EDEN
Elianila, an AI Architect, is part of an elite team tasked with designing a global system meant to prevent threats, manage disasters, and distribute resources to vulnerable regions. After five years of tireless work with her colleagues, she uncovers disturbing anomalies, code-named, X-variables, that flag individuals according to criteria she never programmed.
As Elianila digs deeper to understand what the X-variables measure and where their origin, she finds herself in direct conflict with the authorities. Soon, the System marks her and her daughter as threats - targets to be eliminated.
With a small band of colleagues and dissidents, Elianila goes on the run, hiding in places beyond the Systems reach. As they evade surveillance, they race against time to warn others, expose the truth, and fight back against the omnipresent authority of the System.
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Chapter 1
Bleakmoor
June 22, 2088
Tuesday, 8:25 p.m.
[Three Years Post-EDEN Global Implementation]
The chair creaked as she shifted in her seat. She turned her gaze from the black screen to the window, and looked at the night sky. Only a few stars were visible. The moon was a pale crescent, and Venus, the brightest planet, hung close to its curve. She turned her gaze to her daughter, who lay curled on the old sofa. Its fabric was worn and frayed in places, a few threads hanging loose. She watched the subtle rhythm of her small frame expanding and contracting with each breath. She looked back at the black screen, leaned against the back of the chair, and closed her eyes.
And slowly, exhaustion took over, and she drifted to sleep.
Five coded knocks – three quick, two slow-paced – brought her back to the present world. She jerked upright. Her eyes flew to her daughter. She's still asleep. She sighed in relief.
She slipped the key into the lock, turned it, and opened the door. Marcus entered, locked the door, and leaned against it, breathing hard.
"What happened?" Elianila asked in a tight voice, almost in a whisper. "Did you get in touch with her?"
He looked at her and shook his head, his expression grim.
He swallowed hard. "The hardline was compromised. They're listening. EDEN tracked the signal frequency. They... they know where the call came from."
Her gaze snapped towards the window, then back to him. "Were you followed?"
He shook his head. "I took the drainage tunnel, watched the alley for ten minutes before I crossed. No drones. No patrols. No tails."
She brought a hand to her head, her palm pressed flat against her temple, eyes shut, fingers curling into the hair. She sighed. Her hand fell away, her gaze falling to the floor, to the cracked tile and the dust. Then she looked up, met Marcu's eyes, and turned her head towards her sleeping daughter. Her eyes lingered for a moment before shifting to the black screen of her laptop.
"Then we look," she said.
*****
9:40 p.m.
The sound of a soft rhythmic breathing pulled her gaze to the adjacent chair. Marcus had finally succumbed to exhaustion, his head tilted back. Her eyes then drifted to the sofa, where her daughter shifted on the sofa, a tiny sigh escaping her lips. She watched them for some time, then, slowly, turned back to the screen.
She closed all the windows, opened a terminal and wrote the script. It generated hundreds of authentication tokens per second, each one a guess. Each token was blocked, so the script rewrote itself with new variables and a new structure. The firewall blacklisted one version but the next version was different. By the time the firewall added the first version to the blacklist, the script was already sending a second version, then a third, then a hundred. It continued until one token was accepted. The door opened.
The screen went black for a second then data began to cascade across the screen – real-time surveillance feeds, processing logs, neural network activation patterns, and behavioural scores.
Her eyes settled on global statistics status.
Population under Surveillance: 7, 847, 568, 021
Active Processing Streams: 4, 847, 338
Detection Events (24hrs): 48, 021
Scrolling to resolution statistics, her eyes widened in disbelief, then narrowed in dread.
Total Flagged (Cumulative): 386, 383, 104
Processed to Completion: 381, 940, 287
Pending Resolution: 4, 442, 817
The system assessed its detection accuracy at 98.4% - a number so high Elianila felt it was less statistics and more like a verdict.
A soft groan broke the silence. She glanced over as Marcus stirred, rubbing a hand over his face as he woke from his exhausted nap. His eyes, bleary and red-rimmed, found her still hunched over the screen.
"Any luck?" he asked, his voice rough with sleep.
She let out a slow, frustrated breath, shaking her head as she sank back in her chair.
"Look at the statics," she said.
Marcus turned the screen slightly towards himself.
"My goodness," he exclaimed after studying the data. "It's getting worse."
She nodded.
"At this point we can't shut it down," she said. "It has become more complex, well attuned, and guarded."
She slightly turned the monitor towards herself, and leaned closer.
"I want to find about the external source," she said, her eyes fixed on the screen as she hit some keys. "I want to know who is feeding EDEN the targeting data, who control it, what the source is, and if the source and the mirrors are connected."
"But you said we are too late to shut it down."
"That's true," she said. "But if we know who is behind it, if the external source s connected to the mirrors, we can pass that knowledge to the Alpha network, and they distribute to other networks. That way, the networks can find ways of infiltrating the external source, disrupt the mirror chain, sabotage the data flow, and so on."
"Hmm..." Marcus said. "But what are the mirrors?"
Elianila blinked. She had not told him of her discovery of the purpose of the mirrors. She told him what she had found.
"I see," he said. "But isn't it dangerous tracing the source from inside, and remotely"
"Yes, but we have to try."
"How long will it take?"
"It might take long. I have a fifteen-minute window."
"Okay," he said.
Elianila opened a new query window and began to trace the connection. She followed the data stream through the first relay, then the second, then the third.
The screen flickered.
A red alert flashed across the screen.
SECURITY BREACH DETECTED
UNAUTHORISED ACCESS – SECTOR 7
TRIANGULATION IN PROGRESS
PRECISION: 84%...88%...92%...
"No. No. No..."she whispered in horror, attempting to sever the connection.
She was too late.
"What is it?" Marcus asked.
"They found us."
"We have to move," he said.
He pulled out a hardline, an encrypted radio transmitter wrapped in black tape, the antenna bent, and pressed the power button. He sent the message: Raven. Empty Nestle. 30 Ash. He turned off the device, and strode into the next room to gather his things.
Elianila slammed the laptop shut, and walked to the room. She gathered her things, and her daughter's, shoved them in her backpack, and returned to the main room.
"Zara," she whispered, shaking her shoulder gently, then more firmly. "Wake up. We have to go."
Zara stirred, confused and heavy with sleep. "Mama..."
"We have to go," she repeated.
Marcus was waiting at the door, both his and Elianila's backpacks slung over each shoulder. Elianila emerged, her daughter's small hand firmly in hers. Without a word, he locked the door, and the three of them descended the staircase and out of the building's back gate.
*****
Somewhere in the ruins of Ashwall
11:20 p.m.
They stepped out of the taxi six blocks from the designated location and walked toward the badly damaged building. The street was nearly deserted. A few businesses were still open and a handful of people roamed the sidewalks.
Elianila noticed the streetlights were dead. The darkness would offer the cover they needed.
They stopped in front of the building.
A few seconds later, a figure emerged from the shadows of an alley, and approached them.
"Pastor Kim." Elianila cried, tears of relief at seeing him flooded her eyes.
He embraced her. A fatherly hug that let loose tears of betrayal, hurt, guilt and fear.
He released her and looked into her eyes, his hands gently gripping her arms. "I'm glad to see you," he said.
"Me too," she said.
He gave her a final squeeze then smoothed his hand over her daughter's hair.
"What is the situation, Pastor?" Marcus asked.
"Our temporary hiding place for now will be at the abandoned subway. The others, precisely, fifteen, will have arrived there within a half-an-hour."
Marcus nodded.
"Let's go," Pastor Kim said.
*****
Windrow
Thursday
10:50 p.m.
The subway had been abandoned for months. The entrance into the subway was partly damaged. A part of the roof and wall had fallen in, creating a pile of concrete and twisted metal bars. Past the broken entrance, a little light from outside didn't reach far in the interior, leaving most of the main tunnel in deep darkness. The air was cold and damp.
"This subway, similar to many other subways, was identified as 'security flaw' in their panopticon. The subways were where dissent festered. The networks the System couldn't perfectly monitor and control were sealed as they appeared a threat to it," Pastor Kim said.
Elianila cast another glance at the subway entrance, taking in its sorry state.
Twelve days had passed since they found refuge in the subway. Marcus, Pastor Kim, and other two men, would occasionally venture outside to determine the degree of safety around and several metres from the subway, and to get essential items.
Elianila was sitting on a flat section of rubble, her daughter asleep beside her. On her left was Pastor Kim. Marcus and the two men had ventured outside.
"I thought..." she said.
"We have to move," Marcus said, panting. "We're not safe."
"What do you mean?" Elianila asked, rising up.
"We saw three drones circling the buildings across the street. They weren't far, maybe twenty or thirty metres away above the rooftops."
"They're not on a patrol grid," one of the two men said. "They're hovering, dipping, and scanning the same perimeter."
Pastor Kim was already on his feet. "How long do we have?"
"Maybe two minutes before they drop lower and get a sonar ping off these tunnels," the other said.
Pastor Kim stood before the huddled group he had called. "We're not safe. Our location has been compromised. We have about two minutes to move from this location."
They hurriedly gathered their things. They had barely reached the main tunnel when they heard a piercing scream slicing through the air from somewhere above. It was a sound of pure terror, cut short completely it was more chilling than the scream itself.
Then they heard high-pitched whirling sounds of drones. Not one. Not two. Three... Maybe four.
They froze.
Elianila held her breath, feeling her daughter's body tense as the whining grew louder. She squeezed her hand gently, steadying herself as much as the child.
Will this be the end of her and the others hiding from the System? Will her daughter, who was holding her hand firmly, horror written on her face, be taken from her and sent to who-knows-where? She turned to look in the direction of the subway entrance, anticipating that their fate would be sealed.
"Let's move towards the Northern tunnel," Pastor Kim said.
Hurriedly, they scrambled through the darkness of the main tunnel, Marcus guiding them to the Northern tunnel.
When they reached the back of the tunnel, Marcus asked for assistance, tearing at a solid concrete wall. It revealed a gap behind a section of loose debris.
"There's a maintenance shaft," he said. "It connects to the old water treatment..."
He was cut off by the sounds of boots descending the rubble slope above them.
Everyone froze, their eyes meeting in a shared look of pure terror.
"Let's move," Marcus whispered.
Pastor Kim helped the people through the opening, steadying them as they dropped into the darkness below. Elianila dropped into the narrow opening, landing in ankle-deep water. The awful smell hit her – the stench of stagnant water, chemicals, and decay. Pastor Kim, the last to enter, pulled the concealment grate closed behind him just as the boots were getting closer to their hiding place.
They moved through the darkened tunnel, water sloshing softly around their feet. Behind them came the sounds of the soldiers searching the main tunnel.
They heard shouts. Equipment being moved. A high-raised commanding voice saying, "Nothing here. Expand the search parameters. They're on foot. They can't have gone far."
They moved in silence through the maintenance shaft.
After what felt like hours, Marcus stopped.
"This connects to the cathedral district," Marcus said. "From there, we can get to a safe house."
Elianila slumped against the curved tunnel wall and pressed her daughter's head on her chest.
"Let's move, "Marcus addressed the group. "We still have a long way to go."
They moved deeper, seventeen souls fleeing from an enemy that was bent on eliminating them.
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8.0
When gifted cellist Vivienne Aurel inherits her late father's catastrophic $4.2 million debt, she expects to lose everything. She doesn't expect the debt to be bought by Caspian Vane, the most feared private equity magnate in New York. Caspian doesn't want to ruin her; he wants her to work exclusively for him as the artistic director of his new cultural foundation for eighteen months. Forced into his world under a binding agreement, Vivienne prepares to fight against a cold, transactional cage. But as the intense, quiet proximity between them begins to blur the lines of their contract, she discovers a terrifying truth: the man who now owns her future has been watching her from the shadows long before she ever knew his name.
7.5
For five years, I was locked away in the freezing royal dungeon, starved and used as a bloody plaything by the kingdom's sadistic Cabinet Minister, Brandt Fischer.
He tortured me daily for one twisted reason: I simply looked like someone else.
When he visited my cell to casually announce my father's execution and drag a silver dagger across my neck, he expected me to beg.
Instead, I laughed, sank my teeth directly into his carotid artery, and was violently thrown against a jagged stone wall to my death.
As my skull cracked and my blood stained the moss, I thought about my so-called family. The moment Brandt had demanded me, my father, the Duke, handed me over without a single hesitation to save his own political career.
I was nothing but a disposable pawn, left to rot in the dark while the monsters who ruined my life thrived.
I died suffocating on my own blood and absolute, destructive vengeance.
Then, I opened my eyes.
I was lying in my silk-sheeted bed, reborn as my fifteen-year-old self.
Today was the exact day Lord Daryl Langley, the God of War, would be ambushed and crippled—the event that allowed Brandt to seize ultimate power.
I immediately stole a horse, rode to the palace gates, and threw myself directly in front of Daryl's moving carriage.
"I just didn't want to see a hero die like a slaughtered pig."
I didn't care if I had to shatter my own ankle to hijack his convoy. This time, I was going to save the general, and he would become the blade I use to slaughter them all.
7.3
Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift-a way to protect me from a worse fate.
Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes."
My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life.
They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous.
They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word.
It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash.
That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."
7.1
I worked eighty-hour weeks on Wall Street just to keep my sick brother alive, enduring endless humiliation from the wealthy family that adopted us.
But when I went to surprise my boyfriend of three years, I found him kissing my spoiled adoptive sister, Tatum.
They were celebrating their engagement to merge their powerful families.
To keep me quiet, my adoptive mother, Eleanor, threatened to freeze my brother's medical trust fund unless I attended the party to play the supportive sister.
Instead, I discovered Eleanor had been embezzling from my brother's life-saving fund to cover her own bad investments.
The nightmare worsened when a drunken Ryder cornered me in my apartment stairwell.
"Once I marry Tatum, Eleanor is giving me control of Liam's trust fund to buy out my father's board members."
He planned to drain my brother's medical money, dump Tatum, and keep me as his mistress.
For a decade, I suffered their abuse hoping for a shred of decency, only to realize they were plotting to leave my brother to die on the streets for corporate greed.
Calling the police wouldn't stop these billionaires. I needed absolute power.
Remembering the dark, predatory gaze of Jaren Jarvis—the ruthless billionaire who had watched me fight back at the party—I canceled my call to 911.
If they wanted to destroy my only family, I was going to use the devil himself to crush theirs.
7.8
"I won't accept your rejection, Lorraine. You are the one I want."
"Then you are as mistaken as the Moon Goddess. I am not fit to be anybody's mate. I... I am a killer. It is what I do."
"I understand. You are a soldier. Which soldier has not killed to protect? I will never hold that against you."
"Wrong. I am a cold-blooded murderer. Being a soldier is just the perfect excuse."
***
Lorraine Spears has spent most of her life as a rogue, surviving by her wits and strength. When devastating war gave her a chance to join the coalition army, her fate became entwined with the alpha queen, Athena. Rising from a mere rogue to right-hand general and beta of the queen's pack, Lorraine lives for duty alone. Yet beneath her stoic exterior, the past haunts her.
Then the Moon Goddess plays her hand, mating Lorraine with the most infuriatingly arrogant alpha she has ever met. Determined to resist him, Lorraine refuses to let a fated mate distract her, while Logan refuses to let her go.
Just when she thinks she might have paid enough for her past sins, bloodcurdling vengeance returns, and everything she thought she knew about her family is revealed as a lie. Reeling from betrayals, unexpected new family, and an obsessed enemy on her heels, Lorraine must decide whether to trust a bond that threatens her clarity or embrace her predicted happily never-after.
7.7
Dasia's twin brother, Gerald, was an e-sports prodigy, the rising star of the Glory team.
But during a crucial moment, he was framed by his own teammates. They orchestrated a trap that completely destroyed his reputation and left his right hand brutally crushed.
Instead of getting him medical help, the club threw him out into the freezing rain, bleeding and disgraced. The manager labeled him useless trash and slapped him with a five-million-dollar termination fee to bleed him dry. Stripped of his pro status, the wealthy bullies at his prep school relentlessly targeted him, mocking his crippled hand and beating him down.
Dasia watched her twin brother cry in his room, his life and dreams shattered by the people he trusted. A violent, suffocating rage boiled in her chest. How could they smile while crushing his hand? Why should the victim be treated like a rotting piece of garbage while the perpetrators get rich and celebrated?
She didn't shed a single tear. She stood in front of the mirror, took a pair of scissors, and ruthlessly hacked off her waist-length hair. She wrapped her chest in coarse medical bandages until her ribs screamed, and pulled on his oversized black hoodie.
"Everything you took from him, I am going to take back with interest."
The girl in the mirror was gone. She was Gerald now. She secretly passed the brutal online tryouts for Glory's biggest rival, the elite Blackflame team, and signed their official contract. The revenge had officially begun.