The rain had stopped, but the air still smelled of gunpowder, scorched silicon, and blood.
Zane crouched in the flickering light of a shattered billboard, his left glove sparking as the hacked combat-drone module finally burned out. Around him, the remnants of the ambush lay silent—bodies, broken steel, and smoke.
He had won.
But the win felt hollow.
The moment the final soldier fell, Zane didn't celebrate. He didn't even breathe.
His system pulsed in his mind like a second heartbeat. Something was wrong.
Root Access Update:
Countermeasures identified. Anomaly detected in killfeed logs.
Tracking origin…
Zane narrowed his eyes.
He tapped into his interface, watching as the system filtered through corrupted packets and logs. Amid the digital wreckage of the ambush, something had tagged him. Not physically—but virtually. A trace signature embedded in one of the AI combat drone's weapon drivers.
Someone had used the ambush as cover to scan his system.
He wasn't just attacked.
He was analyzed.
Zane rose to his feet and exhaled slowly. "So they're studying me now."
His voice was hoarse, low.
Good.
Let them.
System Notification: New Mission Available.
Mission Title: Ghost Protocol.
Objective: Track the origin of the trace. Infiltrate the signal hub. Terminate the Observer Node.
Reward: Network Expansion Key + Module Override Upgrade.
Penalty: System exposure. Remote hijack risk level increased to 86%.
Zane's jaw clenched. This was getting dangerous—fast.
Still, the mission aligned perfectly with what he wanted. He wasn't going to run anymore. Whoever was watching him… was next.
He moved.
Two hours later, Zane crouched at the edge of Sector 7G—one of the last untouched slums in the city. A wasteland of stacked metal homes, rusting sky-rails, and concrete skeletons leftover from the pre-digital wars.
His scan had led him here.
The signal was faint, masked behind layers of low-tier infrastructure. Hidden beneath poverty and rot. But Zane knew better—only the smartest hid in places nobody wanted to look.
He slipped into the shadows.
Using Root Access's Ghost Cloak protocol, he bypassed old facial recognition cameras and outdated city firewalls. This area was supposed to be off-grid. No corporate data lines. No surveillance. Just forgotten people living forgotten lives.
But there it was again.
A pulse.
Trace Signature Confirmed.
Node located: 11 meters below surface.
Zane followed the decayed alleyway until he reached a crumbling stairwell leading underground. The smell of rust, mildew, and rot greeted him. He didn't flinch.
As he descended, the darkness thickened. His system activated Night-Vision Overlay, the HUD casting green highlights across the damp walls. At the bottom, a rusted blast door loomed, half-covered by graffiti.
He scanned it.
Lock System: Obsolete Military Protocol v1.2
Status: Active
Decryption in progress…
The door opened with a groan.
What greeted Zane was not a basement.
It was a data bunker.
Steel walls, humming server racks, and dozens of dormant terminals flickered to life as he stepped inside. Dust floated in the air, undisturbed for years—until now.
System Alert: Warning. Stealth compromised.
Unknown host signal: Online.
Zane spun around just as the lights overhead snapped on—white, sterile, blinding. A voice echoed from an unseen speaker.
"You've improved."
Zane's eyes narrowed. "Who the hell are you?"
"Someone who saw your potential a long time ago. Someone who's been watching you since the day you rewrote your first string of code."
The voice was male. Calm. Calculated.
Zane's hand hovered near his hip, where a stolen tech-blade was clipped. "That's vague enough to be threatening."
"No threats. Just truths."
One of the monitors lit up.
A shadowed figure appeared—distorted by a digital mask. Zane couldn't trace it. Not yet.
"I run Ghost Protocol. I study system aberrants like you. You're not just using Root Access—you're shaping it. You're rewriting its protocols on the fly. That makes you dangerous… and valuable."
Zane didn't answer. He was watching. Calculating.
"Your mission says 'terminate the Observer Node.' That's me. So let's skip to the fun part."
System Override Detected: Enemy initializing root-level incursion.
Warning: Immediate threat to your OS integrity.
Zane didn't wait.
He launched an ICE spike directly into the signal channel. A burst of light exploded across the bunker's monitors as digital warfare surged between them.
"Good," the voice said with a laugh. "Fight back."
The room trembled.
Zane dove behind a rack as hidden turrets deployed from the ceiling. He activated Shatterfield, a module he'd stolen two missions ago. The effect pulsed outward—temporarily distorting electromagnetic fields around him.
The turrets misfired. Sparks flew.
Zane leapt forward, sliding across the floor as he reached the mainframe cluster. He planted an override worm.
Override Worm Active. Counter-host protocol initiated.
Root Access Command: DELETE [NODE: OBSERVER.AI]
"Wait—" the voice crackled. "You don't know what you're doing—"
Zane's voice was cold steel. "You made me your subject. I'm no one's experiment."
He triggered the command.
The Observer Node screamed as it collapsed.
Monitors exploded. The power grid surged. The entire bunker trembled as the digital entity was erased from the system in real-time. For a moment, Zane felt a strange pressure in his skull—as if something had tried to push back before it died.
Then silence.
Mission Complete.
Reward Unlocked: Network Expansion Key + Module Override Upgrade.
New Ability Unlocked: Protocol Hijack [Beta].
Zane stood among the ruins.
But he wasn't done.
Root Access pulsed again, but this time, it felt… heavier. Like something vast had been awakened by what he just did.
System Update: You have drawn the attention of a higher intelligence.
Caution: Digital Sovereigns are now aware of your presence.
Zane's eyes flicked upward.
The real war hadn't even begun.
But he'd be ready.
He was Root Access now.
End of Chapter 11.