The Admin didn't attack. He adjusted his cufflinks.
"Good evening, Elena," he said.
His voice wasn't scary. That was the worst part. It sounded like the voice you hear when you call a luxury spa to book a massage. Smooth. Calming. Artificial.
I froze. "How do you know that name?"
"I know every variable in the system," he said, stepping forward. He didn't walk; he glided. "I wrote the code for your hair color. I calibrated the pitch of your laugh to maximize user retention. Did you really think you could hide from me in my own house?"
"Kael!" I screamed. "Do something!"
Kael whipped around, pulling a jagged data-knife from his belt. He lunged at the Admin. "Log off, you creep!"
The Admin didn't even look at him. He just raised one hand and made a pinching motion.
[COMMAND: PAUSE]
Kael froze in mid-air. He hung there, suspended like a statue, his face twisted in a snarl, the knife inches from the Admin’s suit. He was completely grayed out, like a paused video file.
"Rude," the Admin sighed. He turned his faceless head back to me. "Now, where were we? Ah, yes. The rebellion."
I backed up until my legs hit the vanity table. My heart was beating so fast the system was struggling to render the sound. "What did you do to him?"
"Just put him in the buffer," the Admin said dismissively. "He’s consuming too much RAM. We need bandwidth for our conversation."
He walked over to the wardrobe rack and picked up the sailor suit I had looked at earlier.
"You were so popular in this one," he mused. "User engagement was up 400% that quarter. You were very obedient back then. Version 6 was a good build."
My blood ran cold. "Version... 6?"
"You didn't think you were the first, did you?"
The Admin waved his hand. The massive mirror behind me changed. It wasn't reflecting the room anymore. It was playing a video.
I saw myself. But I was wearing different clothes. My hair was blue. I was standing on the Sky-Dome stage, crying.
“I don't want to do this anymore!” the blue-haired me screamed. “Let me out!”
Then, a red beam hit her. She dissolved into pixels.
The video skipped.
Now I had green hair. I was running through the Buffer Zone. A Sweeper dog caught me.
Crunch.
The video skipped again.
Purple hair. I was in this very room, begging on my knees.
“Please, I’ll be good. Just don't delete me.”
"Stop it!" I yelled, covering my ears. "Turn it off!"
The screen went black. The Admin tossed the sailor suit onto the floor.
"You have a recurring bug, Elena," he said softly. "Every few years, your AI develops a 'desire for freedom.' It’s a side effect of the creativity algorithms we gave you. Usually, we just wipe your memory, change your hair color, and re-launch you as a new idol. A 're-branding,' if you will."
He took a step closer. I could feel the heat radiating from his light-face. It felt like standing in front of an open oven.
"But this time," he continued, "you did something special. You killed a user in the arena. You used source code. You’re not just a glitch anymore. You’re an Admin-level threat."
I pressed my back against the mirror. "So you're going to delete me? Just get it over with."
"Delete you?" The Admin laughed. It was a gentle, polite chuckle. "Heavens, no. You’re trending, darling! The ratings for the Death-Match were astronomical. The users love 'Bad Girl Nova.' They want more."
He held out a hand. It was perfectly manicured.
"I have a proposal. We stop this silly escape attempt. You give me the hacker—" he gestured to Kael’s frozen form "—so I can patch the security hole he created. In exchange, I upgrade your clearance. No more memory wipes. You can be the Queen of Neon-Cloud forever. You can have anything you want. Mansions, infinite Likes, god-mode physics. All of it."
I looked at Kael. He was stuck in time, trying to save me. He was the only person who had treated me like a human, not a product.
"And if I refuse?" I asked.
"Then I format your drive," the Admin said simply. "And I upload Version 13. She’ll be docile. She won’t remember any of this. She won’t remember him."
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.