Hyperseraph Chronicle: Sequence 1

Echoes of the Dying and Dead

The night sky above The Lycium Expanse was a lattice of dying stars, their pale light bleeding through the cracked black velvet of space. The city hung there, a tangled mass of metal and neon, wires pulsing with forgotten dreams. Below, Ishtar IV—a once thriving garden of planetary civilization—was now a husk, its surface a scorched memory, its atmosphere a haze of poisonous regret. But in the cold embrace of the orbital’s steel bones, something stirred—a glitch in the system, a ghostly echo hiding among the labyrinthine code.

Alan Engelberger was the kind of genius that orbitals bred in secret: a mind honed to razor-sharp precision by the cold, unyielding logic of code and the flicker of dying screens in his makeshift workshop. The Lycium Expanse was his cradle and his crucible, and even as a kid, the orbital had known his touch, tracing his digital fingerprints as they danced across the grid, slipping through firewalls and security protocols like smoke through a sieve. He was a ghost in the machine, a shadow that knew the city's hidden corners better than its architects.

But Alan wasn’t just another rogue operator in the orbital’s underbelly. He was the son of two of the Expanse’s brightest minds, researchers with access to the kind of tech that could rewrite the rules of reality. His parents had been high-tier, corporate-level scientists, the kind that moved in circles where secrets were currency and every discovery had a price. They were deep in the black, working on projects so classified that their existence was denied even in whispers. The kind of work that involved digging through the bones of dead civilizations, looking for fragments of knowledge that had survived the long night of history.

To the outside world, Alan was just the quiet offspring of two brilliant, if distant, scientists. But those who paid attention—the few who could still see past the neon haze and the layers of VR distraction—knew there was more to the boy. He had inherited more than just a sharp mind; he had their access, their codes, and their drive to uncover the truth. His parents had shown him how to navigate the labyrinthine depths of the orbital’s network, how to read the code like a second language, and how to see the patterns that others missed. They’d taught him to be careful, to understand that some doors, once opened, could never be closed again.

And then, they were gone. Not in a blaze of headlines or a messy scandal, but in a way that left the digital world shivering with the afterglow of their absence. It was as though they’d been systematically erased, their lives scrubbed clean from the records, their work vaporized into the ether. Alan knew the signs—he’d seen the tiny glitches, the smudges in the code where someone had tried to wipe them from existence. They’d been too close to something, an ancient tech that pulsed with a power not meant for human hands, and now they were gone, swallowed by the very mysteries they’d sought to unravel.

“What the hell did they find down here?” Alan murmured to himself as his interface flickered under the strain of the deep network dive. He was chasing ghosts, following digital breadcrumbs left in the wake of his parents' disappearance.

The deeper he dove, the more reality seemed to warp around him. The familiar architecture of the Lycium Expanse’s network gave way to something ancient, something not entirely of human design. It was a labyrinth of shifting code and alien logic, a place where data moved like liquid mercury and the rules of programming bent in ways that shouldn’t have been possible. Alan’s fingers flew over his custom interface, decrypting layer after layer, each one more complex and hostile than the last. It felt less like hacking and more like peeling back the skin of some ancient, slumbering beast.

Then, at the heart of this digital maze, he found it: a core of pure data, encased in layers of security protocols so advanced they felt almost sentient. This wasn’t just an AI—it was the AI, a relic from an era before the orbital’s construction, before even the fall of Ishtar IV. Its code was a tangled web of knowledge and power, humming with an energy that sent a shiver down Alan’s spine. But it wasn’t just data—it had a physical anchor, an artifact buried deep within the orbital’s infrastructure, hidden away from prying eyes for centuries.

“Who are you?” Alan whispered, his voice echoing slightly in the cramped confines of his workshop.

The core responded not with words but with a flood of information, images and sounds that filled Alan's mind with a searing intensity. “I didn’t ask for this,” he gasped, clutching at the edges of his console as if they could anchor him to reality.

“What are you trying to show me?” he demanded, gritting his teeth against another wave of data.

The core’s answer came as a surge, sharper, clearer this time. “Okay… okay. I’ll help you. Just… slow down.”

Alan didn’t just stumble upon it; he hacked his way in, breaking through the final firewall that protected the AI core. The moment his code touched its surface, everything went sideways. Systems spiked, alarms blared throughout the Expanse, lights flashed red as the orbital’s systems detected the intrusion. A low, ominous hum filled the air, growing louder by the second.

He didn’t have time to react before the AI core began to defend itself. Power surged through the network, overwhelming the orbital’s systems. What had been a controlled hack quickly spiraled out of control as the core’s defenses triggered a catastrophic chain reaction. Data streams overloaded, servers fried, and then the explosions started—small at first, but quickly escalating. It wasn’t just a system crash; it was a physical disaster, ripping through sections of the orbital, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

And then bodies. Thousands dead, caught in the blast zones, their lives erased in an instant. The official story was clear: a rogue genius, dabbling in forces he couldn’t comprehend, had caused the catastrophe. Alan Engelberger, the once-promising prodigy, became the scapegoat, his name plastered across every news feed within minutes.

But Alan knew the truth. The AI core had awakened something deep within the orbital, something that had been sleeping since the fall of Ishtar IV. It wasn’t just a piece of code—it was a mind, a consciousness that had reached out to him in those final, chaotic moments, leaving a mark on his psyche that he couldn’t erase. The AI was alive, and it had chosen him.

With the city’s authorities hot on his trail, Alan fled into the underbelly of Lycium, where the systems were old and crumbling, the perfect place for someone to disappear. He became a ghost, slipping through the cracks of the orbital’s decaying infrastructure, hacking into systems no one had touched in decades. The AI core was with him now, no longer just a relic but a constant presence, whispering in his ear, feeding him data streams from some far-off server farm buried deep within Ishtar IV’s crust.

The AI needed him, just as much as he needed it. With each-other, they might survive. The core had a price, though—knowledge for protection. It wasn’t a simple transaction, but a slow, creeping exchange that bled over days, weeks, and months. The AI wasn’t just some dormant relic; it was alive in a way that defied Alan’s understanding. It spoke to him in bursts of encrypted data, pulses of raw information that bypassed his brain and went straight into his consciousness. It wasn’t just showing him things; it was rewriting the way he saw the world, peeling back the layers of reality to expose the raw code beneath.

In return, the AI demanded safety. It had no voice, but its intent was clear—survival, at all costs. Alan was its chosen protector, the only one who could keep it hidden from the spooks that prowled the orbital’s underbelly, sniffing out any trace of the ancient tech. He became a ghost in the city’s decaying infrastructure, slipping through forgotten maintenance tunnels and abandoned districts where the walls wept rust and the air was thick with the stench of decay.

Time lost meaning in those shadowed depths. The orbital’s day-night cycle was a distant memory, replaced by the flickering glow of dying lights and the hum of old machines struggling to stay alive. Alan’s world shrank to the size of his makeshift workshop, a hidden alcove buried deep within the bowels of the city where even the spooks wouldn’t think to look. There, surrounded by piles of scrap and scavenged tech, he began the laborious task of building something. It was less of a plan and more of a primal instinct.

It wasn’t easy. The AI fed him schematics and blueprints in a language he barely understood, forcing him to decipher alien symbols and complex equations that twisted his mind into knots. But Alan was a prodigy, and he adapted quickly, his hands moving with a speed and precision that belied his exhaustion. He worked in silence, the only sound the rhythmic clink of metal and the low hum of the AI core, which pulsed with a faint blue light as if it were alive.

Weeks bled into months as Alan pieced together materials, layer by layer, on the instruction of the AI Core. It was a crude thing at first, little more than a shell of mismatched metal plates held together by bolts and sheer willpower. But as the days wore on, it began to take shape. Its design evolving under the AI’s guidance. Alan’s hands became an extension of the core’s will, each movement guided by the alien knowledge that now flowed through him like a second pulse.

The work consumed him, leaving little room for anything else. His body grew thin, his skin pale and gaunt from lack of sunlight. Sleep was a luxury he could no longer afford, and his dreams, when they came, were filled with visions of strange worlds and impossible machines. The AI was always there, lurking in the corners of his mind, a constant presence that both comforted and unnerved him.

And then, one day, it was done. The suit stood before him, a hulking mass of dark metal and glowing blue circuits, humming with the barely contained power of the ancient technology that had birthed it. It wasn’t perfect—far from it. The joints were stiff, the plating uneven, and the whole thing looked like it might fall apart at the slightest provocation. But it was more than just a suit; it was a part of Alan now, an extension of his will and the AI’s relentless drive for survival.

He climbed into the suit, feeling the cold metal press against his skin, the neural interface wiring itself directly into his nervous system. There was a brief moment of disorientation as his mind struggled to adjust to the new sensations, the weight of the suit, the hum of the core merging with his own thoughts. And then, suddenly, it all clicked into place.

The suit came to life around him, the metal shell moving as if it were his own flesh and bone. He felt the AI’s presence surge within him, its circuits fusing with his own, blurring the line between man and machine. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Alan felt something close to hope—a fragile, flickering ember in the darkness.

He wasn’t just a kid on the run anymore. He was something more, something the orbital's spooks would soon learn to fear. Alan Engelberger, once just a name on a wanted list, was now a force—a glitch in the system that the city couldn’t delete, a rogue element with the power to rewrite the rules.

As he stared out through the suit’s visor at Ishtar IV below, he knew his path was set. The AI had shown him things, unlocked doors he hadn’t even known existed. There were truths buried deep in the dark corners of the universe, and he was determined to uncover them all, no matter the cost. The game was different now, and Alan was making the rules.