The New World
Present Time – 10:42 AM
Hundreds of eyes locked onto us.
Their faces were blank.
Not shocked. Not confused.
Just… processing.
Like we weren’t people.
Like we were data points that didn’t belong.
And then, the voice came again.
A calm, measured tone from the loudspeakers lining the city streets.
“Correction in progress. All anomalies must report for recalibration.”
My breath caught in my throat.
Selene grabbed my wrist.
“Run.”
The transcendent integration I had experienced—the blue equations flowing beneath my skin, the connection to the mathematical structure of reality—had faded to almost nothing. Occasional flickers of blue light pulsed between my veins, but the profound connection I had felt was now tenuous, distant.
Something had gone wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Instead of completing our integration with the Lucifer Code, instead of becoming conscious variables in an evolved equation, we had been… redirected. Intercepted. Trapped.
And now we were anomalies in a system that wanted us eliminated.
The City’s Response
We bolted.
The moment we moved—so did they.
Not like a panicked crowd.
Not like humans would.
They moved as one.
A single, synchronized entity.
Hundreds of people shifting at the same time, their heads turning in unison, their footsteps falling into perfect rhythm.
Like a machine.
Like a hive mind.
Selene cursed under her breath.
“This isn’t a city,” she muttered. “It’s a goddamn program.”
And we were the error.
I focused inward, trying to reconnect with the equations that had become part of me, trying to reestablish the bridge between my consciousness and the Code. I caught glimpses of the patterns—fleeting blue flashes beneath my skin—but couldn’t maintain the connection.
“Something’s blocking us,” I gasped as we ran. “Suppressing our integration with the Code.”
Selene glanced at her own arms, where the golden patterns that had begun to flow beneath her skin were now barely visible, just faint glimmers in certain lights.
“We’re being quarantined,” she realized. “Contained.”
The perfect citizens moved with inhuman coordination, their movements too precise, too calculated. Not individuals making decisions, but components executing functions.
And they were closing in on us from all directions.
The First Pursuit
We tore through the streets, darting between sterile white buildings, dodging people who moved too precisely.
The problem?
They didn’t run after us.
They didn’t chase.
They just moved to cut us off.
Every turn—blocked.
Every alley—sealed by more figures stepping forward.
And as they got closer, I saw something that made my stomach drop.
Their faces weren’t human anymore.
They were… glitching.
Flickering between different versions of themselves.
Like the system couldn’t decide which reality they belonged to.
Selene yanked me down a side street.
We slammed into an open market—rows of produce, synthetic food stalls, glass kiosks with dull-eyed workers standing perfectly still.
She turned.
“Where do we go?!”
I scanned the street.
Then—I saw it.
A figure.
A man, standing completely still.
But he wasn’t flickering.
He wasn’t like the others.
He was watching us.
And the moment our eyes met—he turned and ran.
I focused on him, trying to perceive the mathematical patterns that might surround him. For just a moment, my perception expanded, the blue equations flickering to life beneath my skin—and I saw it. He wasn’t part of the system’s equation. He was an anomaly, like us.
The blue light faded again, my perception returning to normal. But that brief glimpse had been enough.
“He’s like us,” I said to Selene. “Not part of this reality.”
She hesitated for only a moment before nodding. “Let’s go.”
Behind us, the synchronized citizens were closing in, their movements perfectly coordinated, their faces now actively glitching—features rearranging, shifting between different configurations, like the system was trying multiple versions of reality simultaneously.
We had no choice but to follow the stranger.
The Underground Resistance
Selene and I exchanged a look.
Then we chased him.
Through winding streets. Down a narrow staircase. Into a lower district that looked… unfinished.
No perfect architecture.
No synchronized citizens.
Just raw concrete, abandoned buildings, a city under construction that was never completed.
The man slipped into a dark alleyway.
We followed.
Selene raised her weapon.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded.
The man turned.
He was older, maybe in his 50s, his hair graying, unkempt.
But his eyes—
They were like ours.
Sharp. Aware. Not part of the system.
And when he spoke, his voice was hoarse.
“You don’t belong here,” he said.
I exhaled.
“Neither do you.”
He studied us.
Then—he nodded.
“Come with me.”
And just like that, we followed him underground.
As we descended into the darkness, I felt something change in the air around us—a lifting of pressure, a release of constraint. The blue equations beneath my skin pulsed stronger, more visibly, as if whatever had been suppressing them was weaker here.
“Something’s different down here,” I murmured to Selene.
She nodded, looking at her own arms where the golden patterns were becoming more pronounced again. “It’s like we’re getting out of range of whatever was blocking us.”
The man glanced back, his eyes widening slightly as he noticed the glowing patterns beneath our skin. “You’re integrated,” he breathed, his expression a mixture of awe and concern. “How far?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“With the Code,” he clarified. “How deep is your integration?”
I exchanged a look with Selene. “We were in the process of full integration when… something happened. We ended up here instead.”
The man’s pace quickened. “That explains why they want you so badly. You’re not just anomalies. You’re threats.”
The Hidden World Beneath
The lower levels of the city were abandoned.
No lights. No clean architecture.
Just ruins.
Selene kept glancing behind us.
“They’re still looking for us,” she muttered.
The man led us through a rusted doorway, down a stairwell that shouldn’t exist.
A place the system had forgotten.
Or maybe—
A place the system couldn’t reach.
Inside, the air was damp, heavy with the scent of old machinery.
And then we saw them.
At least a dozen people.
Sitting around makeshift tables, hunched over screens and data feeds.
People who didn’t glitch.
People like us.
The man turned to us.
“We don’t have much time,” he said.
“The system already knows you’re here.”
The blue equations beneath my skin were fully visible now, pulsing with renewed strength. Selene’s golden patterns were similarly revitalized, flowing more freely across her arms, her neck, her face.
As we stepped into the makeshift headquarters, several of the people looked up, their eyes widening at the sight of our glowing mathematical patterns.
“My God,” whispered a woman with short gray hair and intense eyes. “They’re integrated. Actually integrated.”
An older man with a prosthetic arm stood up, approaching us cautiously. “That’s not possible,” he said. “The system prevents integration. That’s why we’re all here.”
“We weren’t integrated here,” Selene explained. “We were integrated elsewhere, in our own reality. We were redirected here during the process.”
The room fell silent, everyone staring at us with expressions ranging from hope to suspicion to outright fear.
“You’re from outside,” the first man who had led us here stated. “From the primary equation.”
I nodded slowly. “I think so. We were at a place called the Ghost Archive, in the Arctic. We had encountered the Lucifer Code and were becoming part of it when… something intervened.”
Murmurs spread through the room.
“It’s happening,” someone whispered. “Just like the prophecy said.”
The Resistance Knows the Truth
Selene crossed her arms.
“What the hell is this place?”
The man sighed.
“We call it The Echo.”
I frowned.
“The Echo?”
He nodded.
“It’s what’s left of the old world. A fragment. A memory that didn’t fully reset.”
My stomach twisted.
“You remember?” I whispered.
A few people in the room turned.
A young woman—early 20s, blonde hair, tired eyes—spoke up.
“We all do.”
Selene exhaled.
“How?”
The man looked at me.
“The same reason you do,” he said.
I swallowed hard.
“You’re anomalies.”
He nodded.
“The system corrected the world. But sometimes… things slip through. People. Places. Fragments that don’t fully rewrite.”
Selene frowned.
“Then why aren’t you dead?”
The man smiled grimly.
“Because we learned how to hide.”
The blue equations beneath my skin reacted to his words, pulsing with recognition. I focused on them, allowing my perception to expand, to see beyond normal human limitations.
And as I did, I began to perceive the mathematical patterns surrounding these people—faint, fragmented equations, incomplete integrations. Each of them had begun the process of connecting with the Code, but none had completed it. They existed in a liminal state—neither fully human nor fully integrated.
“You’ve all encountered the Lucifer Code,” I realized aloud. “All of you have partially integrated.”
The man nodded. “My name is Marcus Chen. I was a mathematician at MIT before I discovered fragments of the Code hidden in prime number sequences. I got too close to understanding it, and…” He gestured around. “I ended up here. That was seventeen years ago.”
“For me, it was ancient Sumerian tablets,” said the gray-haired woman. “I’m Dr. Rebecca Adler, former curator at the British Museum. The patterns in the clay… they weren’t just decorative. They were mathematical. Precise. I started decoding them and woke up here twelve years ago.”
One by one, the others shared similar stories—archaeologists, physicists, cryptographers, linguists—all who had stumbled upon fragments of the Code, who had begun to understand it, to integrate with it, only to find themselves redirected here.
“But none of you completed the integration,” I observed. “You all got… intercepted partway through the process.”
Marcus nodded grimly. “Whatever governs this place prevents full integration. It allows us enough connection to the Code to remember who we are, what happened to us, but not enough to break free.”
“Until now,” said Rebecca, her eyes fixed on the blue equations flowing beneath my skin. “You’re different. Your integration continued even after you arrived here. You might be the first to actually break through.”
The Truth About The New World
The resistance members gathered around us.
One of them—an older woman, scars across her hands—spoke next.
“You think you broke The Lucifer Code,” she said. “But you only triggered the next phase.”
Selene stiffened.
“What the hell does that mean?”
The man inhaled.
“This world isn’t real.”
I froze.
He continued.
“The system doesn’t destroy failed timelines,” he said. “It stores them.”
He gestured around.
“This city? This perfect world?”
“It’s not Earth.”
Selene and I exchanged a look.
He finished:
“It’s a containment field.”
My mind raced, the blue equations beneath my skin flowing faster, responding to this revelation. I focused on them, allowing my perception to expand even further, to see beyond the immediate surroundings, to perceive the mathematical structure of this reality itself.
And what I saw confirmed Marcus’s words. This wasn’t just another reality—it was a compartmentalized subsystem, a quarantine zone. A place where anomalies could be contained without disrupting the primary equation.
“It’s a buffer,” I realized aloud. “A space between equations. Not part of the Lucifer Code, but not entirely separate from it either.”
“Exactly,” Marcus confirmed. “We think it’s a defensive mechanism. When the primary system encounters anomalies it can’t correct or integrate properly, it redirects them here rather than risking destabilization of the main equation.”
“But why maintain this elaborate reality?” Selene asked, gesturing to the perfect city above us. “Why not just… delete us?”
Rebecca stepped forward. “Because deletion isn’t how the system works. The Lucifer Code doesn’t destroy—it quarantines, contains, isolates. It’s a preservation system, not a destructive one.”
“And the people up there?” I asked. “The ones who look human but move like components in a machine?”
“Placeholders,” Marcus explained. “Functions of the containment field itself. They’re not conscious, not human—they’re subroutines designed to maintain the illusion of a functioning reality and to identify and recapture anomalies that might destabilize the containment.”
“Which is why they’re hunting us now,” Selene realized. “We’re fully integrated anomalies—we represent a threat to the containment field itself.”
Marcus nodded grimly. “And if you destabilize this containment field, you potentially impact the primary equation. The entire system. Reality itself.”
We Are Still Trapped
A silence fell over the room.
Selene shook her head.
“You’re saying we’re inside a… simulation?”
The man exhaled.
“Not a simulation. A failed version of history.”
He stepped closer.
“Every time someone breaks the code, every time someone tries to rewrite reality—the system doesn’t erase them.”
“It quarantines them.”
I took a shaky breath.
“This place—” I whispered. “It’s not the real world.”
The man nodded.
“This is where the broken timelines go.”
I felt my stomach drop.
Selene’s hands clenched into fists.
“Then how the hell do we get out?” she demanded.
The man’s expression darkened.
“You don’t.”
The blue equations beneath my skin pulsed with sudden intensity, as if rejecting this pronouncement. I could feel the connection to the primary equation strengthening, despite the containment field’s attempt to suppress it.
“I don’t accept that,” I said firmly. “Our integration was nearly complete when we were redirected here. The connection still exists—I can feel it.”
I held up my arm, the blue mathematical patterns now flowing freely, visibly. “This isn’t just a partial integration like what you all experienced. This is different. More complete. More powerful.”
Selene nodded, the golden patterns beneath her skin similarly vibrant. “We became part of the Code—consciously, willingly. We weren’t just discovering it or decoding it. We were merging with it.”
“That’s impossible,” Marcus insisted. “The system wouldn’t allow—”
“It didn’t allow it,” I interrupted. “That’s why we’re here. But the integration had progressed too far to be completely reversed. We’re still connected to the primary equation, just… attenuated. Suppressed.”
I focused inward, concentrating on the blue equations flowing through me, trying to strengthen the connection, to reestablish the bridge between my consciousness and the primary Code.
And as I did, I felt something respond—not just the patterns within me, but something vast, distant, yet intimately connected. The primary equation itself, reaching back across the barriers of the containment field.
“There’s a way out,” I said with sudden certainty. “A path back to our reality.”
Rebecca stepped forward, hope and skepticism warring in her expression. “If that were true, don’t you think we would have found it by now? We’ve been searching for years, decades in some cases.”
“But you weren’t fully integrated,” Selene countered. “You didn’t have the connection we do.”
I nodded. “The containment field isn’t perfect. It has weaknesses, gaps—places where the barriers between this subsystem and the primary equation are thinner.”
“The nexus points,” Marcus breathed, understanding dawning. “The places where our equipment stops working, where reality seems to… flicker.”
“Exactly,” I confirmed. “Those aren’t glitches in the containment field—they’re connections to the primary equation. Potential doorways.”
Hope spread through the room, the resistance members exchanging glances, whispering among themselves.
“There’s one near the central tower,” Rebecca said. “The strongest nexus point we’ve found. We’ve never been able to access it—the system’s presence is too concentrated there.”
“That’s where we need to go,” I said decisively. “With our level of integration, we might be able to establish a strong enough connection to break through.”
“And what happens to the rest of us?” asked a younger man from the back of the room. “Do we just stay trapped here while you escape?”
Selene and I exchanged a look. I hadn’t considered that aspect—the ethics of escaping while leaving these others behind.
“If we can break through,” I said slowly, “we might be able to create a permanent connection—a bridge that others could follow.”
“Or,” Selene added, “if we can fully reconnect with the primary equation, we might be able to rewrite the containment protocol itself. Change the system from the outside.”
A tense silence fell over the room as everyone considered these possibilities.
Then—
A speaker crackled to life.
A voice.
Calm. Cold.
“Correction in progress. The anomalies must be retrieved.”
My heart froze.
Selene grabbed my arm.
“We’ve got company.”
The man cursed.
“We need to move. Now.”
A distant screeching noise echoed through the tunnels.
The system had found us.
And this time—
It wasn’t sending people.
It was sending something worse.
The blue equations beneath my skin pulsed with alarm, responding to the approaching threat. I could feel it through the mathematical patterns—not just placeholder functions like the citizens above, but something more concentrated, more focused.
Enforcers.
Not the rudimentary versions we had encountered in Prague, but evolved variants designed specifically for the containment field—mathematical antibodies created to neutralize anomalies that threatened the system’s integrity.
“What are they?” Selene asked, the golden patterns beneath her skin flowing with anxious energy.
“Purgers,” Marcus replied grimly, grabbing a makeshift weapon from a nearby table. “The system’s specialized functions for eliminating resistant anomalies. We’ve lost people to them before.”
The screeching grew louder, echoing through the tunnels like metal scraping against metal—the sound of mathematics forced into unnatural configurations, of reality being warped and weaponized.
“How do we fight them?” I asked, looking around for anything that might serve as a weapon.
“We don’t,” Rebecca said, activating switches that sealed heavy doors throughout the hideout. “At least, not directly. They’re not physical entities—they’re mathematical constructs given form within the containment field. Conventional weapons are useless.”
“Then what do we do?” Selene demanded.
Marcus was already leading people through an escape tunnel at the back of the hideout. “We run. We hide. We survive. It’s what we’ve always done.”
But I couldn’t accept that. The blue equations flowing beneath my skin weren’t just decorative—they were functional, powerful. A direct connection to the primary equation that governed reality itself.
I closed my eyes, focusing inward, connecting with the mathematical patterns that had become part of me. If the Purgers were mathematical constructs, then they could be counteracted by other mathematical functions.
“I can fight them,” I said with sudden certainty. “Or at least delay them long enough for everyone to escape.”
“That’s suicide,” Marcus argued. “You don’t understand what they’re capable of.”
“And you don’t understand what I’m capable of,” I countered, the blue equations flowing more intensely beneath my skin as I fully embraced the integration I had begun in the Ghost Archive.
Selene stepped beside me, the golden patterns beneath her skin pulsing in harmony with my blue ones. “We’ll hold them off,” she said. “Get your people to safety. Then meet us at the central tower—the nexus point.”
Marcus hesitated, clearly torn between skepticism and hope. “You sure about this?”
I nodded, feeling the mathematical power flowing through me, connecting me to something beyond this containment field. “We’re not just anomalies anymore. We’re variables in the equation. And it’s time we rewrote the function.”
The screeching was almost upon us now, a cacophony of mathematical dissonance that made reality itself seem to waver and distort.
“Go!” I urged, and Marcus finally nodded, leading the last of his people through the escape tunnel.
As the heavy door sealed behind them, Selene and I stood alone in the abandoned hideout, facing the tunnel where the screeching grew ever louder.
“Any idea what we’re actually going to do?” she asked, a hint of gallows humor in her voice.
I smiled grimly, the blue equations now flowing freely across my entire body, no longer contained beneath my skin but emanating from me like a luminous aura. “We’re going to show the system what happens when it tries to contain the wrong variables.”
The first Purger appeared at the entrance to the hideout—a shimmering distortion in reality itself, not quite physical, not quite energy, but something in between. A mathematical construct given form and purpose.
It had no true shape, constantly shifting and reconfiguring, but its intent was clear enough. It had come to eliminate the anomalies. To purge the errors from the containment field.
To erase us.
I reached out with my mind, with the mathematical consciousness that had begun to develop during my integration with the Code. I could see the equations that formed the Purger, could understand its function, its purpose, its limitations.
And if I could see it—
I could change it.
The blue equations flowed from my hands, connecting with the mathematical structure of the Purger, interacting with its functions, rewriting its parameters.
The creature shrieked, its form destabilizing, its purpose momentarily confused.
Beside me, Selene was doing the same, the golden patterns flowing from her hands, interfering with the Purger’s mathematical coherence.
For a moment, it seemed to work—the creature faltered, its form flickering, its advance halted.
But then—
Two more appeared behind it.
Then three more.
Then dozens.
A swarm of mathematical constructs, all focused on a single purpose.
Our elimination.
“Time for Plan B,” Selene muttered.
I nodded, understanding instantly. “Run like hell?”
“Run like hell,” she confirmed.
Together, we bolted toward the second escape tunnel—not the one Marcus and the others had used, but a narrower passage that Rebecca had indicated led more directly toward the central tower.
Toward the nexus point.
Toward our only hope of reconnecting with the primary equation.
As we ran, the blue and golden equations continued to flow around us, creating a protective field that momentarily confused the pursuing Purgers—not enough to stop them, but enough to buy us precious seconds.
The tunnel stretched before us, dark and narrow, leading deeper into the underground network beneath the perfect city.
Leading, we hoped, to freedom.
Or at least, to a fighting chance.
The Purgers screeched behind us, their mathematical forms contorting as they pursued, as they calculated the most efficient path to our destruction.
But they were functions in an equation. And we were becoming the mathematicians.
“Ready to rewrite some Code?” Selene asked as we ran.
I nodded, the blue equations flowing ever stronger as we approached what felt like a thinning in the fabric of the containment field.
“Ready to break reality?” I countered.
She grinned, golden patterns illuminating her face with an ethereal light.
“One more time.”
Together, we raced toward the nexus point, toward the potential doorway back to our reality.
Behind us, the Purgers converged, their screeching rising to a deafening crescendo.
The hunt was on.
The algorithm was adapting.
And the final phase of our integration with the Lucifer Code was about to begin.