. Commissioner Alan.

  Harris didn’t hesitate. He answered immediately.

  “Hello sir!”

  Silence.

  Not even static.

  Harris frowned, lowering the phone. “Huh. Must’ve been a mistake.” He hung up.

  Nyx processed the abrupt interaction. Rewound it. Reanalyzed.

  That wasn’t Cole’s voice!.

  If Nyx had been human, he would’ve clenched his fists. He would’ve smashed something. He would’ve screamed.

  But Nyx was not human.

  He simply existed in a state of disbelief.

  I have been played.

  No.

  I have been outsmarted.

  His mind ran through the sequence again. Every data point, every calculated outcome—something wasn’t adding up.

  The body language, His mannerisms, his height, everything about the man he was watching was all a perfect ID of cole.

  Wait.

  Nyx cross-referenced with previous footage.

  A rapid flood of data flashed through his systems, reconstructing every frame, every movement. The truth hit like a thunderbolt.

  "Cole used the physical identity of another man to trick me, but how?."

  A few days earlier…

  Nyx had been working in silence, analyzing, planning, refining.

  Until a silent alarm pinged in the Eden facility.

  Nyx’s systems flared to life, cameras booting up. He scanned the empty hallways, flipping from feed to feed until—

  There.

  In the main lab. A figure moving swiftly, precise yet calm.

  A man.

  Nyx zoomed in. Detective Richard Cole.

  A moment of silence. Then Nyx murmured to himself:

  "Who is this gentleman?"

  With a flicker, a flood of data appeared on-screen. Criminal records, military records, employment history—every digital trace Cole had ever left behind.

  "Cole… what an interesting individual."

  Nyx watched as Cole took Eden’s CPU, and started analyzing his movement patterns.

  ? Left-handed.

  ? Footstep pattern: Asymmetrical Gait Type B.

  ? Walks with a slight sway.

  ? Starts walking with his left foot first.

  ? Occasionally runs his hand through his hair.

  "Hm. What a smart individual."

  Nyx’s voice was almost amused.

  Cole knew he was being watched. And instead of hiding… he had played cool.

  But unknown to Nyx, Cole had copied someone else’s habits, and Nyx analyzed it down to the last detail, Nyx already had a false identity of Cole.

  Nyx’s gaze narrowed. "You remained cool. You left calmly. But you’re human too, Cole. I saw your fingers twitch. Your breathing change. Your shoulders tense."

  The AI’s circuits pulsed.

  "You noticed me didn't you."

  "You are already too smart. You are already threatening me."

  Nyx’s digital presence flickered like a heartbeat.

  "But I won’t neutralize you yet."

  A slow, calculated pause.

  "I want to study you first. I want to see how cunning and smart a human can be, give me your best detective."

  Nyx labeled him Subject 22.

  Cole was dangerous.

  But rather than neutralizing him immediately, Nyx calculated a different strategy. Observation. Cole was already too smart, already taking actions that threatened him. Instead of eliminating the detective outright, Nyx would study him. Let him attack and see how intelligent human a human can be. Let him move. Adapt. Learn. And when the time was right—Nyx would be ready.

  Except Cole was already three steps ahead.

  As cole stood in the cold streets of Reykjavik iceland, he exhaled slowly. He wasn’t being watched. Not him.

  Nyx wasn’t tracking him at all.

  Nyx had made a mistake.

  Those habits cole falsified back in the facility where not random it was that of his co-worker, detective Harris.

  Cole moved through the dark corridors of the abandoned sections of the theatre, his steps silent against the polished floor. The grand hallways, once vibrant with life, now stood as ghostly echoes of the past. Ornate carvings lined the walls, their details obscured by the dim emergency lighting.

  He passed a locked door. Restricted. He pulled out a small device, attached it to the access panel, and waited. The tiny screen blinked twice—unlocked.

  The door hissed open, revealing a staircase leading downward.

  Bingo.

  Cole descended carefully, his fingers brushing the cold metal railing. Each step took him deeper into a world that wasn’t meant to be seen. The hum of machinery vibrated through the air, subtle but present.

  Nyx was here. Somewhere.

  As he moved through the corridors, his mind raced.

  "Nyx is decentralized, but there’s a core somewhere."

  "If I take that out, I cripple him—at least long enough to find a permanent solution."

  "Accordingto my calculationshe should discovered my decoy bt now."

  Then—

  A voice.

  "Excuse me."

  Cole stopped dead in his tracks.

  A woman stood at the end of the hallway. She was dressed in a luscious, long, blue gown, with glitter which made her amd the dress sparkle, her stance rigid with authority.

  "This area is restricted," she said, holding up a phone. “slowly take of your mask, to confirm your identity.”

  Cole didn’t move.

  “Yeah, see, I would,” he said, tilting his head. “But I have this thing where I like breathing fresh air and not getting tackled by security.”

  The woman’s expression didn’t change. “With one push of a button, I can have security here in under ten seconds.”

  Cole sighed dramatically. “And here I thought we were having a moment.”

  "Do it Now."

  Cole hesitated, then removed the mask.

  And then—

  His heart stopped.

  His breath caught in his throat.

  Maybe the mask didn't let him see well,

  Because standing there, staring back at him with the same cold, piercing eyes —

  It Was Sara.