(Third-Person Perspective - Investigator)
A man with a tall, straight bearing and eyes as sharp as an eagle's stepped off the interstellar shuttle. The air of Planet 7, a mixture of acid rain and the smell of rust, made him frown slightly.
His name was Hawke, the Chief Investigator for the League Organizing Committee, nicknamed "Hawkeye."
He had only one mission: to uncover the truth behind that bizarre "server failure."
"Mr. Hawke," a staff member in a League uniform hurried forward, respectfully handing over a data pad. "As per your request, all relevant data has been compiled."
Hawke took the data pad, his fingers flying across the surface. On the screen, endless streams of data cascaded like a waterfall.
His gaze did not linger on the complex code; instead, he locked directly onto several abnormal timestamps.
"At the time of the failure, seventeen players experienced network fluctuations of at least 0.5 seconds," Hawke's voice was low and powerful, devoid of emotion. "Pull up the list of these seventeen."
Soon, seventeen profiles appeared on the screen.
Hawke's finger slid past name after name—elite players from various planets with glamorous backgrounds and perfect resumes.
Until his finger stopped on one name.
Vex.
The girl in the profile photo had cold eyes, her face still smeared with grease, with the junk heaps of Planet 7 as her backdrop.
"Scavenger... orphan..." Hawke murmured to himself, his gaze lingering for a moment on the "Family Background" section of the file.
[Parents: Miners, accidental death.]
Seeing the words "miners" and "accidental death," an extremely complex emotion flashed through Hawke's sharp eyes, so fleeting it was almost imperceptible. It was a look that blended regret, anger, and a certain... guilt.
He quickly composed himself and, pointing at Vex's file, said to the assistant beside him, "Flag her file as top priority. I want everything on her, especially her activity logs from the day of the match.""Yes, sir. But... she's just a scavenger from the slums. She wouldn't have the skills..."
"My gut tells me," Hawk interrupted, his gaze turning as sharp as a falcon's once more, "there's something off about this little mouse."
***
(First-Person Perspective - Vex)
*Buzz—*
My personal terminal vibrated. It was an encrypted message from Jinx.
"Watch out! The feds are here! Hawk, the ace investigator from the League Organizing Committee—nicknamed 'Hawkeye'—has already arrived on Planet 7!"
I was tightening a screw on the knee joint of "The Wrench." I paused.
Is he here already? Faster than I expected.
"He's investigating the server failure and has already marked you as a prime suspect! Dammit, I knew that stunt would cause trouble!" Jinx's text was laced with anxiety.
I wiped the grease from my hands and replied calmly, "Where is he now?"
"The data center! He's sweeping the scene! Vex, did you leave any loose ends?!"
I smiled.
Loose ends?
For someone like me, scraping a living out of trash heaps, my greatest skill is covering my tracks.
"Don't panic," I typed back. "Just watch the show."
Closing the connection, I stood up and walked over to an old console in the corner of the workshop.
This was a beauty I'd salvaged from an abandoned weather station. After my modifications, it now served as the hub for my personal network.
On the screen, a small red dot representing "Hawkeye" Hawk flickered at the data center's location. This was a real-time tracker Jinx provided by hacking into the city's surveillance system.
Surrounding the red dot were several "virtual beacons" I had planted in advance.
A hardware hack is the kind of thing you only do once. Want to catch me? It won't be that easy.
I pulled up a program I had prepared long ago and lightly tapped the Enter key.
"Alright, Jinx," I reconnected to her. "Do me a favor. Now, use your access to angle the camera at Exit 3, Sector C of the 'Smelter Town' black market on Planet 7."
"What are you planning?"
"Creating... a perfect alibi."
***(Third-Person Perspective - Investigator)
Hawk stood in the middle of the data center's server room, which was in a state of total disarray.
A faint smell of ozone still hung in the air. He crouched down, his gloved fingers lightly brushing the casing of a server cabinet.
"There are faint residual EMP signatures," he said, standing up and addressing the technician behind him. "This wasn't a system failure; it was an external physical attack."
The technician's face turned pale instantly. "That... how is that possible? Who would..."
Hawk ignored him. Instead, he opened his datapad and pulled up Vex's activity logs for the day.
The records showed that an hour before the match began, Vex had entered her container workshop in the "Rust Belt."
Throughout the match, her personal terminal signal and network access point never left that container.
It wasn't until half an hour after the match ended that she stepped out again, heading for the "Smelter Town" black market.
"It's airtight," Hawk's assistant whispered. "All the records match up. There's no way she could have been here during the match."
Hawk said nothing, his eyes fixed on the seemingly perfect activity log.
Too perfect.
So perfect it felt... fabricated.
Would a scavenger raised in a junk heap really have such sophisticated counter-surveillance skills?
"Dig into it! Find out exactly what she was doing in Smelter Town!" Hawk commanded coldly. "Pull up all relevant surveillance footage!"
A few minutes later, a grainy piece of surveillance footage came through.
In the frame, a girl dressed in scavenger clothes, with a build strikingly similar to Vex's, walked into a parts shop in Smelter Town.
In the bottom right corner of the recording, a timestamp was clearly visible.
It was the exact moment the server had been attacked.
"See, Mr. Hawk?" the assistant said, sounding relieved. "A perfect alibi. She was buying parts at a black market dozens of kilometers away. She couldn't possibly have been here."
Hawk stared at the blurry figure on the screen, his brow furrowing even deeper.
No.
Something was wrong.The figure's walking posture... showed a 0.03-degree deviation from the gait data in Vex's file.
It was a difference so minute it was practically negligible.
But for "Hawkeye" Hawke, it was more than enough.
"A double..." he squeezed out the words through gritted teeth.
***
(First-Person Perspective - Vex)
On my screen, I watched Hawke's little red dot linger at the data center for a long time before heading toward "Smelter Town."
I knew he was going to check the surveillance footage.
That "me" was a girl with a similar build who I'd hired on the black market for a hundred credits. I had her appear at a specific place at a specific time to do a specific thing.
As for the tech used to spoof my personal terminal signal and network access point, that came from my father's old data terminal. It contained not only secrets about the "Ghost Engine" but also countless anti-tracking and electronic deception techniques I'd never even heard of.
My father... just who was he trying to hide from that he'd developed so many ways to stay off the grid?
"He's gone!" another message from Jinx popped up. "He left Smelter Town! He took a copy of the surveillance footage, but it looks like... he's given up!"
On the screen, the red dot representing Hawke was moving toward the starport.
I watched the dot move, but I didn't relax for a second.
Give up? No.
A man like Hawke is like a hungry wolf stalking his prey; he won't stop until he's torn off a piece of flesh. He was only temporarily fooled by my perfect trail of evidence—or rather, he couldn't find anything to debunk my alibi.
He might shift his investigation toward some "hacker group" or "corporate sabotage" for now.
But it's only temporary.
I'd successfully played a game of cat and mouse with him, and I'd won the first round. But I knew full well that I'd thoroughly pissed off that cunning old cat.
He'll be back.
I switched off the screen and picked up my massive wrench again. The cold touch of the metal was incredibly reassuring.
I needed to get stronger before he came knocking again.Strong enough... so he never gets the chance to stand in front of me again.