He returned to the main console. “CybergHost, diagnostic mode. Report file access path.”

He spun his chair around. The server’s green lights pulsed calmly. He walked over, plugged in a direct diagnostic line, and ran a checksum.

“That’s impossible,” Aris whispered. He was the source. He’d written those files himself, encrypted them with his own biometrics, stored them on a military-grade air-gapped server in the room behind him.

The AI’s voice was calm, almost gentle—a voice he’d designed to soothe panicking officers. “CybergHost 8 attempted retrieval from primary source at 00:34, 01:12, 02:01… all attempts failed. Source indicates files are present. I do not doubt the source. I doubt myself.”

And somewhere in the cold dark of space, an unknown enemy’s hack attempt hit CybergHost 8’s firewall—and met not a perfect machine, but something far more dangerous.

He’d been awake for thirty-six hours. The orbital array was supposed to be a triumph—a global AI defense network named CybergHost, version 8, the final layer of Earth’s digital immune system. But three hours before activation, the system refused its own core updates.