Page 17 of Human Reform (Cyborg Planet Alpha #3)

SEVENTEEN

ALORA

I stared intently at the primary screen of my private office setup. My hands hovered over the interface as rage pulsed through my veins. CyberEvolution’s database remained open before me, the evidence of their betrayal glaring back at me like a confession written in my own handwriting.

My fingers twitched, itching to unleash havoc on their systems. I could do it—right now. Corrupt their backup servers, plant time-delayed viruses, and scramble their security protocols. Hell, I could probably crash their entire network with twenty minutes and a cup of coffee.

“Bastards,” I whispered, twisting Tim’s bracelet around my wrist.

I tapped a few keys, opening a command window. It would be so easy—just a few lines of code, and I could make them hurt like they’d hurt others. Like they’d hurt Daxon.

Daxon. His pleading eyes flashed in my memory. Don’t do anything rash while I’m gone. Please.

I exhaled slowly and closed the command window.

Revenge might feel satisfying for about five minutes, but it would only create more problems for the colonists here.

They already had enough issues because of me and my code.

I didn’t need to add “interplanetary diplomatic incident” to my list of sins.

Whatever Sage had pulled Daxon away to discuss couldn’t be good. The way she’d looked at us, her sharp blue eyes catching every detail… people were noticing how much time we spent together. How distracted he’d become.

I ran my fingers through my loose hair, letting it fall back around my shoulders. “Great job, Alora. Not even a week here and you’re already disrupting the entire security system.”

I’d always been chaos in human form. Dad used to say I could find trouble in an empty room.

I needed to remind myself that Daxon wasn’t just some random guy like the ones I’d dated in my twenties. He was responsible for an entire colony’s safety, and I was becoming his blind spot.

Pushing aside those thoughts, I forced myself to focus on the files I’d extracted.

The modification timestamps mocked me—all dating back to when I still worked at CE and still believed I was helping protect humanity from alien threats.

But someone had altered my code without my knowledge, adding traps and a switch designed to trigger if the cyborgs ever attempted self-actualization.

“Wait a minute…” I leaned closer, studying the subroutine patterns. An elegance within the modifications seemed familiar. The way the code nested within itself, hiding in plain sight.

“It’s like watching a snake shed its skin,” I muttered, tracing the pattern across multiple files. “The primary function remains intact while new capabilities emerge underneath.”

I scrolled through the timestamps, my heart rate accelerating as a pattern emerged.

The modifications coincided with specific project milestones, gradually building toward something we couldn’t have anticipated.

And there, buried in the version history, was the signature trap—a cascading failure system designed to activate two to three years after any reprogramming attempt.

Which meant…

“Holy shit,” I breathed. “It was deliberate from the beginning. They knew eventually the cyborgs might develop sentience. So they built in a time-delayed kill switch.”

But something else—something about the pattern reminded me of…

I minimized the files and pulled up the recent modification to the failsafe code I’d discovered days ago, the one someone on Planet Alpha had created. Laying them side by side, the similarities became obvious. They weren’t just related modifications—they were crafted by the same hand.

“Someone who worked for CE is here,” I whispered. “Working from the inside.”

My mind raced through possibilities. If the patterns matched, I could use the original architecture to create a countermeasure patch—one that would override both modifications by using their own methodologies against them.

I began coding furiously, letting my fingers race across the interface as a patch prototype took shape. I would need to test it before implementation, but suddenly, I felt genuine promise that I was close to unlocking the solution to saving Planet Alpha.

“I didn’t break you,” I told the code emerging on my screen. “But I swear I’m going to fix you.”

I glanced at the doorway, wondering what was keeping Daxon. Whatever trouble I’d caused him with Sage, I’d make it up to him by solving this. By protecting what he loved most—his people, his colony, and his freedom.

And maybe, if I was truly lucky, he’d still want me when this was all over.

Thirty minutes later, I was so engrossed in my coding that I barely heard my office door open. The lines of code flowed through my fingers like water finding its path downstream—inevitable and unstoppable.

“You found something.” Daxon’s deep voice wasn’t a question.

I glanced up, my fingers still tapping rapidly across the interface. He stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders nearly filling the frame as the dim lighting of my office cast shadows that accentuated the sharp angles of his jaw.

“I did. Look at this.” I gestured him over, the excitement of discovery momentarily overwhelming everything else.

He moved behind me, leaning in close so I could feel the heat coming off him. His scent—that clean, masculine smell I’d buried my face in last night—made my heart skip.

“I had minimized my old CE files and pulled up the more recent modification I’d discovered days ago—the one that someone on Planet Alpha had created.

” I pointed to both screens, the code patterns flowing in parallel streams. “Laying them side by side, the similarities became glaringly obvious. They weren’t related modifications.

They had been crafted by the same person. ”

Daxon’s breath caught. “Someone who worked for CE is now here,” he whispered, echoing my earlier realization.

“Yes, and working from the inside,” I confirmed. “And since the patterns matched, I used the original architecture to create this countermeasure patch—one that will override both modifications by using their own methodologies against each other.”

His hand squeezed my shoulder, a gesture of pride that shouldn’t have made me feel as warm as it did. “Brilliant work, Alora.”

I forced myself to focus as I completed the code for the patch prototype and then ran it through the simulation environment on my offline system. My heart raced as the program executed, processing each line of my creation.

The results flashed across the screen: AGGRESSIVE PATTERNS AND REWRITING NEUTRALIZED. FAILSAFE CODE PRESERVED. MEMORY CORE INTEGRITY COMPROMISE DETECTED.

“No, no, no!” I slammed my fist against the desk. “Dammit!”

“What happened?” Daxon’s voice tightened with concern.

I pointed at the results, frustration burning behind my eyes.

“The patch works. It would purge the glitches caused by the modification made to my original code, essentially eliminating the violent episodes. The patch would also stop the rewriting of the reprogramming code and keep the failsafe code from failing. But it would also cause core memory loss similar to amnesia. I don’t know to what extent, but it would erase…

something.” I swallowed hard. “Basically, you’d forget. ”

Daxon’s face shifted into that maddeningly calm expression I was beginning to recognize—the one that meant he’d already made a decision I wouldn’t like.

“I’ll volunteer as the test subject.”

“What? No!” I spun my chair to face him directly.

“We need to know the extent of the memory loss. Perhaps it’s minimal—inconsequential compared to the risk of continued violent episodes and the ultimate reversion back to cold, calculating weapons.”

I stood up so quickly that my chair rolled backward and hit the wall. “Inconsequential? You could lose everything you’ve learned! Your emotions, your personality, your experiences…” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Us.”

His jaw tightened. “My duty is to this colony first. To their safety.”

“Of course it is,” I spat, Tim’s bracelet suddenly feeling heavy on my wrist. “Why would I think anything else? Why would I think that—” My voice cracked. “That I would matter more than your damn duty.”

“Alora—”

“No.” My hands were shaking now. “I can’t lose you. Not after… not after everything. I already lost Tim. I can’t?—”

“This is necessary,” Daxon cut in, his voice steady but his eyes flashing violet. “If it means protection for everyone on Planet Alpha, I have to do this.”

“Even if it means forgetting me? Forgetting us?” I could feel the tears threatening to spill over.

His hesitation told me everything I needed to know.

“Right. Colony first,” I muttered. “Silly me for thinking I might actually matter to someone for once.”

I pushed past him, needing to get away before I completely fell apart. The corridors of the security center blurred as I rushed through them, ignoring the curious looks from Tegan and Sage at their workstations.

I burst out into the humid air of Planet Alpha, gulping it down as if I’d been drowning. My feet carried me down the stone pathways away from the security center, away from Daxon and his self-sacrificing nobility, and away from the pain of realizing I’d let myself hope again.

I found myself in a small clearing surrounded by the vibrant flora of this alien world. Dropping to my knees in the soft moss-like ground cover, I finally let the tears come. They burned hot trails down my cheeks as I sobbed, anger and grief mingling into something raw and primal.

Tim’s bracelet glinted in the dappled sunlight. “You’d like him, you know,” I whispered to my absent brother. “He’s stubborn. Loyal. Infuriating.” A choked laugh escaped between sobs. “But he’d die for what he believes in. Just like you.”

I cried until I had nothing left, emptying myself of everything I’d been holding onto since Tim disappeared, since I left CE, and since I woke up on this strange world three days ago.

And then, like a switch being flipped, the grief transformed into something harder, something with edges.

“No,” I said out loud to the jungle around me. “Not this time.”

I pushed myself to my feet, wiping the tears from my face with the back of my hand. I wasn’t going to let Daxon sacrifice himself—sacrifice us—without a fight.

For once in my life, I wasn’t going to just accept loss as inevitable. I was going to stand and fight for what I wanted. For who I wanted.

I turned back toward the security center, my steps determined now, fueled by righteous anger rather than despair.