Zero was strapped to the chair, his arms pinned, legs bound, head slumped forward like a marionette with its strings cut. The underground hideout smelled of damp concrete and rust, the flickering overhead lights casting restless shadows against the walls. The hum of old servers filled the air, a constant, droning reminder of the risks we were taking.
He hadn’t moved since we brought him in. Hadn’t made a sound.
Kane stood at the console, scrolling through lines of encrypted data, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Are you sure about this?”
“No.” I ran a hand through my hair, exhaling. “But it’s the only chance we’ve got.”
Zero—Elias—was still in there. I had seen it. Felt it.
But The Overseers had buried him under layers of rewritten code, neural implants forcing him to be something
