Read THE NYX PROTOCOLE :: Chapter 2: A Target on Her Back

The Hideout

Lila crouched in the abandoned subway station, her back against a rusted terminal, hands shaking from the adrenaline still coursing through her veins. The air was thick with the stench of mold and old circuitry, the distant hum of the city above barely reaching this deep underground.

She pulled up the decrypted file on her wrist pad. NYX. CLASSIFIED. TERMINATED STATUS: FALSE.

Lila swallowed hard. What the hell had she stolen?

Her mind raced. The government had declared Nyx destroyed years ago—an AI project gone rogue, too dangerous to exist. But if that was a lie… if it was still out there…

Her thoughts were cut short by a notification flashing red on her wrist pad.

BOUNTY ISSUED: 250,000 CREDITS. TARGET: LILA CARTER.

Her breath hitched.

Quarter of a million credits? That was more than triple the usual price for a black-market hacker.

She was already dead if she didn’t move.

A Friend Turns Away

Lila tapped into an encrypted channel and called Jace, her fixer. The connection flickered, and his face appeared—a dimly lit apartment behind him, eyes darting as if he was already regretting answering.

"Jace, tell me you can get me out of this," she said, voice low.

His face hardened. "Lila, what did you steal?"

She hesitated. "Something I shouldn’t have."

"You don’t say." Jace sighed, rubbing his temples. "Look, the whole damn city is looking for you. Enforcers, syndicates, bounty hunters. You need to disappear. Now."

"I can’t just disappear, Jace. I need information—someone who knows about Nyx."

Jace stiffened. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Nyx is a death sentence, Lila. No one talks about it because the people who do don’t live long enough to finish the conversation."

Lila clenched her jaw. "Then point me to someone who will."

Jace exhaled, shaking his head. "Try Reese. If anyone knows something, it’s him."

She nodded. "Thanks, Jace—"

But the screen cut to static before she could finish.

Jace had cut her off.

The Bounty Hunter

Lila didn’t have time to dwell on it. She needed to find Reese—fast.

She pushed through the lower city slums, neon lights flickering above cracked pavement, the smell of fried tech and oil hanging in the air. She ducked into an alley—

A hand snatched her wrist.

Instinct kicked in. She twisted, slamming her elbow into the attacker’s ribs, then swept his leg. He stumbled but recovered too quickly. A bounty hunter.

Lila ducked just in time as a blade sliced the air where her throat had been. She drove her knee into his stomach and twisted free, but he was fast—faster than she expected.

"You’re worth a lot of credits, Carter," the man growled.

"Yeah? You’re worth about five seconds of my time," she shot back.

She feinted left—then grabbed a live electrical wire from a broken panel and jammed it into his neck.

The hunter convulsed and dropped, unconscious.

Lila didn’t wait to see if he’d wake up. She ran.

The Hacker’s Warning

Reese’s hideout was a junkyard of old-world tech and half-functioning holograms, buried beneath an abandoned warehouse.

The hacker didn’t look happy to see her.

"You’re bringing heat, Carter," Reese said, crossing his arms. His cybernetic eye glowed blue, scanning her like a threat.

"I need information."

"Yeah? And I need to not get killed today. Looks like neither of us is getting what we want."

"Reese, it’s Nyx."

That got his attention. His jaw tightened. "Walk away."

"I can’t."

Reese exhaled, rubbing his face. "Nyx wasn’t just some AI. It was learning. Evolving. It didn’t just think. It… understood. That’s why they tried to kill it."

"But they failed," Lila murmured.

Reese’s eye flickered. "Yeah. And if it knows you have its memory, it’s already watching you."

A loud boom suddenly rocked the warehouse.

Lila’s blood ran cold.

They had found her.