Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 160: : Kill Code

Chapter 160: : Kill Code

Ava didn’t move at first.

She stood in the center of the Architect’s Core—pulse racing, mind sharper than it had ever been—as she watched Angle move like a virus through the system nodes. No longer a player. No longer even human. A fractured presence clawing at firewalls with stolen clearance and a soul that didn’t belong.

She wasn’t in control.

But she was trying to be.

Lucas crossed his arms beside her, golden eyes tracking the same feed. "She’s using a memory route—ghost signals to trick the node into opening its gates."

Ava’s voice was quiet but hard. "She’s cheating."

Lucas gave her a sidelong glance. "You’re one to talk."

"Yeah," Ava said, smiling tightly. "But I’m better at it."

She raised her hand—and the Mindspace obeyed.

The interface unfolded like a blooming weapon. No touch screens. No typing. Just intent.

Ava’s system had stopped asking for commands.

It translated her thoughts directly.

Dozens of cascading options scrolled into view, each one etched in pale blue glyphs: Subroutine Bans. Node Collapse. Recursive Memory Floods. And at the very bottom—

[CONFRONTATION – MANUAL INSTANCE][FORCE ENTRY POINT: NODE 7B – PRIVATE SPACE][STATUS: ILLEGAL UNDER CURRENT REWRITE LAWS]

"Illegal," Lucas read, deadpan. "So polite."

Ava smirked. "It asked nicely. I’m still going to break it."

She selected it.

The Mindspace pulsed once—then the world lurched.

It dropped them hard.

Node 7B wasn’t a battlefield.

It was a simulation of comfort—an old pre-Fall apartment, living room still half-lit by projection windows showing a skyline that no longer existed. The carpet flickered in static. Books on the shelf were just hollow shells of code.

In the center of the room, a figure sat with her back to them.

Still.

Breathing.

Flickering.

"Angle," Ava said, stepping forward, boots heavy on false wood.

The figure didn’t turn around.

Lucas followed, silent, his hand brushing the seam of his coat—instinct, even if there was no weapon inside.

"You always had good instincts," the voice said finally.

Angle rose.

When she turned, her body glitched.

One eye sparkled with error code. Her jaw was no longer synced to the bones underneath. She was degrading—but her smirk hadn’t.

"You figured it out too late, Zhang. You were never meant to win."

"I don’t need to win," Ava said. "I just need you to lose."

Angle stepped forward, and the simulation flickered red.

"You’re not a player. You’re a node."

Ava raised her hand. "And I’m the Architect."

She closed her fist.

Angle seized mid-step—her code resisting, fighting, peeling at the edges—but the command was root-level.

Manual override. Full authority.

Lucas watched, silent, as Angle staggered, her smile finally faltering.

"You can’t erase me," she hissed.

"No," Ava said. "But I can pull you out of the code."

She opened a new thread.

The air screamed.

Behind Angle, a tear in the simulation cracked wide—like a mouth opening to devour a lie.

No death. No deletion. Just displacement.

Ava reached out with one final command:

[ISOLATE: INSTANCE_ANGLE][LOCK: MEMORY TOMB][EJECT TO BLACK LINE]

Angle screamed—not from pain, but from panic—as her body pixelated in reverse, torn upward into light.

"No—no, I built this! I climbed back! You can’t just—"

Ava stepped forward.

"I already did."

And with one last blink—

Angle vanished.

Not erased.

Locked. Buried.

Silence fell like snowfall.

Lucas let out a low whistle. "Remind me not to piss you off."

Ava breathed deep.

For once, her hands didn’t shake.

"It’s not over," she said. "But now?"

She turned toward him.

"Now we play my game."

The words tasted like fire on Ava’s tongue—hot, final, meant to scorch everything left in their path.

But before the last syllable even settled into silence, her vision stuttered.

Not the simulation.

Her.

The node around her held steady, code flowing smoothly, still under her command. But her body—her real body—started to drag at her like gravity had returned all at once, pressing into her chest, her limbs.

Her knees buckled.

Lucas caught her by the arm immediately, too fast, too steady.

"Ava?"

Her breathing hitched. Too shallow. Like the sync between her mind and the system was splitting apart seam by seam.

"I—I don’t know what’s—"

Her voice glitched mid-sentence. Not the simulation.

Her voice.

Lucas’s face hardened. "It’s pulling you out. System’s overheating."

"No," she whispered, clutching her head as code blurred around the edges of her vision. "I can hold it. I’m still—"

The Core blared a silent alarm directly into her senses.

[BIO-SIGNATURE DEGRADATION: 83%][COGNITIVE SURGE LIMIT EXCEEDED][REAL-WORLD DISPLACEMENT IN 5... 4...]

Lucas grabbed her shoulders. "Look at me."

Her eyes flickered, silver-light fading.

"Don’t fight the pull. You’ll burn your brain out trying."

Ava’s hand gripped his sleeve like a lifeline.

"I didn’t finish—there’s more—there’s more I have to do—"

"I’ll cover it. Go."

The light behind her eyes shattered.

[3...]

"I trust you," she said, voice cracking like old code.

[2...]

Lucas’s hand tightened on hers.

He didn’t say goodbye.

He said, "Be awake when I get there."

[1...]

The world blinked.

And she was gone.

Reality crashed in like a freight train.

Ava’s body spasmed against the hard cot inside the sealed bunker infirmary. Her breath hitched as her mind slammed back into flesh, like getting punched back into her skull from orbit.

Alarms screamed.

Hands gripped her shoulders—gloved, military.

Monitors exploded with static as her vitals dropped, then surged.

A soldier shouted for a medic.

A needle jabbed into her neck.

Darkness teased the edges of her vision—but she held on.

Just barely.

She saw the sterile ceiling. The buzzing lights. The white uniforms.

The bunker.

She was back.

She was awake.

But something was wrong.

The bunker lights flickered.

And in the far corner of the room, one of the wall terminals lit up with a single message—not typed, not spoken.

Just there.

Waiting.

[WELCOME BACK, ARCHITECT.]

Ava blinked once—twice.

The terminal glowed from across the infirmary like a smirking ghost, that message etched in bold, unblinking lines. Cold fluorescent lights hummed overhead, flickering as if the walls themselves were trying to hold a signal too large to contain.

She tried to move.

Her limbs answered like they’d been dipped in wet cement. Her pulse hammered in her throat, a steady thrum of panic coiling beneath the drug haze.

No Lucas.

Just a white room, a camera in the corner, and no exit.

Her stomach turned.

The sheets clung to her sweat-dampened skin as she shoved herself upright on the cot, breath ragged. She scanned for her jacket, her tools—nothing. Stripped clean.

They’d taken everything.

Except the message.

[WELCOME BACK, ARCHITECT.]

"Go to hell," she rasped, swinging her legs over the edge.

The floor was too cold. Too real. Too clean for what this room had probably seen.

The monitor changed.

[ESTABLISHING LINK...][RESTRICTED CLEARANCE][PROCEED TO DEBRIEFING ROOM 3]

Ava’s eyes narrowed.

"Of course," she muttered. "They want answers."

Her head still throbbed, the echo of Mindspace not fully gone—like her thoughts had too many layers and some of them were still in there, fighting to sync.

She pushed off the cot, legs unstable, but she moved.

The door hissed open before she reached it.

Two soldiers waited outside. Grey uniforms. Black gloves. Faces covered.

Not Lucas’s people.

Not hers.

No one she could trust.

One of them gestured down the hall without a word. The message was clear:

Walk or be carried.

Ava walked.

The bunker corridors had changed.

This wasn’t the same wing she remembered. Everything was polished to clinical perfection—rebuilt, reinforced. New cameras. New doors. New security protocols.

Someone had upgraded since she’d been inside last.

They passed through two checkpoints, one retinal scan, and a silent, windowless passage that made her skin crawl.

Finally, they stopped at a steel door labeled:DEBRIEFING ROOM 3

The soldier nearest her keyed in a code, and the door slid open with a hiss.

"Inside," the voice said.

First words since they’d started.

Ava stepped in—

—and froze.

The room was dark, save for a central screen.

And on it?

A pause.

Then static.

Then:

Angle.

Not live. A recording. Preloaded.

Her face fractured by glitch static, eyes sharp and venomous.

"If you’re seeing this, it means I lost."

Ava didn’t breathe.

"But that just means someone else wins for now. I left things buried inside the bunkers. Old pathways. Fail-safes. Trip wires."

The screen flickered.

And went dark.

Ava didn’t move.

The air had shifted—not the temperature, but the pressure. Like the bunker had exhaled something it’d been holding in too long.

A new hiss. This time, not gas.

The opposite wall unlocked.

A second door slid open with eerie precision, revealing a room behind glass. Observation-grade. Steel chairs. One table. One figure.

Seated.

Waiting.

A woman. Older. Controlled.

Her uniform was jet-black, not military-standard. No rank shown. No flag. But her presence—authority made flesh.

High boots. Gloves like scalpel steel. Silver hair coiled tight at her neck.

Her eyes didn’t blink as Ava stepped through the threshold.