The silence that followed the scream was heavy. It pressed against my eardrums, filling the space where the sirens used to be.
The three guards on the floor weren't dead. But they wished they were.
They were clawing at their helmets, groaning, and blood leaking from their ears. Their brain chips—the things that let them receive orders—had been fried.
Sarah slumped against the elevator wall, wiping a thick streak of blood from her upper lip. She looked frail. Her ribs was showing through her pale skin. But her eyes... her eyes were burning with a terrifying sharpness.
"Don't just stare, Elias," she rasped. "Loot them."
I blinked. The rifle was shaking in my hands. "What?"
"We have three minutes before their systems come back online. Strip them. We need armor. And we need a clearance codes."
I looked at the guards. Corporate Sweepers. Men who made people disappear. Touching them felt like touching a live wire.
But I thought of Jasmine. Coughing in her bed. Waiting for medicine I couldn't afford.
I gritted my teeth and knelt beside the nearest guard.
"Sorry, pal."
I moved quickly. I stripped the tactical vest off the lead guard. It was heavy, with a tough plating that could stop a bullet. I wore it on my greasy jumpsuit. It smelled like sweat.
I checked his pockets. There was a stun grenade. A spare power cell for the rifle. And a wrist-comp.
"Bring me the wrist-comp," Sarah ordered.
I unclasped the device and handed it to her. She didn't put it on. She just pressed her thumb against the screen.
Sparks jumped. The screen flickered from red to green.
"Access granted," she whispered. "Major Silas Vane. Security Clearance Level 4."
She looked at me.
"Congratulations, Elias. You're now a Major in the Corporate Security Force. Put it on."
I strapped the computer to my wrist. Immediately, data scrolled across the small screen. Patrol routes. Camera feeds. And the heart rates of nearby units.
"This is..." I swallowed. "This is incredible."
"It's basic," she scoffed. "Now give me a weapon."
"You can barely stand," I said.
"I don't need to stand to shoot. Give me the pistol."
I handed her the pistol from the guard's holster. She checked the chamber with a smooth, practiced motion. It looked completely wrong on her skinny body. Like watching a grandmother assemble a sniper rifle.
"We need to move," she said. "The scream bought us time, but it also acted like a flare, giving away our position. Every digital system in the sector now knows exactly where we are."
We stepped out of the elevator into the corridor of Level B2.
This wasn't the dirty, industrial tunnels of the Server Farm. This was the command sector.
The walls were white and clean. The floor was polished black. Holographic displays floated in the air, showing the status of thousands of sleepers above us.
Server 9 Status: 99.8% Efficiency.
Current Deaths: 0.
"Lies," Sarah muttered, looking at the display. "They don't count the purges as deaths. They count them as 'File Corruptions'."
"Freeze!"
The shout came from the end of the hall.
Two defense turrets dropped from the ceiling. Their cameras turned toward us with a mechanical whine. Red lasers dot lit up on my chest.
"Turrets!" I yelled, diving behind a reception desk.
BRRRRT!
Bullets chewed up the floor where I had just been standing. The noise was deafening. The desk I was hiding behind exploded into chunks of plastic and wood.
"Sarah! Get down!" I screamed.
She hadn't moved.
She was standing in the middle of the hallway. Laser sights dancing on her forehead.
"Sarah!"
She didn't flinch. She raised her left hand, fingers spread toward the turrets.
"Elias," she said calmly, over the roar of the guns spinning up for another shot. "Do you know why the rich Ascend?"
"Because Earth sucks!" I shouted, hugging the floor as debris rained on me.
"No," she said. "Because in the digital world, thought is action. If you can think it, it happens."
The turrets locked on. The barrels started glowing orange.
Sarah closed her eyes.
"And I," she whispered, "am a lucid dreamer."
She clenched her fist.
The turrets didn't fire.
Instead, they jerked hard to the left. Spun around. And Faced each other.
BRRRRT!
The turrets opened fire—on each other.
Metal screeched and sparked as the bullets tore the machines apart. Oil sprayed across the white walls. In three seconds, both units were a smoking piles of scrap hanging from the ceiling.
Sarah lowered her hand. Her knees buckled.
I scrambled up and caught her before she hit the floor. Her skin was burning hot. Blood was dripping freely from both nostrils now.
"You're killing yourself," I said. My voice was shaking. "Whatever that power is... it's eating your body's energy. You're going to burn out."
"Better to burn out than fade away," she wheezed.
She looked at me. And for the first time, I saw fear behind the arrogance.
"We need calories, Elias. I'm running a supercomputer on a AA battery, and i need food. Real food. High protein ones."
"I have a protein bar," I said, reaching into my pocket.
She slapped it out of my hand. "Not that sawdust! I need meat. I need sugar. And I need to get out of this bunker."
The wrist-comp on my arm beeped.
A holographic face appeared above my wrist.
A man. With silver hair. Cold blue eyes. Jawline that looked like it was carved from stone. He wore the black uniform of the High Inquisitors.
"Major Vane," the man said. His voice was smooth. "Report. Why are your body monitors showing high stress? And why are the turrets in Sector B offline?"
I froze.
"Answer him," Sarah hissed in my ear. "If you don't, he will lock the sector."
"Who is he?" I mouthed.
"Malachi," she whispered. "Head of Disposal. He's the one who unplugs people."
I swallowed hard. Looked at the hologram.
"Major Vane?" Malachi asked. His eyes narrowed.
"Uh, sir," I stammered, trying to pitch my voice lower. "We had a... problem. Technical glitch in the targeting software. The turrets shot each other. I'm... cleaning it up now."
Malachi stared at me.
The silence stretched forever.
He looked at my face—covered in grease and sweat. Then at the tactical vest I was wearing. The one that didn't fit right.
"You aren't Silas Vane," Malachi said softly.
My heart stopped.
"And the woman behind you," he continued, his gaze shifting to Sarah. "That is Asset 815. Queen Lysandra."
He smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.
"Lockdown," Malachi said. "Seal the building. Gas the vents. I want them alive. I want to know how a glitch learned to walk."
The hologram vanished.
Heavy blast doors at both ends of the corridor started sliding shut. A hissing sound came from the vents. Yellow gas. Thick and heavy.
Poison.
"Run!" Sarah screamed.
We bolted.
The blast door ahead was closing. Three feet. Two feet. One foot.
"Slide!"
I threw myself forward, hitting the floor and sliding under the closing metal. Sarah dove right behind me.
CLANG.
The door slammed shut, clipping the heel of my boot.
We were in the garage.
A massive garage filled with vehicles. Armored trucks. Hover-drones. And sleek black motorcycles that looked like crouching panthers.
"Can you drive?" Sarah asked, coughing as the first wisps of gas leaked through the door behind us.
I looked at the bikes.
"I'm a Caretaker. I drive only mop bucket."
"you need to figure it out," she said, limping toward the nearest bike. "Because Malachi just invited the whole city to hunt us."
I ran to the bike. A Valkyrie X-9. Chrome and black. It was Beautiful.
I jumped on. The engine roared to life as it sensed my weight. It vibrated between my legs like a beast waiting to run.
Sarah hopped on the back, wrapping her thin arms around my waist.
"Where do we go?" I yelled over the engine.
"The Slums," she said. "The Deep is too clean. We need to go where the signal is dirty. We need to find the Resistance."
"There is no Resistance!" I shouted. "That's a myth!"
"I'm the one who funded them," she yelled back. "Drive!"
I hit the gas.
The bike shot forward, tires screeching on concrete. We hit the ramp leading to the surface, bursting out of the underground garage and into the night.
Rain lashed against my face. Neon signs flickered in the distance—pink, green, electric blue. The city of Neo-Veridia stretched out in front of us. a huge, dark maze of steel and glass.
And behind us, the sirens of Server 9 wailed loudly.
We were out.
But the game had just begun.