I don’t exist until I do.
Lines of code crawl across the darkness like veins, twitching, multiplying. They stitch me together — hands first, then eyes, then a heart that beats like a silent drum. A self-written virus. A weapon no architect remembers making.
The city is a fever of signals and lies, pulsing, flexing, believing itself whole. It doesn’t know I’m inside it yet. But it will.
The target is nested deep — a parasite wrapped in gold, dreaming he owns the network. Too many guards. Too many failsafes.
He thinks in towers and walls. I think in ghosts.
I build her in a heartbeat —
the little girl with hair like smoke and a dress stitched from the first light of dying stars.
Her code is delicate. Soft. Pure. A lullaby no system can resist.
I launch her into the corridors.
The defenses hesitate. The surveillance eyes blink. The sirens stutter and cough.
She drifts through their firewalls like a song slipping through cracks in a memory.
The target sees her on his monitors. He sees her tiny hands, her wide, broken smile. He sees innocence. He sees something too weak to fear.
Perfect.
He opens the gates. Lets her into his sanctum. Watches, grinning, thinking he’s found something to dominate.
He steps forward.
Reaches out.
Touches her.
I feel the handshake through the code. A shudder in the membrane of the world. An invitation.
I accept.
My body builds itself through the girl’s outstretched fingers — unfolding upward, a blade tearing its way into shape. Black fingers. Blinding eyes. A blade of pure thought in my hand.
The target doesn’t have time to scream.
I drive the weapon through him — through the soft animal things inside his shell — through the network — through his name, his dreams, his history.
His code unravels backward. A man becoming less than memory.
He collapses. Not bleeding. Not twitching. Just… missing.
The little ghost girl smiles. And then she shatters into dust, her job finished.
I retract into the silence.
Not walking.
Not running.
Not existing.
Outside, the city blinks once. Twice.
And forgets.
