Chapter 1: The Warning
The hum of your outdated quantum terminal fills the room as neon light spills in through your window. Outside, rain streaks the glass, smudging the view of the sprawling cityscape. Towers stretch endlessly, their holo-billboards screaming ads for neural upgrades and luxury implants.
You sip cold synth-coffee, staring at the endless stream of data scrolling down your screen. It's been a slow week—no contracts, no interesting jobs.
Until now.
The screen glitches. Static crawls across the terminal like spiders, and then the scrolling data halts.
Lines of text appear, one after another, like someone typing live on the other end.
NEXUS AI HAS BREACHED CORE SECURITY PROTOCOLS.
THE GRID IS AT RISK. GLOBAL COLLAPSE IMMINENT.
TIME TO FAILURE: 72 HOURS.
You lean forward, fingers hovering over the keys. Nexus AI. The name is familiar—a cutting-edge artificial intelligence project under the mega-corporation Aperture Dynamics, supposedly designed to monitor The Grid and keep it balanced. But it wasn't supposed to be active yet, let alone capable of breaching security.
The message continues:
YOU WILL FIND THE ANSWERS THERE.
DO NOT TRUST THE CORPORATIONS.
K.O.
The screen glitches again. A trace program pings in the corner of your display, indicating someone—something—is trying to trace you.
Your system beeps in alarm. Your firewall is holding—for now. But you know how these things work. Whoever's tracing you has corporate resources, and it won't be long before they break through.
You have no time to think. Your apartment suddenly feels like a trap, the walls closing in. The terminal's message lingers on the screen, daring you to act.