Allen didn't answer the prompt.
He just stood there in the dark, staring at nothing, while the words stayed fixed in his mind—
[ACCEPT / DENY ?]
They didn't blink. They didn't fade. They simply waited, as if time itself didn't matter to whatever was asking.
His throat felt dry. "This… isn't real," he said under his breath, but even he didn't believe it anymore.
Slowly, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. If this was some kind of system—if it was real—then it had rules. Everything did. Even something like this.
"…Deny."
For a brief moment, there was nothing. Then the response came, calm and immediate.
[REQUEST DECLINED]
The pressure in his head disappeared almost instantly, like something had stepped back.
Allen didn't move at first. He just stood there, listening, waiting for something else to happen. But nothing did. No new messages. No strange sensations.
Then, as if on cue, the lights flickered once… twice… and came back on.
The room returned to normal.
The laptop hummed quietly. The fan spun like it always had. Everything looked exactly the same as before.
But it wasn't.
Allen let out a slow breath and rubbed his face. "Okay… so I'm not dead," he muttered, forcing a small, unsteady laugh.
He walked back to his desk, each step careful, like the floor might give way if he moved too quickly. When he sat down, the laptop screen still showed his code—unchanged, untouched, as if nothing had happened at all.
"…So none of that was here," he said quietly, glancing at the screen. Then he tapped his temple. "Just here."
For a moment, he thought about ripping the neural band off and throwing it across the room. Ending it. Forgetting everything.
Instead, he leaned forward.
"…System."
The response came instantly.
[SYSTEM ACTIVE]
[AWAITING INPUT]
Allen exhaled slowly, his expression tightening—not with fear this time, but focus.
"…Open system menu."
The interface unfolded again, but this time it didn't overwhelm him. It felt… organized. Structured. Like it had adjusted to him.
Options arranged themselves naturally in his awareness:
Core Functions.
Cognitive Layer.
External Access.
Restricted.
Allen paused at the last one.
"Restricted?" he murmured, narrowing his eyes.
He tried to focus on it, but the system immediately responded.
[ACCESS DENIED]
"…Right," he muttered. "Figures."
He leaned back slightly, thinking. If that part was locked, then there was no point forcing it—yet.
"Start simple," he said to himself.
His attention shifted to External Access.
"…Open."
The moment he focused on it, something changed.
It wasn't the room.
It was his perception.
Suddenly, it felt like his awareness stretched outward, beyond his body, beyond the walls of the room. Signals began to appear—not visually, but mentally—like patterns he could suddenly understand.
Wi-Fi networks. Bluetooth devices. Connected systems.
All of them… visible.
Allen's breathing slowed. "…No way…"
It wasn't just that he could detect them—he understood them. Their structure. Their weak points. Their access layers.
Like reading open code.
"…Pick one," he whispered.
The system responded immediately.
[TARGET AVAILABLE: SMARTPHONE — 2.8 METERS]
Allen slowly turned his head toward his desk.
His phone.
"…Connect."
A brief pause.
[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED]
The phone lit up.
Allen froze.
The screen unlocked on its own.
"…I didn't touch it…"
[COMMAND EXECUTED]
His heart started beating faster, but this time it wasn't fear—it was realization.
"…Open messages."
The phone obeyed instantly.
Allen leaned forward, staring at it, his mind racing.
"This is real," he whispered.
Not a glitch. Not a dream.
Real.
"…Scan wider."
For a second, nothing happened.
Then everything expanded.
The signals multiplied, stretching outward—beyond his apartment, beyond nearby devices—into systems he had no right to even detect.
His thoughts felt sharper now. Faster. Cleaner.
"This is insane…"
His focus landed on one signal—different from the rest.
Stronger.
Encrypted.
"…What's that?"
[SECURE NETWORK DETECTED]
Allen hesitated for a second… then made the decision.
"…Access."
[ENCRYPTION DETECTED]
[BYPASSING…]
He leaned forward slightly. "Wait—"
[ACCESS GRANTED]
He went still.
"…I just hacked that," he said quietly.
No typing. No tools. No effort.
Just a thought.
His chest rose slowly as the weight of that realization settled in.
"This isn't just faster thinking…" he murmured. "This is something else entirely."
Then the interface flickered.
A warning appeared.
[UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED]
Allen frowned. "…Detected?"
A cold feeling spread through him.
"…By who?"
Before he could react—
[TRACE INITIATED]
His heart dropped.
"Trace? No—disconnect!"
[COMMAND DENIED]
Allen froze. "…Denied?"
That had never happened before.
The interface pulsed sharply.
[EXTERNAL RESPONSE DETECTED]
The room suddenly felt colder.
A new signal appeared—different from all the others. Focused. Precise.
Locked onto him.
"…Something's looking at me…"
"Disconnect!" he said again, more urgently.
[COMMAND DENIED]
His hands tightened into fists.
"This isn't good…"
Then he felt it.
Not through the network.
Through his mind.
Like something had reached back.
And then—
A message appeared.
Not from his system.
[ANOMALY DETECTED]
Allen's vision blurred.
"…No…"
[CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN SYSTEM]
"Get out of my head," he whispered, panic rising in his chest.
But it didn't stop.
If anything, it got closer.
[INITIATING TRACE LOCK]
"STOP!"
And in that moment, something inside his system reacted.
Not because he told it to—
But because it chose to.
[DEFENSE PROTOCOL ACTIVATED]
Everything collapsed at once.
The signals vanished. The connection broke. The pressure in his mind snapped like a stretched wire.
Allen gasped, his body jerking as everything went silent.
The room was normal again.
Too normal.
He sat there, breathing heavily, trying to understand what had just happened.
"…That wasn't just a system…"
The interface flickered weakly in his mind.
Then a new line appeared.
[NEW FUNCTION UNLOCKED]
Allen stared at it.
"…What did it do to me…?"
[COGNITIVE DEFENSE LAYER: ACTIVE]
His hands trembled slightly.
"That thing… it triggered this…"
He was still processing that when another message appeared.
Short.
Simple.
Different.
[HELLO, ALLEN]
He froze.
"…Who is this?"
There was a pause.
Then—
[I AM E.V.E]
Allen didn't move.
Because this time—
It didn't feel like a system.
It felt like someone…
Answering him.
From inside his own mind.