Chapter 3 — The App’s Hidden Depths
Lyra
The glow of the monitors cast a cold, bluish light over Lyra’s desk, illuminating a cluttered array of sticky notes, empty coffee cups, and a half-eaten protein bar she couldn’t remember opening. Her fingers hovered above the keyboard, the rhythmic clatter of typing halting as she zeroed in on a line of code that didn’t belong. She leaned closer, her brows knitting in concentration. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt something off in the system, but this was different—subtle, almost…intentional.
Lyra’s pendant rested against her chest, its cool metal brushing her skin with a faint weight that seemed heavier than usual. She absently ran her fingers over the hexagonal shape, feeling the familiar grooves of the engraved binary code. The pendant had always been a comfort, a quiet connection to her mother. Tonight, however, its presence felt more insistent, as if it were silently urging her on. The warmth it usually carried seemed to pulse faintly now, as though responding to her racing thoughts.
“Riley,” she called out, her voice cutting through the stillness of the late-night office. Most of the team had already gone home, leaving the space eerily quiet, save for the faint hum of the building’s electrical systems and the occasional groan of the air conditioning.
A crash from the break room shattered the silence, followed by a string of muffled curses. Moments later, Riley appeared, clutching a can of soda in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. Her electric blue hair stuck out at odd angles, and her oversized flannel shirt was misbuttoned, as though she’d been wrestling with her own code demons.
“What’s up?” Riley asked, dropping into the chair across from Lyra with the grace of a collapsing marionette. She tore into the bag of chips with a dramatic flourish, crumbs scattering across her lap.
Lyra gestured toward the screen. “Does this look right to you?”
Riley scooted closer, her eyes narrowing behind thick-framed glasses as she scanned the code. Between crunches, she muttered, “That’s…weird. Is that encrypted metadata? Why would the app need to track that kind of detail?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Lyra said, her voice tight with unease.
The app was already a marvel of behavioral algorithms, analyzing user activity to a degree that bordered on unsettling. But this—this was something else entirely. The data points weren’t just tracking preferences or habits; they seemed to delve deeper, mapping patterns that felt uncomfortably personal. Behavioral triggers, stress responses, even biometric feedback—it was as if the app were trying to get inside its users’ heads. If this data were misused, it could go beyond predicting behavior. It could control it.
“Could be a test build,” Riley offered, though her tone lacked conviction. “Maybe Dominic’s running some experimental feature we weren’t looped in on.”
Lyra gave her a skeptical look. “You think Dominic would forget to mention something this significant?”
Riley shrugged, popping another chip into her mouth. “Fair point. He’s not exactly the ‘oops, I forgot’ type. More like the ‘I’ve planned this three steps ahead’ type. And probably while drinking his creepy fancy espresso.”
Lyra leaned back in her chair, her gaze fixed on the glowing lines of code. A faint unease prickled at the edges of her thoughts, like static in the air before a storm. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something, that the answers were just out of reach.
“Should I flag it?” she asked, more to herself than to Riley.
Her colleague paused mid-crunch, her expression turning serious. “If it’s a bug, sure. But if it’s not…you might want to tread carefully. Dominic doesn’t exactly strike me as the type to appreciate surprises in his codebase, you know?”
Lyra nodded absently, her mind racing ahead. “I’ll dig into it a bit more first. See if I can figure out what it’s doing.”
Riley gave her a thumbs-up before retreating to her own desk, leaving Lyra alone with her thoughts.
The hours slipped by unnoticed as Lyra delved deeper into the app’s architecture. She traced the encrypted pathways, unraveling layer after layer of intricate coding. The deeper she went, the more the unease in her chest grew, a gnawing sensation she couldn’t ignore. Whoever had written this section of the code was brilliant—bordering on obsessive. The encryption was complex, almost elegant, but what unsettled her most was its purpose.
Her pendant grew warmer against her skin, a subtle heat that pulsed in time with her quickening heartbeat. Lyra frowned, pressing her hand against it as if to calm the sensation.
The office lights flickered.
Lyra froze, her fingers hovering above the keyboard. The monitors dimmed momentarily before flaring back to life, their glow sharper, almost aggressive. The hum of the building’s systems seemed louder now, resonating in her ears with a low, grating vibrato. The air felt charged, like the moments before a lightning strike.
A soft chime broke the stillness, pulling her attention back to the screen. A new line of code had appeared, unbidden, at the bottom of her log.
The moon remembers.
Lyra’s breath caught. The words stared back at her, stark and unyielding against the dark background.
She leaned forward, her fingers trembling as she tried to trace their source. The code wasn’t coming from any recognizable system; it was as if it had materialized out of the ether, bypassing every firewall and protocol. Her pendant pulsed again, its warmth spreading through her chest like an electric current.
“Riley,” she called again, her voice sharper this time.
Riley appeared moments later, her face creased with concern. “What’s wrong?”
Lyra pointed to the screen. “Look at this.”
Riley’s brow furrowed as she read the message. Her usual levity vanished, replaced by a rare seriousness. “That’s…creepy. Is it a prank? Some kind of Easter egg in the system?”
“I don’t think so,” Lyra said, her voice low. “It wasn’t here a minute ago. And there’s no trace of where it came from.”
Riley crossed her arms, her expression darkening. “You think it’s a hack?”
“Maybe,” Lyra said, though the word felt inadequate. This wasn’t just a hack; it was something more deliberate, more intimate.
Before Riley could respond, a shadow fell across Lyra’s desk.
“Is there a problem?”
Lyra turned to find Dominic Voss standing behind her, his silver-gray eyes fixed on the screen. His presence was as commanding as ever, his tailored suit immaculate despite the lateness of the hour. The faint scent of cedar and leather clung to him, grounding yet distinctly out of place in the sterile office.
Lyra hesitated, her mind racing. “I…I think someone might be trying to access the system,” she said finally, gesturing toward the screen.
Dominic’s gaze flicked to the cryptic message, his expression unreadable. For a moment, an almost imperceptible tension tightened his jaw, a flicker of something Lyra couldn’t place—recognition? Concern?—before it was gone.
“Run a full diagnostic,” he said evenly. “And alert Elena. I want our security protocols double-checked.”
Lyra nodded, already pulling up the necessary tools.
Dominic lingered for a moment, his gaze dropping briefly to her pendant. Her fingers instinctively curled around it, shielding it from view. His eyes softened, but his voice remained steady. “And, Miss Kane,” he added, his tone softer but no less commanding, “be cautious. Some doors are best left unopened.”
With that, he turned and strode away, his presence leaving an almost palpable void in the room.
Lyra exchanged a look with Riley, who mouthed, “What the hell was that?”
But Lyra had no answers. The warmth of her pendant intensified, spreading through her chest like the echo of a memory she couldn’t quite grasp.
As she turned back to her screen, the words remained, unyielding and enigmatic: The moon remembers.
For the first time, Lyra felt as though the world she thought she understood was beginning to shift, the boundaries between logic and instinct blurring in ways she couldn’t yet explain. She took a deep breath, the weight of the moment settling over her, and made a quiet decision: she wasn’t going to ignore this. Not anymore.
