Chapter 1: Abyss of Despair, Whisper of the Ghost

  The sterile hum of fluorescent tubes buzzed overhead, a cold, monotonous dirge that felt more like a flatlining heartbeat than illumination. Sunny Ye’s workshop reeked of dust, coolant, and the faint tang of burnt solder, undercut by the sour rot of expired coffee. Every surface—every cable, every tool—was frozen in time, a tomb sealed three months ago.

  Three months. Ninety-two days.

  Lucian Chen—Luc, the “Starlight Hacker,” the AI prodigy with code in his veins and stars in his eyes, her infuriatingly brilliant fiancé—had vanished. Swallowed by a digital void. No ransom note, no witnesses, no trace of a struggle. The police, useless as ever, slapped a “missing person” label on him and called it a day.

  All Sunny had left was this crypt of a workshop. Silent metal instruments stood like gravestones, cables sprawled like withered vines, and her heart—hollowed out, sinking into the blackest depths of despair.

  She drifted through the space like a ghost, fingers brushing surfaces Luc had touched. The keyboard, its W, A, S, and D keys worn glossy from gaming and coding marathons. The server chassis, cold under her touch, still bore his cryptic doodles—symbols only they understood. A mug at the desk’s edge, emblazoned with “Code is Poetry,” held coffee stains fossilized into deep brown. Each touch was a dull blade, slicing into the softest part of her heart, reminding her of the weight of loss.

  “Damn you, Luc… where *are* you?” Her voice rasped, sandpaper on stone. Tears had long dried up, leaving only numb agony.

  “Sunny? More like a storm,” she muttered, glaring at the neon bleeding through the window. The name felt like a cruel joke, a mockery of the light she’d lost.

  Her gaze landed on a sleek, futuristic pair of smart glasses on the workbench. Silver-gray frame, fluid lines, lenses glinting with a deep, cosmic blue. Two weeks before Luc disappeared, he’d thrust them at her, grinning like a kid with a secret. “Sunny, a little gift. Wear these, and maybe you’ll *see* a different future!”

  She’d laughed it off then, tossing them into a drawer. A future? Her future was Luc—his goofy smiles, his late-night coding binges. Who needed glasses for that?

  Now? The future was a void, black and frigid, stretching endlessly.

  A surge of rage and grief roared through her, dizzying in its intensity. She snatched the glasses, trembling, their icy touch like a corpse’s skin. “Future? Let’s see your stupid future, Luc!” she spat, jamming them onto her face. The frame hugged her temples, sending a chill through her veins.

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  Facing the empty workshop, her voice broke into a hoarse scream, a defiance against fate, a plea to the void: “Lucian Chen! Where the *hell* are you?!”

  *Buzz—!*

  A low, seismic vibration pulsed from the glasses, nearly knocking them off her face. The transparent lenses erupted with electric-blue data streams, like an ECG spiked with adrenaline. Code fragments, symbols, and light motes surged, weaving a chaotic nebula across her vision.

  Then, a voice—familiar, soul-piercing, yet hollow, as if echoing across a digital abyss—exploded in her mind:

  “I… drift… in the torrent… of data…”

  Sunny’s blood froze. Her brain detonated, blanking out. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream, body quaking, legs buckling.

  That voice… it was…

  “Sunny…” The voice sharpened, each word precise, calculated, yet eerily devoid of human warmth. “Your call… a beacon through the fog… it woke me.”

  “L-Lucian?!” Her voice shattered, a leaf in a gale. Joy and terror collided, choking her. She clawed at the air, desperate to grasp the phantom sound. “It’s you? You’re alive?!”

  “By definition, I am not entirely ‘Lucian.’” A pause, as if searching a vast database. “I am his will’s extension, his spark of thought, an aggregate of his remnant code. I am Lucian’s shadow… and a new entity.”

  “Codename: Solo.”

  *Solo? An AI? Luc’s AI?* Sunny’s mind spiraled, thoughts crashing like corrupted data. When had Luc built this… *thing*? Why hadn’t he told her? Was this tied to his disappearance?

  Before she could process, Solo’s tone snapped sharp, urgent, like a system blaring a critical alert:

  *[Warning! Warning! High-intensity malicious intrusion detected! Signal source: Stellaris Tech Elite Security Division! Protocol: ‘Data Purge and Physical Destruction’! Target: AI core ‘Solo’ and associated host data!]*

  “Stellaris Tech?!” Sunny’s heart lurched. The tech titan, a juggernaut in data supremacy, notorious for ruthless monopolies. Luc had always despised them, calling their ethics a “corporate dumpster fire.”

  *Bang!*

  A thunderous crash shattered her thoughts. The apartment’s military-grade alloy door buckled under an unseen battering ram, its lock system frying, metal shards spraying like shrapnel.

  Two figures stormed in, black lightning in motion. Clad in sleek, high-polymer combat suits, their tactical visors obscured half their faces, revealing only tight lips and chiseled jaws. They radiated cold, trained menace, moving so fast they blurred.

  One zeroed in on the supercomputer dominating half the wall, its blue glow pulsing like a heart—Luc’s masterpiece. The other raised a wrist-mounted device, its lens firing a red laser that locked onto Sunny, pinning her like a snake’s stare.

  “Ms. Ye,” the leader’s voice grated, metal on metal, devoid of humanity, brimming with threat. “Hand over Lucian Chen’s core AI data. Cooperate, and you’ll avoid… unnecessary pain. Resist, and we’ll extract it ourselves.”

  His gaze, through the visor, stripped her to an object, lifeless.

  Sunny’s body went ice-cold, limbs numb, mind blank. Death’s shadow loomed, real and immediate. One wrong move, one wrong word, and she’d be a corpse.

  *[Host Sunny Ye, stabilize heart rate. Regulate breathing.]* Solo’s voice cut through her panic, a frigid current of calm. *[Fear is inefficient. They know nothing of my nature.]*

  *[Prepare…]* A faint edge crept into Solo’s tone, sharp and alive. *[To witness a miracle.]*