The District Data Hub was not just a building; it was a cathedral of silicon and surveillance. Located in the sub-basement of the Processing Center, it was the place where every thought, every transaction, and every heartbeat in District 9 was cataloged and stored. To a "Zero" like Ren, entering this place was equivalent to a mouse walking into the stomach of a cat. The walls were made of polished white composite, so clean they felt sterile, reflecting the harsh blue light of the overhead security grids.
Ren stood in the hallway, his hand gripping the cold, vibrating handle of his sonic-mop. To any passing Peacekeeper, he was just another invisible laborer performing a "Deep Scrub" of the ventilation shafts. But beneath his ragged, sweat-stained uniform, the Shadow Jacket hummed with a forbidden frequency, its microscopic fibers ready to bend light at a moment's notice.
[DETECTION METER: 18%]
[WARNING: HIGH-DENSITY SCANNER GRID AHEAD. BIOMETRIC SIGNATURE REQUIRED.]
"System," Ren thought, his eyes tracking the red laser lattices crisscrossing the ceiling like a spiderweb. "If I step through that grid as a Zero, what's the response time?"
[RESPONSE TIME: 0.4 SECONDS. LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED FOR UNAUTHORIZED SECTOR ACCESS.]
Ren swallowed hard. He had to play the part of a High-Lead. "Activate 'Credit Spoof'. Target: Administrator Kalen."
[COMMAND: ACTIVATE 'CREDIT SPOOF'.]
[COST: 100 SIN POINTS PER 10 MINUTES.]
[SPOOFING... SUCCESS. IDENTITY: ADMINISTRATOR KALEN. CREDIT SCORE: 850.]
Instantly, the ID chip in his arm—usually a dull, flickering red that signaled his poverty—flared with a brilliant, steady gold. He stepped toward the heavy blast doors. A mechanical eye emerged from a hidden recess in the wall, scanning his retina and the spoofed chip in his arm.
[SCANNING... IDENTITY VERIFIED. WELCOME, ADMINISTRATOR KALEN. ACCESS GRANTED.]
The doors hissed open with a rush of pressurized air. Ren slipped inside, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm that his Digital Ghost ability worked tirelessly to mask. If his heart rate spiked too high, the sensors would detect the "emotional variance" and override his spoofed identity.
The interior of the Data Hub was a forest of towering server racks, glowing with a rhythmic blue pulse that looked like a digital heartbeat. The air was frigid, kept at near-freezing temperatures to protect the massive processors that ran the City's "Harmony" algorithms. This was the brain of the beast. This was where the Agency decided who lived, who worked, and who was "Deleted" for the sake of the collective good.
[NEW OBJECTIVE: INSTALL THE 'KARMA WORM' IN THE CENTRAL CORE.]
[TIME REMAINING: 08:42 BEFORE SPOOF EXPIRES.]
Ren moved through the aisles of servers. He felt the Agility boost from his previous missions; his footsteps were silent on the raised metal flooring, his movements fluid and precise. He felt like a predator in a world of machines. But as he reached the Central Core—a massive pillar of liquid-cooled light that stretched from the floor to the ceiling—he stopped dead.
A figure was standing there, bathed in the blue light of the terminal.
It wasn't a Peacekeeper. It was a woman in a white lab coat, her hair tied back in a severe, tight bun. She was staring at a holographic terminal, her brow furrowed in deep confusion. Her Credit Score, displayed on her shoulder patch, was a staggering 912.
"Administrator Kalen?" she asked, not looking up from her work. "Is that you? The server logs showed your login, but the internal heat sensors didn't detect your signature in the primary hallway. I was about to call for a technician. There's a ghost in the system."
Ren froze. He hadn't bought an invisibility charge for the jacket yet. He had to talk his way out.
"Just a sensor glitch, Doctor," Ren said, deepening his voice and adding a layer of cold arrogance. He had spent years listening to men like her talk down to him; he knew the tone perfectly. "The cooling fans in the West corridor are acting up again, causing a thermal vacuum. I'm here to do a manual override of the local logs."
The woman turned around. Her eyes were sharp, intelligent, and deeply suspicious. She looked at Ren—at his oversized boots, his calloused hands that no Administrator would ever have, and the way his uniform didn't quite fit his frame.
"You're not Kalen," she whispered. Her hand moved with lightning speed toward the emergency alarm on her belt.
[DANGER! HOST IDENTITY COMPROMISED.]
[DETECTION METER: 45% AND RISING.]
"System! Pulse Dagger! Now!"
Ren lunged. He didn't think; he simply reacted. From the sub-space inventory, a blade of violet energy materialized in his hand, humming like a disturbed hive of wasps. He didn't want to kill her—he wasn't a murderer, not yet—but he couldn't let that alarm sound.
He slammed the hilt of the dagger into her temple, and the Pulse Dagger discharged a low-frequency shock. It wasn't lethal, but it disrupted her neural pathways instantly. She collapsed into his arms, her body going limp before she could even scream.
[SUBVERSIVE ACT: NEUTRALIZING A HIGH-LEVEL RESEARCHER.]
[REWARD: 200 SIN POINTS.]
Ren dragged her behind a server rack, his breath hitching. He turned back to the Core. He pulled a black, jagged drive from his pocket—the physical manifestation of the Karma Worm. He plugged it into the main console.
[INSTALLING... 10%... 30%... 60%...]
The screens around him began to flicker violently. The calm blue light of the servers turned a jagged, angry purple. Ren watched as the names of the "Deleted" citizens began to scroll across the monitors—thousands of names, thousands of lives discarded by the Agency like faulty parts in a machine. His mother's name flashed by for a fraction of a second.
"Not anymore," Ren whispered, his voice thick with a decade of suppressed rage.
[INSTALLATION COMPLETE. THE KARMA WORM IS NESTED.]
[SYSTEM ALERT! DATA ANOMALY DETECTED IN SECTOR 9. LOCKDOWN INITIATED.]
[DETECTION METER: 65%]
Ren grabbed the drive and ran. He could hear the heavy, synchronized thud of Peacekeeper boots echoing in the hallways outside. The spoofing was wearing off; the golden light in his arm was fading back to a guilty, flickering red. He had to get out before the "Ghost" became a corpse.
He reached the ventilation shaft he had scouted earlier. He scrambled inside, the cold metal scraping against his shoulders, just as the blast doors were blown open by a thermal charge.
"Find him!" a voice roared—a voice that sounded like grinding stone. "The ghost is in the building! Kill anything that moves!"
Ren crawled through the narrow, dusty ducts, his lungs burning from the recycled air and the exertion. He reached the exit—a small, rusted grate overlooking the city's industrial slums, where the rain fell in greasy, black sheets. He kicked the grate open and tumbled thirty feet into a pile of discarded tech-waste.
[MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: THE HEART OF THE MACHINE.]
[REWARD: 5,000 SIN POINTS.]
[RANK UP! YOU ARE NOW: SINNER GRADE 2.]
[STAT POINTS ALLOTTED: +5 STRENGTH, +5 INTELLIGENCE.]
Ren stood up in the shadows of the alleyway, drenched and shivering, but he felt a surge of incredible power. The Intelligence boost allowed him to see the City's grid in his mind, every camera and sensor glowing like a target on a map. He wasn't just a janitor anymore. He was the virus.
But as he looked up at the giant holographic display in the city square, his blood ran cold.
[BREAKING NEWS: TERRORIST ATTACK ON DATA HUB. SUSPECT IDENTIFIED.]
A grainy, high-definition image of Ren appeared on the screen—the face of the "Zero" who had dared to touch the Core.
[REWARD FOR CAPTURE: 50,000 CREDITS. STATUS: DELETE ON SIGHT.]
Ren stared at his own face, magnified a hundred times above the city. He was no longer a ghost. He was the most wanted man in the district. And as he looked at the Peacekeeper drones beginning to swarm the sky, he didn't feel fear. He felt a dark, jagged hunger for more.