Chapter 4

Samuel kept watching me after he said that.

"You remember doing anything unusual before you turned eighteen?" he asked.

My head started pounding.

"I... I was just a regular student. Never caused trouble, nothing special about my family."

Samuel raised an eyebrow. "So why didn't you pick an identity?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Hell if I knew. I couldn't even explain it to myself.

Ever since I was little, I'd felt like a stranger in this world. Everyone else craved labels and wanted to be defined by something, but to me, that felt like death.

There was always this voice in the back of my head whispering, "Don't pick. Once you're in, you're never getting out."

Samuel listened, then nodded and grabbed something from a cabinet. It was a device about the size of my fist.

"Identity eraser. Built to wipe old-world data fragments from people's minds. But sometimes it dredges up memories you didn't even know you had."

I stared at the thing, and it honestly freaked me out a little. "You're telling me I've got fragments in my head?"

He didn't answer, just pointed to the chair.

When he pressed the device to my temple, electricity shot through my skull like someone was peeling my brain apart layer by layer.

Then, the memories hit.

I saw a lab.

Under the harsh white lights, researchers in black coats were standing around in a circle.

They were surrounding a young boy.

I couldn't see his face clearly, but I knew it was me.

I could hear them talking.

"Subject 10734 shows excessive emotional resistance."

"He's rejecting the identity binding process."

"Let's wait another year. Try again when he turns 18."

"This child... he might be defective."

Defective?

I jerked awake, slumping back in the chair.

"You saw something," Samuel said.

I nodded, struggling to catch my breath. "I'm... not normal, am I?"

"You never were."

Samuel's expression turned dead serious. "You were part of The Dominion Network's early experiments. A test subject."

"Then why did they dump me?"

"Because you wouldn't fall in line. You're the only Awakened who refused the binding and lived to tell about it."

He stared straight at me, speaking slowly.

"There's a piece of the Dominion Network's original code buried in your head. They're not scared of your rebellion. They're scared because you know too much."

That was when it all made sense.

I wasn't discarded. I was misplaced.

I was The Dominion Network's biggest glitch.

And now they'd figured it out.

The glitch was back alive.

*****

Samuel's workshop had gone dead quiet. Even with all the machines humming and metal clanking around us, you could feel how tense everything had gotten.

My memories felt like scattered pages from a torn book—fragments that didn't want to fit together.

Every broken piece showed me something I didn't want to see.

The me in that lab wasn't the same innocent kid anymore.

I was something they built—a defective product that got out of hand, something the Dominion Network couldn't control.

"What the hell am I?" I muttered.

Heavy footsteps thundered outside the workshop, fast and getting closer.

"They're here." Samuel tensed up. "You can't stay here."

"Who?" I jumped up, ready to bolt for the door.

"Them."

Samuel grabbed me and pulled me down. "Eradicators. The Dominion Network's cleanup crew. You need to run. Get deep underground, find the hidden sectors."

My brain just stopped working.

"Why are they after me?"

"Because you're their worst nightmare," Samuel said, and slapped me hard across the face. "You ever wonder why you're still breathing? Why haven't they just killed you already? The more you figure out, the more dangerous you get. Hell, even the bottom-feeders at the Dominion Network know you're a walking time bomb."

The second he finished talking, alarms started wailing outside.

"Cleanup crew's here!" Samuel yelled. "We got maybe five minutes!"

I jumped up and saw black drones swarming outside the window like a pack of vultures.

"Move. This way!"

Samuel grabbed me and we ran through back alleys toward some kind of underground entrance.

My heart was hammering against my ribs.

Then, this cold, robotic voice echoed from somewhere above us. "Number 10734, you cannot escape. Positive identification confirmed—"

That voice hit me like a cold slap.

"Move! Now!" Samuel's voice cut through everything.

"They've got you locked in," he shouted. "Ten minutes to get clear or they'll take you out!"

I looked up and saw a black drone dropping from the sky, stopping just 10 feet away from me.

The thing focused on me, buzzing like an angry wasp while it fed my location back to the Dominion Network.

"Come on!" Samuel kicked down a busted door and dragged me into a tunnel below. "You want to survive this? Then you need to figure out what's actually going on with you."

My heart was hammering against my ribs.

All those weird fragments in my head—the broken memories, the stuff that never made sense—suddenly, they were starting to fit together.

*****

The tunnel was black as hell, thick air that stuck in your lungs, barely any light to see by.

Samuel led me for what felt like hours before we stopped at an iron door.

"This is the Deep Web," he said, catching his breath. "The Dominion Network can't track anything here. This is where the Unnumbered hide. You'll be safe."

"How do you know about all this?" I asked.

He let out a sneer. "Because they hunted me too."

He opened the door like he'd done it a thousand times before.

What I saw took my breath away.

It was a whole community of rebels and outcasts—messy as hell, but alive in a way I'd never seen before.

Nobody looked scared. Everyone knew exactly what they were fighting for.

Samuel nodded toward the crowd. "This is where you'll figure out who you really are. You need to go deeper into the Network and uncover the truth they've been hiding."

I was confused. "Deeper?"

"That's where you'll find out where you came from—and why you're still breathing."

He stared at me, something sharp flickering in his eyes. "Go. Stop stalling. The longer you wait, the closer the Eradicators get."