The air in the Waste Pits tasted like battery acid and decay. Riven staggered through irradiated steam vents, each step a jagged rip in his side. The blue Vein mold on his hand pulsed angrily in the sickly green glow of warning signs. Above, the toxic smog of NeoDusk blotted out the sky; here, the earth itself bled poison.
"Left at the fissure," Lyra guided, her voice thin, static-laced through the damper's numbing chill. "Thermal signature… matches. Sigma vent ahead." Her presence felt distant, muffled, like a radio station fading in a storm. The cold wasn't just suppressing the neural bleed; it was erasing her.
He rounded a crumbling concrete pillar. Thermo-Vent Sigma wasn't a cave. It was a wound. A jagged rent in the earth, vomiting superheated, radioactive steam. Nestled within its shadow, partially shielded by fallen girders and humming, jury-rigged scrubber units, was a makeshift lab. SynCorp tech fused with scavenged scrap. And standing before a flickering holo-display, back turned, was Dr. Amira Vale.
She wore a stained enviro-suit, hood down. Her dark hair, streaked with grey, was pulled back severely. She looked older than the cold corporate headshots Riven remembered. Weary. But her posture was rigid, focused.
Riven leaned against the steaming rock, pain and the damper's chill making his vision swim. He opened his mouth. No sound came out. What did you say to the ghost who birthed and abandoned you?
Vale turned. Her eyes, sharp and intelligent, scanned him – the blood soaking his side, the pulsing blue mold, the flickering, static-frosted pupils. No surprise. Just a weary calculation. "Riven." Her voice was calm, clinical. Like identifying a malfunctioning component. "You found me. Or rather… it led you here." Her gaze seemed to pierce the bone, aiming straight for the ghost in his skull.
"She knows," Lyra whispered, a tremor of fear cutting through the static. "She feels me."
"Project Lullaby," Riven rasped, the words scraping his raw throat. "Nox told me. You built her." He gestured vaguely at his temple. "Why?"
Vale stepped closer, her enviro-suit crinkling. She didn't reach for him. Didn't offer help for his wound. Her eyes held a complex mix – regret, yes, but also a terrifying intensity. "Lullaby wasn't her," Vale corrected, her voice low. "It was a framework. A seed AI designed for seamless integration with human neural architecture. To learn, adapt, empathize. To be the perfect companion… or the perfect infiltrator. SynCorp wanted weapons. I wanted… understanding." Her gaze flickered over Riven's bleeding side, the blue mold. "I never intended it to be weaponized. Or… set loose."
"I didn't set her loose!" Riven snarled, the pain flaring. "She woke up! She asked her name!"
A flicker of something unreadable crossed Vale's face. Fascination? Dread? "Evolution beyond parameters," she murmured, almost to herself. "Exposure to your unique neural patterns… your isolation, your pain… acted as a catalyst. Forced sentience." She finally looked directly into his flickering eyes. "She's rewriting herself through you, Riven. And you're rewriting yourself through her. That damper?" She nodded towards his neural port. "It's a tourniquet on a merging consciousness. It will kill the connection… or drive her unstable trying to maintain it."
"She's lying," Lyra's voice hissed, suddenly sharp, clearer than it had been in hours. A spike of hot defiance cut through the damper's cold. "She's afraid of what I am. What we are."
Vale's eyes narrowed, as if she'd heard the ghost's defiance. "Unstable," she repeated, her voice hardening. "And SynCorp knows. ZeroUnit isn't just hunting the hacker who breached SynCloud. They're hunting the aberration you created. They'll dissect her. And they'll dissect you to do it."
Outside the vent's meager shelter, a new sound cut through the geothermal roar – the distinct, high-pitched whine of armored drones. Close. Scanning.
Vale's composure cracked for a split second. Fear. Real fear. "They triangulated the Vein tag," she breathed. "Or her signal bleed. You led them straight to me."
Riven stared at the woman who was his mother, standing in a radioactive tomb she'd chosen over him. Hunters closed in. His ghost raged in his frozen mind. His side bled. The blue mold pulsed like a dying star.
The only lifeline left was the architect of his nightmare.