The alarm blared like a dying animal as Kael's fingers danced across the holographic interface. His cracked neural uplink—scavenged from a corpse in the lower sectors—spat static into his optic nerves with every command. Sweat dripped from his brow onto the display, the moisture making the stolen OmniCorp logo flicker erratically.
>> SYSTEM ALERT:
[Firewall Breach - 87% Complete]
[Estimated Time Remaining: 2m 13s]
"Almost there," Darius' voice crackled through the earpiece, warm like the synth-whiskey they'd shared last night in their shitty hab-unit. "Just like we practiced, brother."
Kael's throat tightened. Practiced. The word echoed in his skull. Thirty-seven failed jobs together over two years. Thirty-seven times Darius had laughed off his panic attacks in cramped safehouses, clapping him on the back with calloused hands. "Breathe, you overthinking bastard. I got your back."
Now this—job thirty-eight—would finally—
>> CRITICAL WARNING:
[Defense Grid Activated]
[Weapon Systems: Online]
The plasma turrets emerged from the ceiling with mechanical whirs, their barrels glowing blue as they charged. Kael barely dodged the first searing blast that turned the terminal behind him to molten slag. The heat scorched his cheeks.
"Darius! The security's—"
"—working perfectly," a new voice finished.
Cold. Polished. Corporate.
Kael's implant spiked his cortisol levels before his conscious mind caught up. He knew that voice—Ryler Voss, OmniCorp's head of wetworks. The Butcher of Neo-Babel, who'd personally ordered the mass purges in Sector 12 last quarter.
His stomach dropped like a stone.
No. No no no—
"Darius?" His own voice sounded alien. Broken. Like someone had reached down his throat and ripped out his vocal cords.
Static crackled. Then:
"Sorry, brother."
Darius didn't even sound sorry.
"They offered me a full citizenship chip. Upper spire access. No more slums. No more..." A pause. Kael could hear the shrug in his voice. "Well. You understand."
Kael's vision tunneled. The turrets whined as they charged again.
You understand.
Three syllables that unraveled a lifetime.
---
>> PRIORITY ALERT:
[Adrenaline Overload Detected]
[Cognitive Function: 62% and Dropping]
Kael ran.
Plasma bolts seared the air where his head had been seconds earlier. His neural implant screamed warnings in jagged red text across his vision as he ducked behind a shattered server rack. The metal sizzled where plasma grazed it.
This is how it ends, he thought wildly. Not in some glorious firefight against corporate security—but as a fucking stress-test for their new defense grid.
A bolt grazed his ribs. The smell of his own burning flesh filled his nose—pork and plastic and something unnervingly sweet.
"Please—" The word slipped out before he could choke it back. Pathetic.
No answer. Just the click of Darius disconnecting.
---
The maintenance shaft swallowed him whole.
Kael tumbled into the darkness, blood slicking the metal grates beneath him. His implant flickered, casting strobing light over the dripping pipes and frayed wiring. Somewhere above, boots clanged on metal as OmniCorp security moved in.
>> FINAL WARNING:
[Blood Loss: 38%]
[Shock Imminent]
[Suggested Action: Lie Still And Die]
A new prompt flickered—not from his implant, but from the shaft walls themselves, glowing in toxic green:
>> UNKNOWN SYSTEM REQUEST:
[TOXIN PROTOCOL - INSTALL Y/N?]
[WARNING: Irreversible Neural Rewiring Detected]
Kael stared at the words. His vision swam.
Some distant part of him—the part that still remembered his mother singing lullabies before the slums took her—whispered no
But the louder part? The part that had just watched his only friend sell him for a gold-plated prison?
He clicked YES
---
>> INSTALLATION COMPLETE
[Rebooting Nervous System]
Pain.
Not the sharp sting of plasma burns or broken bones—but something deeper. Like every nerve ending was being dipped in liquid nitrogen and set ablaze simultaneously. Kael's back arched as his muscles rippled beneath his skin, tendons reknitting themselves in real time.
When he opened his eyes, the vault was silent.
The turrets hung like dead insects from the ceiling, their barrels melted inward. The OmniCorp guards...
The guards were art pieces
Their bodies twisted in impossible angles—spines curled backward like shrimp, fingers bent into claws where they'd tried to scratch their own eyes out. Their faces were frozen in perfect, neurological agony.
Kael looked at his hands.
No burns.
No tremors.
Just black veins pulsing beneath his skin, forming fractal patterns that shifted when he flexed his fingers.
>> NEW SKILL UNLOCKED:
[Neuroplastic Carnage - Lv. 1]
[Description: Your nervous system is a weapon. Theirs is the ammunition.]
He touched his ribs where the plasma had struck.
No pain.
No fear.
Just cold, crystalline clarity
---
Somewhere in Neo-Babel's upper spires, Darius stared at his new citizenship chip—its golden edges still smeared with Kael's blood from the "proof of death" requirement.
He didn't know it yet, but he'd just become the most wanted man in the arcology.
And the thing hunting him?
It wore his best friend's face.