Bits of Love, Lines of Code
Chapter 106: “Beneath the Gold”

Chapter 106: Chapter 106: “Beneath the Gold”

Inside a sleek penthouse overlooking the shimmering heart of Dubai, Daigo Mikami stood with his hands clenched behind his back. The city lights flickered on the glass walls, casting fractured shadows across the room. But Daigo wasn’t looking outside. He was staring at a blacked-out screen.

"Lucia..." he murmured, his jaw tightening.

Behind him, one of his cyber operatives stood shaking, still pale from the counterattack.

"We’ve never seen anything like it, sir," the hacker said. "She didn’t just block us. She read us. It was like being dissected by a ghost. Then wiped."

Daigo turned. His sharp, almost aristocratic features were set with dangerous calm.

"That’s not a commercial-grade defense system," he muttered. "That’s something... personal. That AI is watching her, not just their lab. And it’s loyal."

He walked slowly to a side table and poured himself a glass of red wine. "The man built an AI that fights like a god and guards like a dog."

"And, sir," another assistant said, cautiously stepping forward. "The Mark 85 suit... we only picked up brief fragments from satellites. He’s managed to keep most of it invisible. But that necklace..."

The screen lit up with a blurry image from one of Daigo’s drones, captured during Aoi’s near-abduction weeks earlier: a brief flare of nanotech flickering around her neck as it expanded like armor.

"The necklace is his Achilles heel," Daigo whispered. "If I can trigger it, scan it, or replicate the material..."

He trailed off, eyes narrowing.

"Plan B," he said finally. "Forget brute force. Let’s play inside their world. Find someone close. Someone in Tokyo. If I can’t shatter the armor—then I’ll corrupt the heart."

Meanwhile, across the city—

Ren stood poolside at their private resort villa. Aoi, radiant and relaxed, lounged nearby with baby Hikari asleep in a shaded cot. Her belly, still softly rounded from recent birth, pressed gently against her sundress. The turquoise sea gleamed just a few steps away.

A glint of silver caught the sun on her chest.

The necklace.

Not just jewelry—Ren’s own design. Layered with nanotech, biometric sensors, and shield reaction plates. It could react in under 0.2 seconds to a hostile presence.

Ren walked over and gently kissed her forehead.

"How’s the princess?" he asked, smiling down at their daughter.

"She kicked in her sleep just now," Aoi whispered. "She’s dreaming."

Ren sat beside them and gazed at the sky. In his pocket, his phone pulsed quietly.

Lucia had left him a new encrypted file:[TARGET PROBABILITY INCREASED – MIKAMI, DAIGO – 87% HOSTILE]

But he kept it to himself.

They still had three more weeks in Dubai. More awards. More recognition. More chances for the world to see what he’d built. But some things... would stay secret.

Especially what sat beneath the villa—in a hidden chamber, surrounded by field dampeners and layered shielding:

The Mark 85 suit. Folded. Waiting. A fail-safe for whatever came next.