Chapter 29: Root Directory

  The wail of London police sirens cut through the freezing rain, growing louder by the second.

  "Time's up," Alex said, shaking the rain from his hair. He clutched Silas Vane’s heavy, severed cybernetic arm to his chest like a prized server rack. "We can't be here when the cops arrive. Get in the SUV!"

  Agent Locke didn't need to be told twice. Carrying the two-hundred-pound dead weight of his Doorwarden suit, he practically threw himself into the back of the hijacked Helios command vehicle, the heavy suspension groaning under his mass.

  Lyra grabbed the collar of Thorne’s tunic. The terrified Copper-Tag was still staring at his violently pulsing, malware-stuffed iron sword. "Come on, kid," she laughed, dragging him toward the open door. "Let's see how fast this metal carriage goes!"

  Thorne shrieked as Lyra shoved him into the backseat next to Locke, diving in right after him.

  Alex jumped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut against the storm. He threw the heavy SUV into gear and mashed the accelerator. The tires spun in the mud before catching the concrete, launching them up the embankment and out of the ruined Heron Quay substation just as the first flashing blue lights rounded the corner.

  "Sarah, we're mobile," Alex said into his earpiece, swerving onto the wet pavement and blending into the chaotic London traffic. "Where are you?"

  "I'm two blocks west, pulling out of the alley now," Sarah’s voice crackled, breathless but relieved. "I’ve wiped the local traffic cameras. Follow my GPS ping. I have a secure safehouse we can use."

  "Copy that."

  Alex hit the auto-drive function on the Helios dashboard. He didn't have time to stare at the road; he had the ultimate piece of corporate loot sitting in the passenger seat.

  The cybernetic arm was a masterpiece of stolen tech. The white, military-grade plating was scorched, and the jagged shoulder joint leaked a mixture of synthetic coolant and dark oil. But embedded in the wrist, the Aurelian Server Node—a piece of the gods' own hardware—was still faintly pulsing with golden light.

  "Kane," Locke’s deep, unmodulated voice rumbled from the backseat. "That tech is a bio-hazard. It was merged with the Glitch King’s malware."

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  "The malware was severed when the portal closed," Alex said, his eyes glowing as his Architect vision flared to life. "Right now, it's just a very expensive, highly encrypted flash drive. And I have root access."

  Alex reached out, placing his bare hand directly over the golden node on the severed wrist.

  [ASSET: HELIOS_CYBERNETIC_CORE] [STATE: OFFLINE]

  [INITIATING DIRECT_UPLINK...]

  The world inside the SUV washed out into a blinding array of green wireframes. Alex wasn't just hacking a computer; he was diving directly into the neural logs of Silas Vane.

  Immediately, a massive corporate firewall slammed down in front of his vision—a solid wall of complex, cascading red binary.

  [ACCESS DENIED: HELIOS_DEFENSE_MATRIX_v4]

  "Cute," Alex muttered. A standard Earth firewall against an Architect who could edit gravity.

  Alex mentally highlighted the entire string of defense code. He didn't try to solve the encryption key. He just grabbed the [STATE: LOCKED] parameter and aggressively typed [STATE: BYPASSED].

  The red wall shattered like glass.

  Alex fell forward into the core directory of Helios Dynamics' Vanguard Project. Files, blueprints, and mission logs flooded his vision faster than a human brain could process, but the Golden Code running through him caught the data and organized it.

  He saw CEO Marcus Vance’s face in video logs. He saw the schematics for the massive ley-line drills. And then, buried deep in a folder labeled PROJECT ORIGIN, he found a localized ping.

  "Gotcha," Alex whispered.

  He forcefully projected the data out of his mind and directly into the SUV’s holographic tactical dashboard.

  A glowing, 3D topographical map of Earth materialized in the center console. Lyra leaned forward from the backseat, her eyes wide with wonder at the floating light, while Thorne whimpered and tried to hide behind Locke’s massive shoulder.

  "What am I looking at, Kane?" Locke asked, leaning in.

  "Helios has been mapping the server connection points for a decade," Alex explained, pointing to a glowing blue dot right over London. "This is the Heron Quay door. The one they just tried to blow open."

  Alex tapped the holographic display, zooming the globe out. The map spun violently, crossing the Atlantic Ocean and zooming in on a remote, mountainous region of the globe.

  A second, massive red dot began to pulse on the projection.

  [STATUS: DOOR_02_DETECTED]

  [LOCATION: NEVADA_DESERT_BLACK_SITE]

  "They didn't just find one door," Alex said, the blood draining from his face. "They found another one. Buried deep under the Nevada desert. And according to these logs..."

  Alex highlighted the text beneath the red dot.

  [ASSET: AURELIAN_GATEWAY_02] [STATE: ACTIVE_EXCAVATION]

  "They aren't just looking for it," Alex finished, his voice grim. "CEO Vance already has a drill team there. He's actively trying to crack it."

  "Alex," Sarah’s voice came over the SUV's speakers, having patched into the local network. "If Helios breaches a second door, they won't just siphon the magic. They'll flood the Earth with Null-Walkers without King Erebus even needing a portal. It'll be a total system collapse on both sides."

  Locke stared at the red dot hovering over Nevada. He slowly reached down and picked up his featureless black helmet.

  "Then I guess we're going to America," the Doorwarden rumbled.

  The Next Mission is Locked In!

  The stakes just went global! Helios Dynamics has a second, active excavation site in the Nevada desert, and CEO Vance is desperate enough to tear the door wide open. Our fantasy squad is officially going on an American road trip!