With a 50,000-credit bounty on his head, the world had become a firing range. Ren couldn't return to the Janitor's Dorms; they would have been raided within minutes of his face appearing on the news. He was a dead man walking, a walking payday for anyone desperate enough to turn him in. Every drone in the sky was scanning for his specific facial structure, and every "Loyalist" citizen was looking for the lucky break that would pull them out of the gutters.
He needed a new face. He needed a new life. And he knew exactly where to get one, provided he could survive the journey.
The "Under-City" was a labyrinth of forgotten subway tunnels, sewers, and abandoned bunkers beneath the gleaming towers of the Agency. It was where the "Broken"—those whose scores had hit zero but had managed to evade the Deletion Squads—hid from the light. It was a place where the City's laws didn't reach, but where a different, more brutal kind of law ruled.
Ren moved through the shadows of the lower levels, his Shadow Jacket flickering as the battery drained. He was low on Sin Points after the Data Hub heist, and he needed a way to recharge his power before the next confrontation.
[CURRENT SIN POINTS: 3,200]
[DETECTION METER: 82% (CRITICAL ALERT)]
"System, if the meter hits 100%, what actually happens?" Ren asked, his voice echoing in the damp tunnel.
[THE AGENCY WILL DEPLOY 'THE HUNTER-KILLER' UNITS. YOUR LOCATION WILL BE BROADCASTED ON ALL FREQUENCIES TO ALL CITIZENS. CHANCE OF SURVIVAL: 0.003%.]
"So basically, I become a beacon for every gun in the city. Good to know."
He finally arrived at a rusted, reinforced iron door marked with a faded symbol of a cracked skull. This was "The Glitch," a black-market clinic run by a disgraced Agency medic known as Doc Sawbones. It was said that the Doc could change a man's face, his fingerprints, and even his DNA—for the right price.
Ren stepped inside. The air was thick with the smell of ozone, cheap antiseptic, and stale tobacco. A dozen men with illegal cybernetic limbs and scarred, unmasked faces looked up from their drinks, their eyes narrowing as they processed the intruder.
"I'm looking for a facial reconstructive," Ren said, keeping his hand near his belt.
A man with a massive, whirring robotic eye stood up from a card game. "Costs 10,000 credits for a full wipe, kid. You look like you don't even have ten. In fact, you look like a janitor who got lost on his way to the incinerator."
Ren didn't flinch. He walked straight to the counter and slammed his Pulse Dagger into the wood, the violet energy humming and lighting up the dingy room like a neon sign. "I don't have credits. I have something much more valuable."
The man's robotic eye whirred and clicked as it zoomed in on the dagger. "That's Agency tech. Prototype tier. Where did a rat like you get something that expensive? You steal it from a dead Lead?"
"I took it from the man who tried to kill me," Ren said, his voice cold. "Now, get the Doc. I'm in a hurry, and my patience is a lot shorter than this blade."
A heavy curtain parted at the back of the room, and a hunched man with magnifying goggles and blood-stained gloves stepped out. He looked at Ren's face, then at the dagger, then at a small monitor behind the bar that was still playing the news loop of Ren's escape.
"You're the one," the Doc said, a yellow-toothed grin appearing on his face. "The Data Hub ghost. The man who made the Agency look like fools."
The room went silent. The mercenaries at the tables reached for their weapons, the sound of safety catches clicking echoing like a death knell. Ren felt the tension rise, his Agility stat twitching in his legs, ready to spring.
"Easy, boys," the Doc said, waving a hand. "I don't care about bounties. Credits are just numbers the Agency uses to keep us in line. But that tech you're carrying... and that jacket... that's tech I haven't seen since the Great Correction. You're an Anomaly, aren't you?"
"Something like that," Ren replied.
"I'll give you a new face," the Doc said, leaning over the counter. "But I don't want the dagger. I want the source code for the Karma Worm you planted in the Hub. I know you still have it. A virus like that... it's worth more than a thousand lives in the Under-City."
Ren's eyes narrowed. The Worm was his greatest weapon. If he gave it away, he lost his leverage over the City's servers. It was his only insurance policy against the Agency's total control.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: CHOICE TRIGGERED.]
[OPTION A: TRADE THE CODE. REWARD: NEW IDENTITY, 0 SIN POINTS.]
[OPTION B: REFUSE AND FIGHT. REWARD: MASSIVE SIN POINTS, HIGH RISK OF INJURY.]
Ren looked around the room. There were six of them. All armed with kinetic pistols and electrified clubs. He had 3,200 Sin Points. It was time to see what a "Sinner Grade 2" could really do.
"I have a better idea," Ren said, his hand tightening on the dagger. "How about I give you a demonstration of what the Worm can do to your internal cybernetics instead?"
Ren tapped a mental command into his HUD.
[COMMAND: EXECUTE 'AREA OVERLOAD'. COST: 500 SIN POINTS.]
Every light in the clinic exploded in a shower of sparks. The cybernetic eyes and limbs of the mercenaries began to malfunction, sparking with blue electricity. They screamed, clutching their heads as the Karma Worm—transmitted through Ren's local wireless signal—wreaked havoc on their neural interfaces.
Ren moved like a blur in the darkness. He didn't use the blade to kill; he used the hilt and his fists, enhanced by his new Strength stats. Crack. A jaw shattered. Thud. A man was slammed into a support beam with enough force to dent the metal. In ten seconds, the room was silent, save for the moans of the men on the floor.
Ren stood over the Doc, who was trembling on the floor, his magnifying goggles cracked and useless.
"Now," Ren said, his voice as cold as the sewers. "About that new face. And I think I'll take a 'loyalty discount' for the trouble your friends caused."
[SUBVERSIVE ACT: INTIMIDATING THE UNDERWORLD ELITE.]
[REWARD: 800 SIN POINTS. LEVEL UP! AGILITY +3.]
The Doc nodded frantically, his hands shaking. Two hours of agonizing surgery later, Ren walked out of the clinic into the foggy night. He looked into a shard of a broken mirror in a dark alley. His sharp, recognizable jaw was gone, replaced by a softer, more common look. His eyes were no longer brown, but a dull, forgettable grey. He looked like every other laborer, every other "Zero" in the city.
[DETECTION METER RESET: 5%. IDENTITY SPOOF: PERMANENT.]
"System," Ren thought as he vanished into the smog. "What's the next move?"
[THE AGENCY IS RECLAIMING THE 'PROTOTYPE' FROM SECTOR 4. IT IS A BIO-WEAPON DESIGNED TO PERMANENTLY SYNCHRONIZE EVERY SOUL IN THE DISTRICT. IF IT REACHES THE WATER SUPPLY, INDIVIDUALITY WILL BE DELETED FOREVER. INTERCEPT IT.]
Ren tightened his grip on his cart, a new, dark purpose burning in his chest. He was no longer just a victim of the system. He was the one writing the new rules of the game.