I was invisible. A ghost in the machine. But I was not alone. I was surrounded by a silent army of digital death, their forms shimmering in the blood-red light of the server room. The massive System Warden stood before me, a patient executioner, its crystalline spear glowing with power. They could not see me, but they knew I was there. They were waiting.
The countdown timer on my HUD was the only thing in the universe that mattered.
[DATA DECRYPTION IN PROGRESS: 30 SECONDS]
Thirty seconds. The longest half-minute of my life.
My heart hammered against the inside of my ribs, a frantic, useless rhythm in the dead silence of the room. There was nothing to do. No one to fight. No corner to hide in. I was already in the deepest corner of hell, and all I could do was stand perfectly still and pray.
My mind was a torrent of fear and regret. I thought of Anya. I had left her in the hangar, wounded and alone, to face two of Ouroboros's best. Was she still alive? Did she buy me enough time? Or was her health bar, which I could no longer see, already at zero? The thought was a physical pain, a guilt so sharp it felt like one of the Warden's spears. I had told her to trust me, and I had led her to her death.
I thought of Caden. I thought of his last, desperate audio log. He had trusted a stranger, a ghost, to carry on his legacy. And here I was, about to fail him, about to be erased from existence with his life's work still locked away.
The System Warden, the massive entity guarding the server core, began to move. It was not attacking. It was… thinking. It seemed to realize that its target, which should have been right in front of it, was gone. It was an advanced AI, far more intelligent than the simple Cleansers. It knew something was wrong.
It raised its crystalline spear. It did not point it at me. It pointed it at the floor.
It plunged the spear down. A wave of shimmering blue energy, like a ripple in a pond, spread out across the entire room. It was not an attack. It was a scan. A system pulse designed to find anomalies.
The wave washed over me. It did not hurt, but my HUD screamed with a new warning.
[ANTI-STEALTH PROTOCOL DETECTED. MASKING INTEGRITY FAILING.]
The system was fighting back against my Ghost in the Machine skill. It was actively trying to break my invisibility. On my screen, the timer for my stealth, which should have had plenty of time left, began to tick down faster. The seconds were bleeding away. I had even less time than I thought.
The countdown for the data transfer continued its slow, torturous march.
[25 SECONDS]
The Warden scanned the room again. Another blue pulse. My invisibility flickered. For a fraction of a second, I thought they could see me. The heads of the dozen Cleansers all snapped in my direction. My blood ran cold. But then my stealth held, and their faceless forms went back to scanning the empty room.
They knew I was close. The net was tightening.
[20 SECONDS]
My body was trembling. I tried to control my breathing, but it was impossible. Every instinct was screaming at me to run, to fight, to do something. But I was frozen in place, a statue in the eye of a hurricane. Any movement, any action, would betray my position. All I could do was wait and watch the two timers count down to my fate.
The Warden raised its spear for a third scan. It was getting more powerful, more precise. It was learning.
[18 SECONDS]
The blue wave hit me again. This time, the effect was more severe. My Ghost in the Machine timer sputtered and died. My invisibility was gone.
I was suddenly, terrifyingly visible again.
I was standing right next to the server core, bathed in its red light, completely exposed.
For a fraction of a second, the world was completely silent. Every entity in the room, the twelve Cleansers and the massive Warden, froze. Their targeting systems, which had been sweeping the room, all snapped onto my position at the exact same time. It was a dozen red laser sights, all converging on a single point: my heart.
It was a moment of pure, crystalline horror. The moment before the storm breaks. The moment before the executioner's axe falls. I was going to die.
Then, a sound broke the silence.
Pop.
It was a small, weak sound. A single gunshot from a basic P-19 pistol. It came from the server room's entrance.
I looked over. It was Anya.
She was alive. Barely. She had crawled her way here from the main control room, her corrupted leg a useless, glitching appendage behind her. She was leaning against the doorway, her face pale with pain and exhaustion. She held her pistol with a trembling hand, and she had fired her last bullet.
Her shot was not aimed at me. It was aimed at the Warden.
The tiny bullet bounced harmlessly off the Warden's data-forged armor. It did zero damage. But it did something far more important.
It created a diversion.
The Warden, and all the Cleansers, their perfect focus broken, turned their attention towards the new sound, the new target. They had been so focused on me, the primary threat, that they had not even registered her presence. Her single, desperate shot had bought me one more second of life.
The countdown hit zero.
[0]
A loud hiss echoed through the room as the Data Spike ejected from the server core.
[DATA DECRYPTION COMPLETE. MAP FRAGMENT TRANSMITTED TO ORACLE.]
I had done it.
At the same time, the Oracle's promised escape route opened. A swirling vortex of clean, blue code materialized on the floor next to me. It was my way out.
But the System Warden was enraged. It had been tricked. It had failed its one job: to protect the server core. It turned its full attention back to me, the source of the corruption. It ignored Anya now. She was just a distraction. I was the real prize.
It raised its crystalline spear, the tip glowing with an immense, terrifying power. It was not preparing a simple attack. It was gathering energy for a massive, area-of-effect blast. An attack designed to destroy me, the Data Spike, and the escape portal all in one go.
I had no time. The attack was coming. Anya was on the other side of the room, wounded and helpless. I could not get to her. The portal was right at my feet.
I could only save one person.
Myself.