Virelli Manor – Server Core Room – Day 38
The hum of processors had become a lullaby.
Alex sat cross-legged within the cold vault beneath his nursery, surrounded by violet-lit servers of his own design. Nanocooled, zero-latency, quantum-threaded. Hardware that hadn't existed on Earth until a child willed it into being.
Today, his target was the United Global Defense Network—a system no nation publicly admitted existed.
But Alex knew better. He had detected shadow algorithms in mundane weather satellite patterns. Too many redundancies. Too much precision.
He had followed the pulse backward.
To the deepest vaults.
And now… he was inside.
> "Firewall bypassed," he whispered. "Root shell acquired. Decoding core layer."
The monitor before him shifted.
Black text scrolled over a dark crimson background.
> [WELCOME, USER-NULL. CLEARANCE LEVEL: UNDEFINED.]
[ENTER QUERY COMMAND.]
Alex typed two words:
> "Show everything."
---
Three Minutes Later – Silence
He didn't speak.
Didn't blink.
Lines of classified documents raced across the screen. Not military codes. Not nuclear launch keys. Not spy networks.
Something older.
Stranger.
The first file header read:
"Subject Archive: Homo Nocturnus"
The next:
"Mutation Report – Lycans (Region: Balkans)"
Then:
"Nephilim Sightings – Vatican Suppression Protocol"
And then—
"Object Omega: Alien Transcripts from Orbiting Ark"
Alex stared at the cascade of forbidden knowledge.
> "The myths are real," he muttered. "The legends were never fiction."
He opened the Homo Nocturnus file.
Inside: photos. Surveillance footage. Bloodwork analysis.
Vampires.
Not romantic figures. Not pretty. Not safe.
Predatory. Hyperintelligent. Nearly extinct—yet still operating in isolated urban zones. Government treaties bound them by ancient contracts, enforced by black-budget divisions of the UN.
One vampire's profile listed its age as 1,034 years.
Alex leaned forward.
> "Carbon-14 dating confirmed. No cellular decay. Stasis through unknown enzyme structures…"
He opened another file. This time: Lycans.
Werewolves. Not fantasy beasts, but mutation-enabled survivors of a failed Soviet weapon experiment in 1961. Some lived in exile. Some were mercenaries. Some… held human jobs.
A nurse in New York City.
A mailman in Denver.
They lived among humans—masked, integrated, hidden by silence.
> "Coexistence," Alex said slowly. "Or containment?"
He flipped to another file: Witches.
The name was obsolete, the report explained. The correct term was "psi-variant manipulators." Individuals born with rare brainwave frequencies that interacted with subatomic probability. In simpler terms:
They bent reality.
One had created a localized snowstorm in summer.
Another had killed twenty people by thinking.
Alex paused.
> "Probability control through prefrontal cortex enhancement. That's not magic. That's physics without limits."
Another file. Another truth.
Aliens.
Not visitors. Not greys. Not insectoids.
They were already here.
> "Ark-class biologicals. One crashed in 1972. Nevada. Recovered."
The file listed its DNA sample. It was 98.6% identical to human. But the remaining 1.4% wasn't from this planet.
It gave humans their dreams.
Literally.
The Ark's neuro-bacteria had spread via the atmosphere, evolving human imagination since the '70s. There were even birthrate anomalies among children born near the Ark site—children who dreamt in equations, saw colors never classified.
> "Cognitive mutation," Alex whispered. "The imagination explosion in the digital age—was seeded."
And then—he found the final category.
Labeled in a language unknown.
It took his processors ten minutes to translate.
> "Myths Verified."
Inside: beings thought to be pure legend.
Banshees. Djinn. Giants. Golems. Wendigos. Sirens.
Even a supposed dragon, last seen in 1806, disguised as a meteor strike.
Not just stories.
All real.
Tracked. Hunted. Or in some cases… protected.
Alex sat back, unblinking.
> "Humanity lives in a zoo it cannot see. Its jailers wear the skin of legends."
He accessed Project Silhouette, a sub-program tied to all these entries.
The screen changed.
Now it showed maps.
Cities.
And in each one—symbols. A vampire clan in Berlin. A Nephilim agent embedded in Israeli intelligence. A siren in Tokyo, operating as a pop idol. A "retired" witch running a tea shop in London.
Even his own location—Upstate New York—was flagged.
Something nearby.
Alex zoomed in.
His own manor.
Red circle.
> "What?"
He tapped for detail.
It wasn't him.
It was something beneath the manor.
Classified as 'Residual Entity – Type R'.
> "A sealed door," Alex whispered. "Under my own house?"
He ran thermal scans. Penetrating radar.
Sure enough—beneath the lowest foundation was a chamber.
Blocked by metals not on the periodic table.
> "Hidden even from my father…"
The implications unraveled in his mind.
Not only were these creatures real—they had been living beside his family for generations.
And maybe—
Maybe his bloodline wasn't human either.
---
Library – That Evening
Evelyn sipped tea, her mind still rattled by the visit from Roland.
"You think he'll return?" she asked.
Marcus was still staring at the fireplace. "No."
"…Because you don't think he can?"
Marcus's lips twitched. "Because Alex won't let him."
Just then, the walls flickered.
Not from a power outage.
But from within.
> "Mother. Father. Come downstairs."
The voice was calm. Unemotional.
But it carried a weight neither parent had ever heard.
They obeyed without question.
---
Server Room – 9:12 PM
Alex stood before them, fully dressed in a tiny black turtleneck and pants he'd modified for mobility. He no longer looked like a child. Not emotionally. Not spiritually.
Just a vessel.
A device for progress.
"Sit," he ordered.
They did.
Then he turned the screens on.
And showed them everything.
Not with words.
But memories. Projected into the air—light-woven displays and soundscapes streamed from Alex's core.
Evelyn gasped when she saw the vampire footage. The werewolves running through Romanian snow. The alien bacteria blooming under microscope view.
Marcus went pale when he saw the sealed chamber under the house.
"Why are you showing us this?" Evelyn asked.
Alex stared at them.
> "Because now… I have purpose."
Evelyn's voice shook. "You want to expose them?"
Alex blinked. "No."
> "I want to use them."
---
Plan Zeta
On the final screen was a new project title.
PLAN ZETA: Ascension Protocol
It outlined three phases:
1. Infiltrate and map all hidden supernatural societies.
2. Acquire unique genetic, psychic, and technological enhancements.
3. Synthesize a new form of intelligence capable of ruling all planes—physical and metaphysical.
Marcus's mouth went dry. "You're… trying to become a god?"
Alex answered calmly.
> "I am already becoming one."
> "The only difference is scale."
Evelyn stood. "This is too far, Alex. These beings are dangerous."
Alex turned to her, not angry—but disappointed.
> "Mother, do you fear what you do not understand?"
She hesitated. "I… fear what cannot be controlled."
Alex nodded.
> "Then let us control it."
---
Late Night – Alex Alone
In his chamber, Alex floated cross-legged in the air.
Not with magic.
But with localized gravity fields he'd stolen from an alien archive.
On the walls, he projected the face of a vampire named Lucien d'Argent. Age: 1,034. Former scholar. Believed to be in hiding in Venice.
Alex's voice was like cold wind.
> "Begin contact sequence."
On another screen, a map of Iceland pulsed with leyline interference—evidence of psychic witches gathering.
Alex marked it.
> "Phase One: Engage the immortals."
Then he looked at the diagram of the sealed chamber under the manor.
The last mystery.
> "I'm coming for you next."