Page 41 of Human Reform
ALORA
I stared intentlyat the primary screen of my private office setup.My hands hovered over the interface as rage pulsed through my veins.CyberEvolution’s database remained open before me, the evidence of their betrayal glaring back at me like a confession written in my own handwriting.
My fingers twitched, itching to unleash havoc on their systems.I could do it—right now.Corrupt their backup servers, plant time-delayed viruses, and scramble their security protocols.Hell, I could probably crash their entire network with twenty minutes and a cup of coffee.
“Bastards,” I whispered, twisting Tim’s bracelet around my wrist.
I tapped a few keys, opening a command window.It would be so easy—just a few lines of code, and I could make them hurt like they’d hurt others.Like they’d hurt Daxon.
Daxon.His pleading eyes flashed in my memory.Don’t do anything rash while I’m gone.Please.
I exhaled slowly and closed the command window.Revenge might feel satisfying for about five minutes, but it would only create more problems for the colonists here.They already had enough issues because of me and my code.I didn’t need to add “interplanetary diplomatic incident” to my list of sins.
Whatever Sage had pulled Daxon away to discuss couldn’t be good.The way she’d looked at us, her sharp blue eyes catching every detail… people were noticing how much time we spent together.How distracted he’d become.
I ran my fingers through my loose hair, letting it fall back around my shoulders.“Great job, Alora.Not even a week here and you’re already disrupting the entire security system.”
I’d always been chaos in human form.Dad used to say I could find trouble in an empty room.
I needed to remind myself that Daxon wasn’t just some random guy like the ones I’d dated in my twenties.He was responsible for an entire colony’s safety, and I was becoming his blind spot.
Pushing aside those thoughts, I forced myself to focus on the files I’d extracted.The modification timestamps mocked me—all dating back to when I still worked at CE and still believed I was helping protect humanity from alien threats.But someone had altered my code without my knowledge, adding traps and a switch designed to trigger if the cyborgs ever attempted self-actualization.
“Wait a minute…” I leaned closer, studying the subroutine patterns.An elegance within the modifications seemed familiar.The way the code nested within itself, hiding in plain sight.
“It’s like watching a snake shed its skin,” I muttered, tracing the pattern across multiple files.“The primary function remains intact while new capabilities emerge underneath.”
I scrolled through the timestamps, my heart rate accelerating as a pattern emerged.The modifications coincided with specific project milestones, gradually building toward something we couldn’t have anticipated.And there, buried in the version history, was the signature trap—a cascading failure system designed to activate two to three years after any reprogramming attempt.
Which meant…
“Holy shit,” I breathed.“It was deliberate from the beginning.They knew eventually the cyborgs might develop sentience.So they built in a time-delayed kill switch.”
But something else—something about the pattern reminded me of…
I minimized the files and pulled up the recent modification to the failsafe code I’d discovered days ago, the one someone on Planet Alpha had created.Laying them side by side, the similarities became obvious.They weren’t just related modifications—they were crafted by the same hand.
“Someone who worked for CE is here,” I whispered.“Working from the inside.”
My mind raced through possibilities.If the patterns matched, I could use the original architecture to create a countermeasure patch—one that would override both modifications by using their own methodologies against them.
I began coding furiously, letting my fingers race across the interface as a patch prototype took shape.I would need to test it before implementation, but suddenly, I felt genuine promise that I was close to unlocking the solution to saving Planet Alpha.
“I didn’t break you,” I told the code emerging on my screen.“But I swear I’m going to fix you.”
I glanced at the doorway, wondering what was keeping Daxon.Whatever trouble I’d caused him with Sage, I’d make it up to him by solving this.By protecting what he loved most—his people, his colony, and his freedom.
And maybe, if I was truly lucky, he’d still want me when this was all over.
Thirty minutes later, I was so engrossed in my coding that I barely heard my office door open.The lines of code flowed through my fingers like water finding its path downstream—inevitable and unstoppable.
“You found something.”Daxon’s deep voice wasn’t a question.
I glanced up, my fingers still tapping rapidly across the interface.He stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders nearly filling the frame as the dim lighting of my office cast shadows that accentuated the sharp angles of his jaw.
“I did.Look at this.”I gestured him over, the excitement of discovery momentarily overwhelming everything else.
He moved behind me, leaning in close so I could feel the heat coming off him.His scent—that clean, masculine smell I’d buried my face in last night—made my heart skip.
