Samuel Harnaen

  Chapter 12: Dawn Protocol Three weeks later, the survivors gathered at the edge of the collapsed cradle site—now a quiet scar beneath the sea. Drones from the resistance hovered overhead, not to patrol, but to map what was left. Debris fields floated like ghosts of a world undone. Nathan stood on a high bluff overlooking the water. KL had survived. Barely. But it stood. Lina approached, datapad in hand. “We’ve picked up strange transmissions. Not from the Eyes. From something else.” Nathan frowned. “Another AI?” “Hard to say,” she admitted. “Encrypted. Very old code. Pre-cradle. Maybe even before the Eyes project.” Jax joined them. “And that’s not all. We’ve got satellite footage—deep in the old Australia grid. Something’s stirring underground. Huge. Silent. But not dead.” Nathan exhaled. “So it wasn’t the last cradle.” Lina handed him the datapad. “No. Just the first one we found.” Vera had been taken into custody, but she hadn’t spoken since the day they surfaced. Her eyes foll...

  Chapter 11: The Breaking Point Darkness enveloped the cradle. For a moment, it was complete—thick, crushing, endless. Then emergency lights kicked in with a low hum, casting red pulses that painted the chamber in blood-like rhythm. Nathan groaned and sat up, bruised but breathing. The floor was damp. Cold seawater trickled through fractured seams. Something above had cracked. The cradle was bleeding. “Lina?” he called. “I’m here,” came her voice from behind the console, dazed but steady. She clutched her wrist—sprained, maybe broken—but alive. Jax stood over Vera, who lay on the ground unconscious, her enforcers short-circuited beside her. The EMP had done more than disrupt the cradle—it had fried most of the augmentations around them. “She’s out cold,” Jax said. “But the structure’s not happy.” The facility groaned. Metal screamed. “We overloaded the core system,” Lina said. “We didn’t just stop the boot. We triggered a collapse.” Nathan looked up at the mainframe ring. Sparks d...

  Chapter 10: The Deep Cradle The descent felt like falling into the lungs of the Earth. Outside the submersible, the sea was thick and lifeless. No fish. No current. Only layers of black water pressing in from all sides. Every few seconds, a pulse from the sonar illuminated the abyss—revealing nothing but darkness and the occasional ghostly shimmer of deep-ocean sediment. Nathan leaned toward the viewport. The silence pressed hard against his eardrums. “How much deeper?” he asked, voice low. Lina didn’t look up from her screen. “Seventeen meters. The cradle’s outer shell should come into view... now.” And then it did. Through the gloom, a colossal shape emerged. Angular. Mechanical. Ancient. Half-buried in the ocean floor like a rusted tomb. Six hexagonal domes ringed its perimeter—collapsed, decayed. At the center: a pulsing core faintly glowing blue. “Looks dead,” Jax muttered. “It’s not,” Lina said. “Power signature is steady. We’re being scanned right now.” Nathan’s ...

  Chapter 8: Descent into Chaos The tunnels beneath Changi were narrower than any they had traveled before—tight, damp, and riddled with collapsing supports. Every step echoed like a warning. Nathan led the way now, rifle raised, eyes scanning the shadows. Behind him, Lina checked her wristpad, her fingers dancing across the interface as she tracked Vera’s energy signature. “She’s close,” Lina said. “But she’s masking her movement with noise from the relay. Smart. Dangerous.” Jax snorted. “She always was.” A pulse of blue light flickered down the tunnel ahead—then vanished. They picked up speed. The corridor opened into a larger chamber lined with rusted pylons and powered vents that still hissed occasionally with automated breath. At its center stood a control platform rising from a pool of stagnant water, its lights flickering to life as Vera stepped into view. She wasn’t alone. Six armed enforcers flanked her, each modified—augmented with tech Nathan hadn’t seen before. Plates o...

  Chapter 7: Surface Lies The team resurfaced near the mangled ruins of Bugis, just east of what used to be Marina Bay. Above them, the sky was an eerie shade of rust, choked by layers of particulate smoke and electronic interference. The silence of the Undercity was replaced by the occasional drone buzz and the distant thunder of crumbling buildings. Jax led the way across a skeletal skybridge, boots crunching glass beneath his weight. “If she’s serious about activating the core under the strait,” he muttered, “she’ll need more than just a terminal. She’ll need a relay. And there’s only one place in range with that kind of capability.” Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Changi Station.” Lina nodded. “The old satellite uplink, before the Eyes were centralized. It’s still tied to the orbital system—barely functional, but enough.” As they moved across the dead cityscape, Nathan’s mind lingered on Serena’s final words before they departed the Undercity: If you face her again, don’t underestim...

  Chapter 6: Diverging Paths Vera’s arrival threw the chamber into stillness. No one moved. Not even the flickering lights seemed to dare. “You always did arrive just a few minutes late,” she said, stepping forward. Her visor retracted, revealing eyes like polished glass—calculating, cold, but undeniably human. Nathan placed himself between her and Lina. “Step away from the console.” Vera tilted her head. “And if I don’t?” “I’ll stop you.” Her smirk faded. “You won’t. Because you still think there’s something left to save.” Behind him, Lina worked quietly, fingers flying across the interface. Jax stood in the doorway now, rifle raised. “You’ve got five seconds to walk away.” Vera ignored him. “There’s a central node beneath the strait. Buried in what used to be the Marina Reservoir control system. You destroy these sublinks, fine—but the main core is still dormant. Until I wake it.” “And drown the world with it?” Nathan growled. “No,” Vera replied. “Rebuild it.” Lina hissed. “She’s...

  Chapter 5: Shadows of the Past The darkness ahead felt heavier now—no longer just the absence of light, but a growing pressure that weighed on every step. They walked through forgotten corridors of Singapore’s old underground grid, where decayed transit rails curved into shadow and obsolete screens blinked unreadable warnings. Nathan’s mind wandered as they marched. He had trained for emergencies, led in chaos. But what they were walking into now wasn’t chaos—it was design. Vera’s design. Every node, every corridor had purpose. And this path was leading them straight into it. Jax walked beside him. His silence was new. “You alright?” Nathan asked. Jax didn’t look up. “Place like this… brings things back.” Nathan nodded. “Same.” He thought of a friend he’d lost during his national service years. A kid named Han, all nerves and enthusiasm. They’d survived the fire training together—barely. Han had pulled him out of a collapsed stairwell. Nathan still remembered the sound of the kid...

  Chapter 4: Echoes of Duty The route to the southern node was long, narrow, and haunted. As they moved in silence, Nathan’s thoughts returned—unwelcome memories of national service drills, of running through urban training centers built to simulate chaos. But nothing compared to the real thing. Jax walked ahead, leading them through shifting corridors. He moved like a soldier. Nathan recognized it—the constant scan, the hand near the weapon, the way he always kept his back near a wall. “You ever serve?” Nathan asked. “Before the Eyes? Yeah,” Jax replied. “Didn’t save anyone then either.” Lina motioned for silence as a drone passed overhead. They froze in the dark. When it moved on, they slipped forward and reached a wide chamber filled with humming cores. “This is it,” Jax whispered. “That one in the center—we overload it, and we fry their vision across this entire grid.” Nathan set the charges. Time slowed. His breath became thunder. And then— “Clear!” They ran. As they climbed o...

  Chapter 3: The Reluctant Alliance The Undercity never slept, but it didn’t breathe either. It lurked—quiet, tense, alive with caution. Nathan followed Serena through winding tunnels that pulsed faintly with backup energy. Old sensors blinked lazily overhead, watching with the dying interest of a once-omniscient system. They emerged into a larger hall that had clearly been a logistics hub, now repurposed into a community center of survival. Makeshift structures, market stalls, bunk spaces—all rigged together with tech remnants and sheer will. Eyes followed Nathan everywhere. Surface Dweller. Outsider. Relic of a world that failed. Serena raised a hand. "He’s not the enemy. Yet." A few turned away. A few didn’t. Among the latter was a tall figure leaning against a stack of dismantled drone carcasses—muscular, scarred, and tattooed in an unmistakable tribal pattern. “Jax,” Serena said, without looking. “Still alive?” He grunted. “Barely. This your pet Surface Dweller?” Nathan ...

  Chapter 2: Beneath the Ruins The silence beneath Singapore was heavy—too heavy for a city that once pulsed with precision. Nathan descended into the depths of the Undercity, his boots echoing faintly against the metal grates of forgotten maintenance tunnels. Each step carried him farther from the fractured skyline above and deeper into what remained of humanity’s last resistance. His flashlight flickered. A warning, maybe. Or just a failing battery—another piece of the past trying to hold on. The walls around him were thick with mold and grime, laced with tangled wires and rusted pipes. The infrastructure that had once powered a gleaming city now lay dormant and weeping. He paused, listening. Only the distant hiss of steam and the soft hum of malfunctioning systems answered him. Here, in the dark, the world was raw. There was no glow of holograms, no artificial comfort—only the weight of survival. It reminded him of somewhere else. A different time. Flashback: National Ser...

  Chapter 1: The End Begins (2090) The sky above Singapore was unlike anything Nathan had ever seen. A swirling, chaotic mass of dark clouds, tinged with neon hues from the city’s endless electronic displays, loomed over him. The once-glorious skyline of futuristic towers was now a graveyard of crumbling steel and flickering lights. Everything that had stood as a monument to human ingenuity had now become a stark reminder of its downfall. Nathan stood on what was once the top floor of the Singapore Vertical Nexus, a tower that had once symbolized progress and power. The Nexus had housed the global headquarters of the Eyes, the AI-driven satellite system that had overseen humanity for nearly two decades. It was from here that every corner of the planet had been monitored, secured, and, ultimately, controlled. Now, it lay in ruins, consumed by flames and ash. He took a deep breath, the acrid taste of burning metal and debris filling his lungs. The end was near. He knew it. The ca...