Ascension Code: Reborn in the DC Universe - Chapter 0146

The entire laboratory seemed to pulse with light: a cold, almost tangible glow that vibrated off the metal walls and trickled down the cables and panels. Two hundred holographic screens floated around the central chair, stacked in concentric layers like the hexagonal cells of a futuristic beehive. Each panel displayed a living fragment of the world. In one corner, a traffic camera above the Place de Brouckère in Brussels showed hurried passersby and pedestrian crossings painted white on the wet asphalt. Right next to it, the loading ramp of a terminal in Singapore: containers stacked in garish colors, cranes raised like mechanical arms against the sky. In another, bank statements from a front company in Marseille, with columns of orange figures trembling on the screen; and then, radio waves intercepted in the Bialya desert, hisses and glitches mingling with static crackles.

Numbers cascaded down, eyes were recognized, compared, discarded in the blink of an eye. Every three seconds, a screen collapsed—its pixels dissolved like vapor—and another emerged, fueled by the voracious flow that Natasha poured from her servers, an incandescent river of information.

Erick hadn’t blinked for almost a minute. Sitting motionless, his elbows planted on the arms of the chair, his fingers interlaced in front of his mouth, he let his gaze scan each hologram with the voracious patience of a feline predator. He wasn’t looking for a recognizable face: he was looking for an absence. A truck that had turned into a dead end and simply vanished. A chartered flight whose plan had never been registered on civilian radar. A prison cell whose energy consumption, during off-peak hours, doubled that of the rest of the prison block. Jade wouldn’t appear on any of these screens, but whoever transported her would need to eat, refuel, breathe—and everything that breathes leaves traces.

The problem was the vastness of the world projected there: an endless mosaic of roads, airports, subway stations, power grid, and cell phone towers. In the upper corner of the main panel, however, an indicator lay dead for days. The tracker implanted under Jade’s sternum—an organic capsule he himself had cultivated in biostructure fermenters, designed to transmit even through thick armor, layers of water, rock, or mystical barriers—had simply ceased to exist. It didn’t weaken gradually. It didn’t fluctuate. It went out in an instant, like an intact candle inside a sealed safe. That absolute silence of the signal was what froze the depths of his thoughts.

You can’t block something you don’t even know exists.

Someone had scanned her body with surgical precision, identified the implant disguised as living tissue, and then silenced or removed it without triggering any alarm. Very few organizations on the planet possessed such advanced technology and expertise. And it was precisely this list that ticked to your right.

At the top, the League of Shadows, ruthless ancestors thirsting for revenge against deserters, an order spanning centuries. Just below, the American Government—underlined twice and annotated with references to the squad that had guarded the high-security vault. Intergang, with its quantum engineering experiments that no terrestrial university could replicate. The ninja clans of Southeast Asia, ancient guardians of forbidden secrets, capable of disappearing in broad daylight. The Tokyo factions, stealthy and patient, with tentacles on three continents. And, at the bottom of the list, written in dark red, the arcane councils and magical orders: these were the true adversaries. Against pure technology, Natasha could fight. Against circles that never used phones, left no digital footprints, and hid fortresses in folds of reality, their algorithms became blind.

Erick’s last foray into one of these facilities had shown signs of absolute professionalism: clean corridors hastily swept, servers physically removed, a metallic smell of smoke where documents had been incinerated in steel buckets. Those who had been there treated the base like a disposable ghost. The only certainty it brought back was negative: Jade was no longer on known American soil—or it was so deep that the map itself lied.

Suddenly, a soft alert pulsed in the air, like a submerged bell vibrating in crystal-clear waters. Contact request. Source: arcane.

Erick tilted his head, allowing the glare from the screens to reflect in his hunter’s eyes. Then, with a single thought, he accepted the call.

The translucent data panels slid along the sides with an electronic whisper, projecting filaments of code into the air before retracting and leaving a void in the center of the chamber. There, the life-size figure of a woman materialized, made of light and shadow, as if sculpted by an invisible artist. Her purple hair, thick and vivid as twilight, cascaded over bare shoulders, outlining delicate collarbones and a slender neck. Her angular face, carved with sharp features, resembled an alabaster mask: pronounced cheekbones, thin lips, and entirely white eyes – ivory discs without irises or pupils – that nevertheless seemed to penetrate him with a neutral and implacable gaze. A black dress embraced her body like a living shadow, its deep neckline less an act of vanity and more a banner of centuries that had consumed any vestige of modesty.

“Well,” said Tala, her voice reverberating softly and coldly, without greeting, “I couldn’t find anything you asked for.”

Erick raised his eyebrows only slightly, the only gesture he made upon hearing the news, but the temperature in his gaze dropped several degrees.

“I spoke with some bigwigs.” She raised her hand dismissively and examined her long nails, painted a dark shade that caught the hologram’s glare. Her relaxed posture betrayed boredom, though the slight tension in her jaw betrayed the effort behind each word. “Collectors, intermediaries, even two princes from domains you wouldn’t want to meet. No one laid a hand on your thief. And believe me, if any of them were lying, I’d know. Lying to me has a price they know all too well.”

“Can you cast a spell to track her?”

Tala frowned, not in refusal, but in meticulous calculation. The beams of light from the hologram danced across her white eyes as she mentally flipped through an ancient archive, woven from sigils and formulas.

“Perhaps I have something,” she finally admitted, dragging out the words as if confiding a secret. “Long-distance tracking requires a solid anchor: fresh blood, a fragment of tissue, any object imbued with her essence. The stronger the bond, the farther the spell reaches. Do you possess something like that?”

“Blood, tissue, complete samples.” He replied without hesitation. “Biological material is not a problem.”

“That helps. But don’t get too excited.” She lowered her hand with a slight electronic sigh, and for a moment her holographic face seemed more human. “If whoever took her is competent enough to get her off their radar, they’ll know how to erect barriers against divination. Any serious organization seals its facilities against that kind of surveillance. I’d need arcane brute force to penetrate. Still…” She shrugged subtly. “It’s worth a try. And you said you sent demons to look for her?”

Erick nodded, his shoulders rising beneath his dark robes. Beneath his shadow—spread across five continents like an invisible cloak—slid a growing army of servants that no satellite could detect. In recent weeks, he had been expanding his herd: almost bestial creatures, torn from their native domains and coerced by pacts they barely understood. They were beings of brute strength, lacking cunning, incapable of deception, perfectly manipulable—in exchange for a gift no machine could replicate: a supernatural sense of smell, a pack instinct capable of pursuing prey across borders, oceans, and even certain layers of reality, provided they had a thread to follow. Three defined missions: combat, bestial servitude, and tracking. For what he needed now, the third was worth more than entire armies.

“Your servants can be useful,” Tala confirmed, nodding her head. “If they don’t sense the prey, perhaps they can sniff out the predator. Whoever kidnapped it left tracks along the way. Always does. Send them to follow the trail, not the destination.”

“They’re already doing it.”

“Great. I’ll examine this area.” She twisted her wrist, and the dark metal rings caught the hologram’s light, casting shimmering shadows in the air. “I need to find an effective spell and prepare a sturdy anchor. This will take time.”

At that instant, a memory flashed through Erick’s mind with the clarity of a dagger. He almost leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the luminous figure.

“Wait. A few months ago, I helped the League on a mission—the plant attack, those plant-like creatures devastating entire cities. You must remember.”

“I remember,” she replied, with the sour tone of someone who would rather forget. Half of the mystical underworld wouldn’t allow it.

“Zatara cast a locator spell on that operation. He found the base of those responsible on the other side of the continent, hidden in a swamp protected by arcane barriers. I was there when he conjured it. I know the structure of the enchantment, the words, the rhythm.” His voice wavered, clinging to a thread of hope. Before he could even finish, however, his own reasoning collapsed. “But it’s no use.”

Tala tilted her head, waiting, while the hologram pulsed around her like a lake of flickering lights, projecting iridescent reflections onto the metal walls. The air hung thick, heavy with tension, and each particle of dust seemed suspended in the silent vacuum.

“Wotan is at that base. Black Adam. Atomic Skull. They use the three of them as living catalysts in a continuous ritual, draining them ceaselessly. There’s a monstrous amount of arcane energy concentrated in a single point on the planet, accumulating for days.” Erick’s voice sounded muffled, as if coming from within himself, and he leaned back in the swivel chair, releasing a sigh of frustration that echoed in a brief hiss. “Zatara didn’t find a needle in a haystack. He found a bonfire in the middle of the night. Any decent psychic would have noticed. The spell only worked because the target was screaming.”

Tala crossed her arms, her fingers brushing against the holster at her waist. Her eyes—white as marble—scanned the hologram before she continued, her voice calm but laden with certainty: “And your thief? She whispers. A discreet elemental signature, hidden behind barriers, on the other side of the world, perhaps. It’s a dead end.”

For a moment, the only sound was the soft hum of the projectors mapping cascading data around them, each stream of numbers sliding like tiny gears in an endless machine.

Erick took a deep breath, letting out an “okay” that sounded more like a surrender. “Fine. Try to find something. If any clue comes up, no matter how small, let me know.”

Tala nodded with a single tilt of her head, her eyes fixed on him for a second longer than strictly necessary, as if gauging a last stand. Then her form dissolved into spirals of violet smoke—an ecstasy of shimmering particles that rose until they vanished. The projectors, incapable of reproducing pure magic, simply reset the data mantle over the floating table.

Erick turned to the torrent of information. In that room, each hologram was a river of possibilities. Natasha, the data collection system, was operating at the limit of its architecture: branching processes invaded databases of criminal organizations across four time zones, cross-referencing port manifests with suspicious financial transactions, isolating conversations in fifteen languages ​​in search of a single phrase that stood out. Every second new fragments of text, IP traces, and cropped satellite images emerged.

Meanwhile, demonic reports arrived through less orthodox channels: crude, almost animalistic impressions that Morgana translated into precise coordinates and probability percentages. One demon had sensed an ancient fear in an abandoned warehouse in Marseille—the space resonated empty, yet charged with something moving in the shadows. Another had detected a residue of dead wind at a deserted airfield in Kazakhstan, where propellers lay rusted beneath a gray, cutting sky. A third had fallen after getting too close to a temple in the mountains of Bhutan, and its death had marked, on the map, yet another point concealing secrets.

But nothing came together. Each clue was born with promise and faded away within hours.

There was also the human side: the most subtle and dangerous. High-ranking figures in the underworld were approached individually—some deceived by well-paid intermediaries, others waking up terrified in their own rooms, with the chilling sensation that not even reinforced walls offered them shelter. No one knew of a prisoner. No one had heard of an auction, a ransom, or any body. And that made no sense: a disappearance of that magnitude should have provoked rumors, clandestine bets, offers to buy. The absolute silence pointed to rigid discipline—and rigid discipline was only cultivated in very particular dens.

Despite himself, Erick’s eyes returned to the second name on the list hanging next to the other holograms, and his heart tightened.

That’s when the chamber door opened with a metallic click.

Hurried footsteps descended the access ramp, pulsing across the metal floor. Artemis emerged, crossing the laboratory in a straight line, her blonde ponytail swaying in a firm rhythm. Her lightly tanned skin gleamed under the bluish light of the panels, and her face, illuminated by holograms, revealed raw, undisguised concern.

She stopped beside Erick’s chair and leaned over to look over his shoulder, examining the data streams with the frankness of someone who hasn’t learned, or doesn’t want to learn, how to hide her feelings from those she loves.

From the end of the invasion, she knew. Not all the details, but the essentials. That same night, with the dust of the base still clinging to his boots, he had told her: Jade had been captured. The trail had vanished into thin air. The hunt was still raging. Erick had omitted layers—he always omitted them—but he had reserved a certain revelation for Artemis, by right of blood. Even if it wasn’t fair to reveal it so late, there were already too many secrets piled up about their relationship. And, pragmatic as he was, he knew well the advantage of keeping Artemis informed: she grew up in the same dark streets as her sister, daughter of the same parents, shaped in the shadows until the Green Arrow rescued her from marginality and trained her for the light. There were doors that none of Natasha’s algorithms could break down. And at that moment, it was the only chance to find Jade alive.

“Anything?” Erick’s voice sounded low, almost lost amidst the constant hum of the servers and the pale glow of the monitors that painted the environment in shades of cyan and emerald.

Artemis shook her head in disapproval, the gesture silhouetted against the row of screens that blinked incessantly. The air smelled of hot hardware and cold coffee, and each keystroke reverberated like a reminder that time stubbornly refused to pass.

“It’s been difficult accessing my old channels since I left that life.” Her voice trailed off with an almost affected harshness, as if each syllable scratched at still painful memories. In her eyes, there was a tired glint, the sign of someone who had plunged deep into murky waters. “The people who owed me favors think I’m dead to this world. Those who didn’t think I’ve become an informant for the Justice League. Nobody answers, nobody replies. I managed to get two third-hand contacts, and both of them knew less than we did.”

Erick let out a heavy sigh that echoed against the concrete and metal walls. He closed his eyes, rubbing his temples with his thumb and forefinger until he saw colorful spots dancing behind his eyelids. For a moment, the exhaustion of his body and the fatigue of his mind seemed like distinct works, coinciding only by irony.

“The challenge forced us to cast an absurd net over a sea that was too dark.” His voice was heavy with frustration. “Demons, algorithms, bribes, threats, magical favors—all thrown at once in the hope that some mesh, at any point, would capture a fragment: a name, a license plate, half a rumor.”

He rested his elbows on the cold desk, and the blue glare of the screens reflected in his eyes. “The longer we take to find it, the worse it will be.”

Artemis leaned forward, crossed her arms over her chest, and carefully considered her words before speaking, like someone sharpening the blade of a difficult word. “You know she won’t betray you.”

Erick raised his chin in an almost imperceptible movement, and his chair creaked as it turned a few degrees, just enough to face Artemis. Behind his eyes, something—an old lid, long tightly closed—opened a crack.

“I know very well that she would rather die than betray me. I worked alongside her for months. I trained with her, I operated with her. I saw how she reacts when everything falls apart. I know what kind of person she is: loyal to the last bone.” He paused briefly, and a crease of bitter irony twisted the corners of his mouth. “As strange as that sounds coming from someone who betrayed their last employer. But even I would betray them if I worked for scum like the League of Shadows. That wasn’t loyalty being broken. It was a chain being broken.”

“Erick…” Artemis tried to intervene, but he continued, his voice firm now.

“It’s not wounded pride, Artemis. It’s not fear of a leak.” He glanced back at the screens, but didn’t see them. “It’s the situation I got her into. I designed the heist. I chose the target, approved the route, calculated the risks—and I messed up. And now she’s in some hole paying for my mistake, and the only thing I know about that hole is that, no matter what they do to her in there, no matter the pain, the time, the pressure, she’ll grit her teeth and won’t say my name. She’ll protect me from the bottom of that hole while I sit here, staring at these screens.” His knuckles paled, digging into the arm of the chair. “That makes me even angrier.”

The silence that followed was not empty. It was the silence of someone weighing each step before walking through an emotional minefield.

Artemis uncrossed her arms, approached slowly, and placed her forearm over his shoulders in a simple yet intense gesture: the subtle warmth of human contact against the rigid tension that marked Erick’s neck. Not even all the artificial intelligences in the complex, with all their processing power, could imitate that.

“It’s not your fault,” she said at last, her voice as soft as a night breeze. “We chose this path.”

Erick released her shoulder in a mixture of relief and remorse. “More or less. It was because of your parents that I pushed you two into this mess. I needed people from the underworld, I went after them, I pulled the right strings. You were already on my list before you even knew I existed.”

“But we chose to stay.” Artemis pressed his shoulder with her cold fingers, a brief, firm touch that sent a jolt to Erick’s bones, forcing him to pay attention. “We could have vanished a long time ago. Both of us. We know how to disappear better than any living soul on this planet. We were honed for it: false identities, new faces, borders without extradition awaiting us, laser-engraved signature cards—and a lifetime without reins.” She paused, gasping almost imperceptibly. “Jade has done it before, and would do it with her eyes closed. We know how to evaporate.”
She let the words float in the rarefied air of the laboratory.
“And yet, we chose to stay. Both of us. It was our decision, not yours.”

Erick remained silent for so long that the hum of the surrounding panels seemed to deepen, filling the void. Finally, he exhaled, and some of the tension that stiffened his shoulders dissipated, like ice melting on the rim of a metal cup. Not all of it—but enough to admit, in a low voice:
“What you say is true.”

In the space left by the dissipating anger, a thought crossed his mind like a stone thrown into a calm lake. Paula.

Erick turned with such a sudden movement that Artemis took a step back, the creak of the metal floor echoing behind her.
“Bring your mother here,” he said, his pulse pounding with each syllable.

Artemis frowned, the cold light from the monitors reflected in her eyes. “My mother?”

“She could be our key,” he continued, as orange beams of data danced on nearby screens, casting moving shadows on the rough stone walls. “Think about it: your network fell apart because you abandoned the profession through the front door, with the pomp of a heroine. Paula, no. She fell in combat, retreated into the shadows—and in the underworld, that counts as an honorable retirement, never desertion. She was one of the most feared figures in the black market, operating at the highest level for years on end. Someone of that caliber doesn’t make a mark without leaving traces: she maintains contacts, she doesn’t let desires die.”

Understanding lit up Artemis’s face like an underwater flash. Her eyes, once so cold, burned with realization. Paula Crock—The Huntress, the artery of the underworld, the assassin whose memory still made doors open, simply because no one dared lock them in her face. And, above all, Jade’s mother: an asset capable of shaking entire structures. Any cork of fear, resentment, or retirement would shatter before that name. If she knew her firstborn was lost in her own webs, Paula Crock would destroy the underworld wheel by wheel, with her own hands.

“All right,” murmured Artemis, her voice as short as a razor blade.

Without waiting any longer, she was already walking away, her determined footsteps echoing through the laboratory. She walked around tables cluttered with cables and circuits, climbed the steel ramp, and disappeared through a hatch that slammed shut behind her with a dry click. The sound reverberated between the stone blocks, then faded away.

Erick stood alone in the pulsating heart of the hive of light. Chairs spun without being touched, projectors and monitors cast kaleidoscopic beams, and endless cascades of data flowed down the panels like luminous rain—indifferent to confession, to resentment, to everything except the flow itself.
Somewhere in Europe, a demon sniffed icy docks under a fog of coal. Elsewhere in the network, Natasha dismantled yet another criminal server, byte by byte, code bones crumbling. In a hidden plane between dimensions, Tala leafed through ancient grimoires searching for a spell that perhaps didn’t exist. And, in the subterranean labyrinths of this world, behind doors none of them had yet seen, Jade remained silent.

He interlaced his fingers in front of his mouth, his gaze fixed on the lines of light dancing before him, and resumed pulling at the intricate threads of his web.

The sea was dark. But no sea remained dark forever.

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