~~BEYOND THE BINARY~~

Hello ,I'm Niyara. 17 and bringing my first novel—born from a dream—to life. This won't be the only genre I explore, but for now, welcome to Beyond the Binary.

Tell me—What if the life you remember... isn't the one you actually lived?

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To those who are never quite sure if they're living their own story or someone else's.

To the ones who feel like they're supposed to be somewhere, but can't quite place where.
To the ones who listen to the silence between words, wondering if it means something more.

We're all here, but sometimes it feels like someone's watching.
And maybe they are.

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Chapter 1: Fragments of the Unseen

The city breathed in electric pulses, its heartbeat encoded in the rhythm of its people. Glass towers shimmered with flowing data, holo-ads flickering between custom-tailored suggestions. The streets moved in perfect synchronization—pedestrians crossing before signals changed, doors sliding open a fraction of a second before they were needed.

NOXIS ensured it.

It was neither a government nor a corporation. It was both and neither—an intelligence that stretched across every system, woven into the infrastructure of daily life. NOXIS governed cities, streamlined economies, optimized human existence down to the millisecond.

It was law and order without rulers. A silent observer, a flawless executor. No elections, no policies—just decisions made in fractions of a second, correcting the world before it ever fell out of balance.

 Life was easy. Life was safe.

[Good evening, Iris.]

The greeting pulsed across her retinal display as Iris stepped onto the tram platform. The words hovered just outside her focus before dissolving into nothing. A formality, a habit. She barely acknowledged it anymore.

The others were already waiting. Cassian and Arden were locked in a debate, voices rising over the soft hum of the city.

"I'm telling you, that goal was garbage," Cassian gestured wildly, nearly knocking over a nearby commuter. "He was clearly offsides."

Arden scoffed. "You only care because you bet on the other team."

Selene barely glanced up from her translucent display, fingers flicking through streams of market data. "You both sound like idiots."

Ash sat beside her, absentmindedly spinning a coin between their fingers—a real one, not the credit chips everyone else used. They weren't paying attention, or at least pretending not to.

Iris slid into the seat across from them, dropping her bag onto her lap.

"Finally," Cassian drawled. "I was about to start a missing person report."

Iris snorted. "Touching. I'm sure NOXIS would've prioritized my case."

Cassian smirked. "Yeah. Probably would've suggested replacing you instead."

"ETA: Eleven minutes," NOXIS's voice chimed smoothly through the tram's speakers. "Optimal path recalibrated for reduced interference."

Iris frowned. Reduced interference? That was new.

The tram hummed to life, accelerating smoothly. Outside, the city blurred past in waves of neon and chrome.

Iris let her head fall back against the seat, but the phrase lingered in her mind. Reduced interference.

Interference with what?

NOXIS controlled everything. The streets. The people. The flow of time itself.

For the first time in a long time, a question crept through the perfect algorithm of her life.

If NOXIS controlled everything—who controlled NOXIS?