The silence following a forced logout was never truly silent. In the year 2300, the silence of the slums was composed of the distant, rhythmic throb of the city's ventilation fans, the hiss of leaking steam pipes, and the erratic, panicked beating of a human heart.
Jin sat in the dark interior of his Sync-Pod, his eyes snapped wide open. He didn't move. He couldn't.
His nervous system was screaming. The "Link" he had established with Seraphina to bridge their logout had been like running a high-voltage current through a copper wire meant for a desk lamp. His muscles twitched involuntarily, a phantom silver light still dancing behind his retinas. This was the "Neural Backlash" the manuals warned about—the price of rewriting reality.
Slowly, the pod hissed open. The conductive gel, now lukewarm and smelling of burnt ozone, spilled onto the floor.
"Jin! Don't move too fast!"
Mei was there instantly, her wheelchair whirring as she maneuvered through the cramped space. She held a handheld medical scanner, its green beam flickering over Jin's chest.
"Your heart rate is 140, and your cortisol levels are off the charts," she whispered, her voice trembling. "What did you do in there? The power grid for the whole block flickered when you disconnected."
Jin grabbed the edge of the pod, his knuckles white. "I didn't... just disconnect. I brought her through."
He looked toward the corner of the room. Seraphina was slumped against the wall, still in her tattered real-world combat suit. Her physical body was undergoing a violent "Re-sync." In the higher dimension, she had become a Lunar Valkyrie; here, she was a girl whose brain was trying to remember how to breathe without the aid of a computer.
"Is she... is she the one from the Thorne Corporation?" Mei asked, her eyes wide as she looked at the silver-haired girl.
"She's Seraphina," Jin rasped, finally finding his footing. "And she's the reason we aren't going to be just survivors anymore. Mei, get the Sky-Rune crystal out of my interface slot."
Mei reached into the back of the Sync-Pod, pulling out a small, translucent shard that pulsed with a faint, rhythmic violet light. It was a piece of the higher dimension brought into the physical world—a feat that was theoretically impossible according to modern science.
"This shouldn't exist," Mei whispered, staring at the crystal. "If the Enforcers find this, they won't just arrest us. They'll incinerate the entire sector to keep it quiet."
"Then we make sure they don't find it," Jin said. He walked over to a small, cluttered workbench covered in salvaged electronics and rusted apothecary jars. This was his "Lab"—a place where 2300-era technology met the forbidden logic of Runic Alchemy.
He looked at the Sky-Rune, then at the vial of Spirit Spring Essence he had smuggled out. His Runic Eyes flared, even in the real world. The strain was immense; his vision blurred, and a trickle of blood began to run from his left nostril.
"Jin, stop! Your brain can't handle the 'Eyes' in the real world yet!" Mei cried out, reaching for him.
"I have to," Jin muttered, his voice strained. "The Sky-Rune is unstable. It's vibrating at a frequency that will alert the city's 'Anomaly Detectors' in less than an hour. I have to 'seal' it into a pill. Not just any pill... the Heavenly Harmonizing Pill."
This was the first "Small Fight" of the slow-paced journey: Man vs. Matter. To create the pill, Jin had to perform a feat of precision that no surgeon could match. He had to use his own bio-electricity to "weld" the runes of the spring into the crystal lattice of the Sky-Rune.
He picked up a laser-scalpel, but instead of turning it on, he began to etch symbols into its casing with a needle. He was "overclocking" the tool.
"Mei, I need you to monitor the local mesh-net," Jin commanded, his focus narrowing until the world consisted only of the crystal and the vial. "The second you see a surge in corporate 'Scan-Drones' in our zip code, tell me. I need to know how much time I have to finish the 'Refinement'."
"I'm on it," Mei said, her fingers dancing across her holographic screens. "But Jin... the Thorne Corporation just issued a 'Level 5 Lockdown' for Sector 7. They know she's gone. They're searching every 'Dark-Zone' in the city. We have maybe forty minutes before the patrol drones reach our floor."
Jin didn't answer. He was already deep in the "Trance."
He opened the vial of Spirit Spring Essence. The liquid didn't stay in the vial; it rose out in a shimmering globe, suspended by the magnetic field Jin was generating with his own thrumming bloodline.
He began the process.
[Step 1: Dissolution.] He touched the Sky-Rune with the laser-scalpel. The violet crystal didn't break; it began to hum, a sound so high-pitched it made the glass jars on the shelves vibrate. Jin had to find the "Frequency of the Soul" within the crystal and match it with his own pulse.
The sweat poured down his face. His muscles burned. Every second was a battle against the "Physics" of 2300. The air in the room began to glow with a faint, ionized blue light.
"Thirty minutes, Jin!" Mei called out, her voice tight with fear. "I see three 'Seeker-Drones' entering our street. They're doing a house-to-house heat-signature sweep!"
Jin ignored her. He was seeing the Runes now. The [Purity] of the spring was fighting the [Complexity] of the Sky-Rune. They didn't want to merge.
He forced his golden energy into the mix, acting as the "Glue." His right arm, the one that had destroyed the Sentinel, began to glow again. The pain was excruciating—like having molten lead poured into his veins.
Just a little more... he thought, his teeth grinding so hard they felt like they might shatter. I have to stabilize the 'Harmony' script... if I fail, this block becomes a crater.