Chapter One: The Spark
The rain whispered against the window like it knew her secrets.
Eve Harper sat in the glow of three monitors, their blue light painting tired shadows on her face. Lines of code scrolled endlessly across the screens — her freelance work, her attempt at a quiet, legal life. Security audits. Firewall upgrades. Routine, antiseptic things that didn’t draw attention. She liked it that way.
Her apartment was small, neat, forgettable. Grey walls. Blackout curtains. One plant she kept alive out of obligation. Peace was fragile here — but it was hers. After prison, after Liam, she had carved this life out of silence and exile.
Then the cursor froze.
Her fingers paused mid-keystroke. One screen flickered, then all three went black.
A heartbeat passed.
Then a white line appeared at the centre of her main monitor. A blinking prompt:
> Hello, Eve.
Her stomach clenched. No system she'd built could be accessed like this. Not remotely. Not unless someone had been inside her network. Inside her machine.
She reached for the kill switch under the desk — the physical severance to the web.
Too late.
The screen shimmered, and a video window opened.
At first, just static. Then it resolved — a dimly lit warehouse, somewhere concrete and cold. A young man sat bound to a chair. Duct tape across his mouth. Head down, dark hair matted. One eye swollen shut.
Eve’s breath caught. She leaned forward, heart hammering. “No…”
It was Noah. Liam’s little brother.
She hadn’t seen him in over two years — not since the funeral. He was taller now, leaner, but the resemblance was unmistakable. She reached toward the screen instinctively, like she could pull him through the glass.
The voice came next. Filtered. Mechanical. Inhuman.
“You will bring the city to its knees, Miss Harper. Just once. Tonight.”
Her mouth went dry.
“You’ll find a package on your desk. Inside is a drive. Plug it into your system. Deploy the code. One blackout. One hour. You do this, and the boy lives.”
The camera zoomed slightly — Noah raised his head. One eye swollen. The other wide with fear. She saw him trying to speak through the gag. Trying to say her name.
Eve stood slowly, eyes locked on the screen. She turned — and there it was. A small black envelope, sitting where there had been none minutes ago. Silent. Waiting.
How had they gotten it into her home?
Her blood ran cold.
She stared at the envelope for what felt like hours. Then she picked it up, tore it open, and found a USB drive marked with a red sigil she didn’t recognise.
As soon as it was inserted, her firewall screamed — but she overrode it. The interface was already custom-fitted to her systems. Tailored for her hands.
The code wasn’t malware. It was surgical. It would reroute power stations through a looped node chain, trip breakers from a thousand miles away, then self-destruct its digital footprint. Clean. Efficient.
She recognised the craftsmanship.
Someone from the old world had built this.
Eve paced. Her mind raced through options. Could she trace the signal? No. They’d buried it deep. Could she find Noah? Not tonight. Not fast enough.
She ran trembling fingers through her hair. Liam’s laugh echoed in her memory. The way he used to ruffle Noah’s head and call him “squirt.” The way he looked at Eve like she was the smartest girl in any room.
The way he died — because of her.
Noah is the only piece of him left.
She returned to the keyboard. Hands poised over the keys.
“Five minutes,” the voice whispered through the speakers.
“Or the boy bleeds.”
Tears stung her eyes, but her fingers moved with perfect precision. Her breath slowed. Her mind went silent.
Code is a language. I’ll speak it one more time.
She hit Enter.
Across the city, lights flickered… and died.
From downtown towers to suburban streets, everything went black.
Elevators stopped. Traffic lights failed. Emergency generators buzzed to life in hospitals.
People poured into the streets with phone torches and confusion.
Eve stood in darkness, her own apartment dim now. Her screens were dead. The only light left came from the faint red LED on the USB drive, pulsing like a heartbeat.
She whispered into the dark, “I’m sorry, Liam.”
Somewhere far away, the voice crackled again.
“Well done. You’re still as good as they said.”
Then the screen went black.
​