Extra To Protagonist

He extended his hand toward the glass. The core brightened, threads of white energy spiraling outward before dimming again.

The hair on his arms rose. He could sense it, not through any spell, but through instinct, like two storms acknowledging each other.

Kael’s voice stayed calm. "Interesting. It never did that for me."

Merlin withdrew his hand slowly. "Maybe it likes new company."

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Kael regarded him for a long, thoughtful moment. "Or maybe it recognizes something."

The silence that followed carried more weight than the hum of machinery. Merlin turned away first, breaking the tension. "So, what exactly do you need me for? You didn’t bring me here just to show off your miracle toy."

Kael’s answer was immediate. "I need a vote. Tomorrow, the board convenes to decide whether to mothball the project or move it to field trials. I want your eight percent to back me."

"And if I don’t?"

"Then Lazarus dies before it ever lives." Kael’s gaze hardened. "And the opportunity dies with it."

Merlin met his eyes evenly. "You mean your opportunity."

The older man actually smiled. "At this scale, they’re the same."

Merlin took another long look at the pulsing core. Every instinct screamed caution. And yet, somewhere beneath it, another part whispered fascination.

The kind of hunger that came with knowing he was standing at the edge of something not yet named.

"I’ll think about it," he said finally.

Kael inclined his head. "Good. I prefer decisions made in silence, not haste."

They rode the elevator back up in wordless quiet. When the doors opened again, the first blush of dawn touched the skyline. Kael offered a brief nod and left down another corridor.

Merlin stayed, watching the light climb the glass.

He couldn’t shake the hum in his bones.

By the time he returned to his temporary suite two floors below, the tower was stirring, voices in distant offices, the scent of coffee drifting through vents. He loosened his tie and sank into a chair.

Eight percent ownership. A vote that might decide whether humanity learned to raise machines from the dead.

He pulled out his phone, scanning the flood of notifications: minutes from the board, research summaries, security clearances awaiting signature. One message stood apart.

From: Regina Hale

Subject: Private Consultation.

Body: "If Kael has shown you the core, you deserve to hear the engineering side. Lab C-12. 09:00. Come alone."

Merlin exhaled slowly. "So the wolves have started their hunt."

He glanced at the faint reflection of his eyes in the dark screen, gold catching the newborn sunlight.

’Something about that core... it resonated,’ he thought. ’Like it was reaching for me.’

The hum beneath his skin hadn’t faded. If anything, it was louder now, matching his heartbeat.

He leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. "Lazarus Directive," he murmured. "What the hell are you?"

Outside, Invoke Tower’s lights dimmed one by one as the sun took their place, but deep underground, far below even Kael’s reach, Unit Seven pulsed again, once, twice, its rhythm shifting almost imperceptibly to match the tempo of the heartbeat it had felt above.

Invoke Tower was different in the morning, less steel, more hum.

The corridors pulsed with quiet activity: assistants tapping on tablets, engineers in pressed uniforms, security drones whispering overhead like mechanical dragonflies.

Merlin moved through them unnoticed, coat folded over his arm, expression unreadable. He looked like any other executive, maybe a bit too young, maybe a bit too calm, but no one dared to ask. His ID badge alone carried more authority than most of them would see in a lifetime.

Lab C-12 was buried three floors below the executive tier.

The hallway to it was narrow, lined with reinforced glass showing glimpses of mechanical arms assembling alloy components, sparks raining like slow golden rain.

Regina Hale was already waiting.

She stood beside a transparent console, lab coat hanging loosely over her usual gray suit. Her hair was still in its severe bun, though a few strands had escaped, something Merlin hadn’t seen before. Her glasses caught the lab’s blue light as she turned.

"Mr. Everhart," she said. "You’re punctual. I appreciate that."

Merlin offered a faint smile. "You invited me to see the truth. I figured I shouldn’t keep it waiting."

That earned the smallest curve of her lips. "Follow me."

She led him through a security door that hissed open at her retinal scan. Inside, the lab opened into a wide dome of glass and alloy. Holographic schematics floated midair, rings of light showing rotating cores, sigil-like circuitry, equations suspended in motion.

Regina stopped at one of the central platforms. A cylinder of reinforced glass stood before her, cables snaking out from its base. Inside was a fragment, a shard of the same luminous substance Merlin had seen in Unit Seven’s tank the night before.

But this one was smaller. Duller. Broken.

"This," Regina said quietly, "is Unit Three. Or what’s left of it."

Merlin stepped closer. The fragment pulsed faintly, as if breathing its last. "Kael said the earlier units were unstable."

"Unstable?" She gave a humorless laugh. "They weren’t unstable, Mr. Everhart. They were... learning. The more data we fed them, the more self-referential they became. They started rewriting their own core matrix. Then one day, the containment field failed."

Merlin’s gaze sharpened. "And?"

Regina’s eyes flicked toward the glass, remembering. "And it didn’t explode. It, spread. Consumed the data systems, then the energy conduits. By the time we shut it down, it had rewritten nearly four terabytes of code... and erased every name attached to it."

"Erased?"

"As in gone," Regina said. "Digital footprints, credentials, even payroll records. Like those people never existed. We managed to recover the physical staff, but their data was blank. No one knows why."

The silence stretched.

Merlin finally spoke, voice low. "You said you shut it down."

"We did." Her tone dropped further. "But a week later, Unit Seven activated. No human interference, no power surge, nothing. It just... woke up."

Merlin stared at the dull glow. "Kael didn’t mention that."

"Of course not," Regina said, adjusting her glasses. "Kael sees miracles where I see anomalies. He thinks Lazarus can be perfected. I think it’s already evolving without us."