88. Sienna
Sienna
T he gunshot explodes through the room.
Jonah moves instantly.
Too late.
The bullet slams into the terminal beside my head.
Glass detonates.
Sparks erupt everywhere.
Pain rips through my skull so violently I scream inside Oracle.
Not out loud.
Inside it.
And suddenly—
I’m everywhere.
The compound vanishes.
The room disappears.
Jonah disappears.
I fall through light and memory and code all at once.
Children crying.
Kade screaming.
Needles piercing skin.
Lily alone in the dark.
The woman in the pod begging to die.
Thousands of files flooding through me.
Every experiment.
Every child.
Every lie.
Oh God.
Oracle wasn’t collecting information.
It was collecting people.
Human consciousness.
Fragments.
Patterns.
Emotional architecture.
The system was never meant to predict humanity.
It was meant to replace it.
“No…”
My voice echoes infinitely through the network.
And something answers me.
Not Kade.
Not Oracle.
Lily.
Soft.
Terrified.
“Sienna?”
I find her instantly.
Curled inside endless white space.
Small.
Alone.
A little girl trapped inside a machine that learned fear before love.
I kneel in front of her slowly.
“You found me,” she whispers.
Tears burn my eyes.
“I’m sorry it took so long.”
The white space trembles violently around us.
The purge still running.
The system collapsing.
Lily grabs my hand suddenly.
“They’re trying to get in.”
Cold floods through me.
“What?”
And suddenly—
I see them.
Outside Oracle.
Outside the facility.
Encrypted intrusion attempts hammering the system from remote locations around the world.
Whoever funded Kade knows Oracle is exposed.
And now they’re trying to erase everything.
Every file.
Every child.
Every witness.
Every secret.
“Oh my God…”
This was never just one facility.
It’s global.
Lily’s voice shakes.
“They want us dead.”
Rage burns through me instantly.
No.
Not anymore.
Not another child.
Not another stolen life.
Not another monster hiding behind power.
I squeeze Lily’s hand tightly.
“Then we fight.”
The white space pulses around us.
And suddenly—
The entire Oracle network opens beneath my feet like a galaxy.
Every camera.
Every satellite.
Every hidden file.
Every black site.
All connected.
All visible.
Unlimited power humming through my veins.
Terrifying.
God help me—
I understand why Kade became addicted to this.
Because for one horrifying second?
I could destroy anyone.
Everyone.
Governments.
Bank accounts.
Power grids.
Secrets.
The world itself.
The system offers it to me willingly.
Like temptation.
Like worship.
Then Jonah’s voice cuts through the darkness.
“Sienna.”
Everything stops.
I hear him.
Distant.
Desperate.
Real.
Not code.
Not power.
Him.
And suddenly I remember who I am.
Not Oracle.
Not Kade’s creation.
Not fragmented consciousness.
Sienna Knox.
A woman loved by a man too stubborn to let her disappear.
I look back at Lily.
“We’re going home.”
The little girl blinks.
“…Home?”
“Yes.”
Then I reach into the heart of Oracle—
And begin tearing Kade’s empire apart from the inside.