Rain poured down like liquid glass, turning the neon streets of Veyra into rivers of light. Holographic billboards flickered overhead, advertising everything from neural implants to virtual vacations in worlds that didn't exist. In the shadows of the towering skyscrapers, the hum of drones patrolling the city never stopped.
I ducked into a narrow alley, my coat pulled tight against the rain, feeling the familiar buzz of the cybernetic interface in my wrist. Name's Kael Ardent—hacker, thief, and professional ghost in the machine. In this city, information is power, and I've spent my life stealing it.
Tonight, I wasn't looking for money. I was looking for truth. A whisper from the underground network spoke of Syntech Corp, the mega-corporation controlling the city's neural implants. Rumor had it they weren't just selling tech—they were controlling minds. And I had just gotten my hands on something that could prove it.
The alley ended at a dead wall, except for a flickering door with a red neon strip. I tapped a sequence on my wrist. The door beeped once, then slid open silently. Inside was the usual—a cramped room stacked with screens, cables, and the scent of ozone. My partner, Rina, looked up from the console. Her eyes glowed faint blue—cybernetic enhancements—and her grin was half-amused, half-dangerous.
"Kael," she said, "you really think this data will blow Syntech wide open?"
I didn't answer. I only pressed a few keys. Streams of code cascaded across the holographic display, each line pulling back the curtain on secrets too heavy for the average citizen to imagine. Then, in red letters, the words appeared:
"PROJECT ECHO: HUMAN MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS – ACTIVE."
Rina whistled. "Well… that's worse than we thought."
Before I could respond, a siren blared outside. Syntech drones. And now, we were not just hackers; we were targets.
I grabbed my coat, my wrist interface humming as I initiated a city-wide stealth overlay. "Time to disappear," I muttered. The neon streets waited outside, a maze of light and shadow, and somewhere in the chaos, the truth had to survive.
Because if it didn't… Veyra would lose its soul.