Caleb was currently at 12% health, and the precinct coffee was not a health potion. It was hot, brown sludge that tasted like burnt rubber and despair.
He sat in the Cyber Crimes Division—a basement dungeon kept at a freezing temperature to protect the servers. It was the only place in the building quiet enough for his headache to subside. The "System Update" warning had finally vanished, replaced by a lingering, dull throb behind his eyes and a passive debuff:
[STATUS: HANGOVER (NON-ALCOHOLIC)]
[INTELLIGENCE: -10%]
[CHARISMA: N/A]
"You look like you're rebooting," a voice chirped.
Caleb peered over the rim of his Styrofoam cup. Standing over him was Officer Simmons, the head of Cyber Crimes. Simmons was nineteen, wore a hoodie under his uniform, and had unauthorized mods on his own glasses. To Caleb's Overlay, Simmons was tagged simply as [NPC: TECH SUPPORT].
"I'm fine," Caleb lied. "Just admiring your cable management. It's terrible, by the way."
"Hey, it works," Simmons grinned, spinning his chair around to face the main monitor wall. "But you didn't come down here to roast my setup. You came for the show."
Maya walked in from the hallway, looking fresh and annoyed, holding two energy drinks. She slammed one down in front of Caleb.
"Drink," she ordered. "Simmons cracked the encryption on the chip you found."
"I didn't crack it," Simmons corrected, tapping his keyboard. "There was no encryption. It was just a compressed file type I've never seen before. .VOID extension. But I managed to emulate it."
"Show us," Maya said, leaning against the desk.
Simmons hit a key. The massive central monitor flickered to life.
The video wasn't a standard security feed. It was shaky, high-definition, and shot from a first-person perspective. It was a body-cam recording.
Caleb froze. The moment the video started, his own Overlay tried to sync with it.
[WARNING: SIGNAL INTERFERENCE]
[SOURCE DETECTED: SAME OS]
On the screen, they were looking at the interior of Arthur Sterling's penthouse. But it wasn't the penthouse Caleb remembered. In the video, the room was overlaid with a digital interface. Bright red target markers hovered over the furniture. A mini-map rotated in the corner.
It looked exactly like a video game.
"What is this?" Maya frowned. "Is the killer wearing AR glasses?"
"High-end ones," Simmons whistled. "Look at that refresh rate. It's tracking the room geometry in real-time."
In the video, the camera moved silently across the carpet. A gloved hand came into view, holding the black canister. A digital reticle locked onto the air vent.
Text appeared on the screen—not on Caleb's eyes, but burned into the video itself.
[OBJECTIVE: DEPLOY PAYLOAD]
[STEALTH: ACTIVE]
Caleb gripped the edge of the desk. His heart hammered against his ribs. It's the same font. The killer wasn't just using AR glasses. They were seeing the same system Caleb saw.
The camera view shifted. The killer approached Arthur Sterling, who was standing by the window, drinking scotch. Arthur didn't turn around. He didn't hear a thing.
The killer raised a hand. A menu popped up on the video feed. A floating, holographic menu with three options.
[1. EXECUTE]
[2. PAUSE]
[3. DELETE]
Maya gasped. "Is that... did he just pull up a menu?"
"It's a gesture interface," Simmons explained, fascinated. "He's controlling his tech with hand signs."
In the video, the killer's finger selected [2. PAUSE].
The canister in the hand hissed. The gas shot out, invisible but deadly. Arthur Sterling froze instantly, his glass tilting but not falling.
The killer didn't run. He walked up to the frozen banker. He waved his hand again, and a new text box appeared over the victim's face.
[BUG REPORT #001]
[SUBJECT: STERLING_A]
[NOTE: SERVER LATENCY TEST SUCCESSFUL.]
Then, the voice spoke.
It wasn't a natural voice. It was synthesized, deep and distorted, like audio played backwards and then reversed.
"Patch 1.2 is live," the killer narrated. "Physics engine stability is... compromised. Proceeding to Phase Two."
The video cut to black.
The lab was silent. The only sound was the hum of the cooling fans.
"Physics engine?" Maya whispered. "He's talking like he's coding a game."
"He thinks he's a god," Simmons said, shivering. "Or a developer. He 'paused' a human being to test a server?"
Caleb stood up abruptly. His chair scraped loudly against the concrete floor.
"Turn it off," Caleb said.
"We need to analyze the audio," Maya argued. "There might be background noise—"
"I said turn it off!" Caleb snapped.
He turned away, breathing hard. The Overlay was going haywire. Red error messages were cascading down his vision.
[CRITICAL ALERT]
[ADMINISTRATOR DETECTED]
[HIDE YOUR ID]
He wasn't the only one. He wasn't a glitch. He was a user. And there was an Admin.
"Caleb?" Maya's voice was softer now. She touched his arm. "You okay? You look pale."
Caleb forced himself to take a breath. He had to spin this. If he looked too rattled, she'd know he recognized the interface.
"The UI," Caleb said, pointing at the black screen. "The interface he was using. It had a compass in the corner."
"Yeah, a mini-map," Simmons nodded. "Standard in tactical games."
"Did you see the coordinates?" Caleb asked.
Simmons blinked. "I... I was looking at the hand."
"Rewind to the last three seconds," Caleb commanded. "Bottom right corner. Under the ammo counter."
Simmons tapped the keys. The video rewound. He froze the frame just as the screen faded to black.
There, in tiny, pixelated text, were a set of numbers.
[DST: 44.2 - 12.8 - SECTOR 4]
"Sector 4," Maya read. "That's the Industrial District. The old shipping yards."
"And 44.2," Caleb improvised, "is a shipping container designation. I used to... acquire goods from there. That's the format they use for the automated cranes."
It wasn't a lie—not entirely. The numbers were coordinates, but Caleb didn't know them from shipping. He knew them because his own map was currently flashing a waypoint in that exact direction.
[NEW QUEST: THE BETA TEST]
[LOCATION: SECTOR 4]
"He's not just testing the gas," Caleb said, adjusting his sunglasses. "He said 'Proceeding to Phase Two.' He's going to do it again. And this time, he's not going to pause a banker."
Maya grabbed her jacket off the chair. She looked at Simmons.
"Send those coordinates to my GPS. And scrub the audio for any environmental sounds—trains, foghorns, anything."
She turned to Caleb. Her eyes were hard, determined.
"You said you know the shipping yards?"
"Like the back of my hand," Caleb said.
"Good. Because we're going hunting."
Caleb followed her out of the lab. As he crossed the threshold, a final text box floated in the darkness of the hallway, invisible to everyone but him.
[TIP: PVP IS ENABLED IN SECTOR 4.]
[GOOD LUCK.]