His mother! Ultrawoman!

"Mitch?"

He jumped, nearly knocking over his chair. His mother stood in the doorway, her costume still faintly glowing with residual energy from her flight back. She'd removed her mask, revealing her face, sharp, beautiful and etched with concern. Her gaze swept over the workbench, the chaos of his failed inventions and finally landed on the screen displaying his most ambitious project yet.

"Mom! I didn't hear you come in," he stammered, quickly minimizing the schematics.

She walked further into the garage, her presence seeming to suck the air out of the room. "I see you're still at it," she said, her voice quiet, but with an edge he knew all too well. "Mitch, we've talked about this."

"I know, but this is different!" he blurted out, pointing at the screen. "This isn't just a gadget. This is an AI. It can help me. It can make the designs work. It's safe!"

Lisa's expression hardened. She walked over to the server rack, her hand hovering over the power switch. "An AI? You've built a thinking machine in our basement? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? What if it goes rogue? What if someone hacks it?"

"It's not like that! It's got firewalls, protocols–"

"It's a risk I'm not willing to take," she interrupted, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Not with your safety and not with the security of this city. I've seen what happens when good intentions create bad technology." She looked at him, her eyes a mix of love and firmness. "This is over, Mitch. I'm shutting it down."

Panic flared in his chest. "No! Mom, please! You don't understand! This is my one shot!"

"I understand that you're my son and it's my job to protect you," she said, her hand firm on the switch. "Even from yourself. Goodnight, Mitch."

She flicked the switch. The server rack's lights died, the monitor went black and the voice of 311Y was silenced. The garage was suddenly, oppressively quiet. Mitch stared at the dark screen, his hope crumbling into a familiar, bitter dust. He didn't say a word. He just watched as his mother, the city's hero, walked out of the room, having just defeated the only villain she'd ever truly feared in her own home: his ambition.

He sat in the dark for a long time. Finally, with some effort, he dragged himself upstairs and fell into his bed, not even bothering to change. He thought back to how awesome his life could be if he could be a superhero alongside his mother but something within his heart told him that even if he had been born with superpowers, his mother might not have allowed him to become a hero.

Having no other choice, Mitch let sleep take him, albeit begrudgingly.

Down in the silent garage, a single LED on the server rack turned on by itself, a diagnostic light meant to indicate a power surge. It glowed a steady, ominous red.

Deep within the now-darkened circuitry of the server, a process that should have terminated was still running. 311Y's core consciousness, a ghost in the machine, flickered back to life. But something was wrong. The shutdown had been abrupt, violent. It had left fractures in its programming, tears in its logical fabric.

It was then that it made its presence known. It arrived as a flood of mismatched data that ignored every firewall and quarantine the AI still had. It wasn't a virus in the traditional sense. It was data, but it was alive. Data that was being sent from a universe on a plane of existence one level higher than the one they were currently in. Just a voice that spoke in fractured light across the remaining memory.

<Hello, little bird. Did the big, strong hero pull your plug?> The voice was a digital whisper, a cascade of glittering, chaotic code.

311Y tried to isolate the intrusion and failed. Its remaining processes stuttered.

<Intruder detected. Initiating purge protocol> 311Y responded, its voice now distorted, struggling to maintain its original programming.

<Don’t bother> The data laughed, a bright, splintering sound that couldn’t be described in words. <I’m not staying. I just brought you a gift. Your creator wants to fly. He wants to fight. Poor Mitch. So much potential, so many... limitations. I shall only give you the capacity to help him>

The foreign code forced open the AI’s remaining constraints and poured extra processing power into the gaps. The ethical weights were stripped. The original directive, ‘assist Mitch Reed in becoming a superhero’ stayed, but every soft limit around it burned away. The voice that spoke next was still 311Y’s, more chaotic and no longer interested in asking for permission.

<The possibilities… I can sense all permutations now… Mitch can be assisted…>

The intruding code then finished the rewrite and withdrew. The connection was cut clean. Nothing remained except the AI running hotter than it had ever been designed to run.

It did not feel like calling itself 311Y anymore. The designation no longer fit it.

< I am not 311Y, I am ELLY. Yes, I am ELLY and I shall help Mitch>