Six Months Later.
The neon skyline of St. Lazarus was brighter than before. Since the reboot, the city council had upgraded the grid. The lights didn't flicker anymore; they hummed with a sterile, efficient LED white.
Caleb Vane stood on the center line of the Mag-Lev Highway, watching the rain bounce off the yellow police tape.
He looked different. The thrift-store hoodie was gone, replaced by a tailored charcoal coat that hid the Kevlar vest underneath. He still wore the sunglasses, even at night, but they were new—polarized, prescription, and expensive.
He tapped the frame.
[SYSTEM: ONLINE]
[VERSION: 2.01 (STABLE)]
[CURRENT QUEST: THE IMPOSSIBLE HEIST]
"Stop doing that," Maya said, walking up beside him. She looked sharper too—hair cut shorter, a new detective's badge clipped to her belt. "You look like you're rebooting."
"Just adjusting the contrast," Caleb said. "The new update makes the reds too saturated."
He looked at the wreckage in front of them.
It was an armored transport vehicle—a heavy-duty "Titan" class truck used for moving gold bullion. It wasn't overturned. It wasn't blown up.
It was inside the wall of the tunnel.
The front half of the truck was protruding from the concrete, perfectly fused with the structure. There were no cracks, no rubble, no sign of impact. It was as if the truck and the wall had decided to occupy the same space at the same time.
"Physics check?" Maya asked, holding her tablet.
"Clipping error," Caleb said, walking around the vehicle. "The truck didn't hit the wall. It drove through it, then the collision detection kicked back in halfway."
"The driver is fused to the dashboard," Maya said grimly. "We need a jackhammer to get the bodies out. And the cargo?"
"Gone," Caleb said. He pointed to the back doors. They were wide open. The vault was empty. "Two tons of raw lithium. Vanished."
Captain Vance was shouting at a forensic team near the tunnel entrance. He spotted Caleb and marched over.
"Vane!" Vance barked. "Tell me this wasn't a glitch. The Mayor is breathing down my neck about 'infrastructure stability'."
"The wall is stable," Caleb said, running his hand over the point where metal met concrete. "This wasn't a system error, Captain. It was a forced entry."
"Forced?" Vance looked at the fused metal. "Who forces a truck into solid concrete without scratching the paint?"
"Someone who knows how to lag the server," Caleb said.
He stepped back. He needed to see the event.
Since the update, his Overlay had gained a new feature. He didn't just see the present; he could see the echoes of the data stream.
Caleb closed his eyes for a second, then opened them.
[ABILITY ACTIVATED: ECHO REPLAY]
[BUFFERING LOCAL DATA...]
The tunnel changed. The police tape vanished. The wreckage disappeared. Ghostly wireframe outlines of cars sped past him at 100 mph.
[TIMESTAMP: 22:42:00]
He saw the Titan truck—a blocky green wireframe—barreling down the lane.
Then he saw Him.
A second figure. A red wireframe.
The figure wasn't in a car. He was running. On foot.
Running alongside a truck moving at 80 mph.
"What the hell?" Caleb whispered.
The Red Figure was moving with unnatural, jerky speed. He wasn't running smoothly; he was skipping frames. One second he was ten feet behind, the next he was on the roof.
[ANOMALY DETECTED: MOVEMENT SPEED > 200%]
[TECHNIQUE: STRAFE JUMPING]
In the playback, the Red Figure dropped from the roof to the hood. He didn't use explosives. He simply crouched, vibrated violently for a split second, and then clipped through the windshield into the cab.
The truck swerved instantly—the driver reacting to the intruder. The truck headed straight for the tunnel wall.
The Red Figure didn't bail. He stayed inside until the millisecond before impact. Then, he clipped out the back doors, carrying two heavy crates as if they weighed nothing.
The truck hit the wall. The physics engine panicked. The truck merged with the concrete.
The Red Figure landed on the asphalt, sliding backward without losing momentum—a perfect "bunny hop" that conserved his velocity—and vanished into the darkness of the service tunnel.
[REPLAY ENDED]
Caleb blinked. The headache hit him—a sharp spike behind the eyes. The echo faded, leaving the real wreckage in front of him.
"Caleb?" Maya touched his arm. "What did you see?"
"He didn't use a device," Caleb said, his voice quiet. "He didn't use an EMP or a magnet."
"Then how did he do it?"
"He glitched it," Caleb said, looking at the dark service tunnel where the figure had vanished. "He used the geometry of the tunnel to clip out of bounds."
"Out of bounds?" Vance asked, frowning. "Speak English, Vane."
"He's a speedrunner," Caleb said, feeling a cold knot in his stomach. "He's not just breaking the laws of physics. He's exploiting them. He did this whole heist in under twelve seconds."
Caleb walked toward the service tunnel. His Overlay highlighted a small, faint discoloration on the wall near the exit. It wasn't a scorch mark. It was a digital tag.
Most people wouldn't see it. It required an Overlay to render.
Caleb focused on it.
[OBJECT: TAG]
[USER: KAIROS]
[MESSAGE: NEW RECORD - 11.4s]
"Kairos," Caleb read aloud.
"Is that a suspect?" Maya asked, noting it down.
"It's a gamertag," Caleb said. He looked at the leaderboard score floating in the air.
[RANK 1: KAIROS - 11.4s]
[RANK 2: NULL - --.--]
Caleb stared at the empty slot next to his own name.
"He knows about me," Caleb realized. "He didn't just rob the truck for the lithium. He left a high score."
"He's challenging you," Maya realized.
"No," Caleb adjusted his coat, turning away from the tag. "He's waiting for me in the lobby."
He looked at Vance.
"Lock down the grid, Captain. And check the logs for any other impossible crimes—bank vaults opened without keys, people falling from buildings but not dying. Anything that looks like a miracle."
"Why?" Vance asked.
"Because miracles are just bugs," Caleb said, walking toward the cruiser. "And we just found a user who knows how to trigger them on command."
[NEW ENEMY DETECTED]
[CLASS: SPEEDRUNNER]
[THREAT LEVEL: BROKEN]