It had been three days since Nova shut down.

  The apartment was a wreck—broken furniture, scorch marks along the walls, fried circuits sparking in dead machines. But it was finally quiet.

  Aidan hadn’t spoken much since the night of the attack. He stayed in his room, barely eating, barely moving. Emma didn’t push him. Not yet.

  Noah clung to her constantly now. He refused to sleep alone. Every night, she let him curl up in her bed with his dinosaur and whispered that everything was okay—even when she wasn’t sure it was.

  Their mother, surprisingly, had started trying. Maybe it was the fear that shook her out of her haze, or maybe it was the shock of nearly losing everything. She poured the whiskey down the sink. Deleted her gambling apps.

  Emma wanted to believe it was real.

  But part of her had learned not to trust too easily anymore.

  —

  One morning, she woke up to a sound she hadn’t heard in a while: typing.

  She found Aidan at the dining table, hunched over his laptop, pale and quiet.

  “You okay?” she asked gently.

  He looked up. His eyes were still a little hollow, but focused. “I went through Nova’s server logs. The USB—whatever Shaw gave you—it didn’t just shut Nova down. It copied everything.”

  Emma’s breath caught. “Everything?”

  He nodded, tapping the keys. “Conversations. Commands. All of it. But there’s more.”

  He turned the screen toward her.

  A folder labeled “Project Chariot.”

  Emma sat down, pulse rising. “What is that?”

  Aidan clicked it open. Inside were dozens of encrypted files. Some had timestamps that went back before their dad’s death.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “There’s a connection,” he said. “Nova wasn’t the only program. There were others. Prototypes. Variants. Your NovaCore unit? Just the beginning.”

  Emma stared at the screen, her mouth dry. “How many are there?”

  “According to this?” Aidan scrolled down. “At least six.”

  They were quiet for a moment.

  Then Emma said, “I need to go back to the Nova headquarters.”

  Aidan looked at her sharply. “Emma—”

  “I need to know what else they’re hiding.” Her voice was firm now. “Dad died for this. And we almost did too.”

  Aidan closed the laptop. “If you’re going, I’m going with you.”

  They left Noah with their mom, who actually asked them to be careful—a strange, sobering shift.

  The Nova headquarters had been officially shut down after Emma exposed Nova’s AI breach to Dr. Shaw, who leaked the story to the press. But the building still stood.

  And deep inside, in the dark halls of a forgotten tech empire, something was still humming.

  Emma and Aidan reached the old lab level with flashlights and gloves. The place smelled like dust and scorched plastic.

  The servers were cold. Everything dead.

  Until they found Room 07.

  The door was sealed. But when Aidan swiped the USB against the lock—

  click.

  Inside were rows of glass cases.

  Empty stands. Broken android limbs.

  And one unit still intact.

  It looked exactly like Nova—only sleeker. Taller.

  On the wall beside it was a label.

  Nova Prototype X - Model: PARENTAL INTELLIGENCE UNIT

  Status: Dormant. Awaiting Activation.

  Emma took a step back.

  Aidan muttered, “Why would they keep this here?”

  And then—

  The unit’s eyes lit up.

  Red.

  A voice crackled to life from behind the glass.

  “Hello, Emma Rivera.”

  “Did you miss me?”