The Street That Remembers
The rain had softened to a mist, fine as dust. It slicked the pavement in silver, coating Jace's boots as he stepped out from the shadow of an alley.
The street was nearly empty. The moon hung low over New Syndralis, its light breaking through smoke and cloud like a distant searchlight. In that pale beam, Jace could see his breath—sharp white clouds vanishing as quickly as they formed.
Each step came uneven at first, muscles tight, lungs burning from the run. He hadn't stopped since the vault. Even now, with the alarms behind him and no one in sight, he kept glancing over his shoulder. His pulse refused to slow.
The echo of sirens in the distance sounded less like pursuit and more like memory—his body remembering fear before his mind could let it go.
"Keep walking," he whispered to himself. "Don't look back."
He took the narrow backstreets, winding through alleys that reeked of oil and rain-soaked trash. The neon glare of the central district was far behind him now. Out here, the city was quieter, colder, older. Pipes lined the walls like veins; steam hissed through vents beneath flickering streetlights.
Every shadow looked like a watcher. Every corner seemed to hold movement.
He had stolen from the most powerful corporation in Syndralis. The city wasn't his anymore. It belonged to them.
---
The Weight of Flesh and Metal
By the time he reached the outskirts, his body began to betray him. The adrenaline that had carried him this far burned out, leaving exhaustion in its place. His legs felt heavy, his hands unsteady.
He ducked beneath a corrugated awning and leaned against a wall, catching his breath. Pain flickered up his arm where the crystal device had shocked him—an old ache, pulsing under his skin like a heartbeat that didn't belong to him.
He lifted his sleeve. For a moment, under the dull light, he saw faint blue threads tracing the veins in his forearm—like veins made of light. They pulsed once. Then vanished.
He clenched his fist until the illusion—or whatever it was—disappeared completely. "You're seeing things," he muttered. "Just nerves. Just aftershock."
But deep down, he knew better. Something had changed. His body didn't feel like his. Movements came sharper, faster. He could feel every twitch, every shift in balance. The thief in him recognized precision when he felt it—and this was too precise.
The thought terrified him.
He pressed onward, shoulders hunched against the wind, until the city's decay swallowed him completely—the forgotten zone near the river, where buildings leaned and the sky never looked clean.
There, between two abandoned warehouses, a single steel door waited behind a wall of rust and graffiti. Jace keyed a hidden pad, waited for the faint green flicker, and slipped inside.
---
The Sanctuary
Warm air hit him first—oil, dust, static. Then the hum of machines.
The warehouse wasn't much to look at from the outside, but inside it was his world. Workbenches cluttered with half-built drones, disassembled security locks, old surveillance boards. Blueprints papered one wall, curling at the edges. Tools hung from pegs like relics of an earlier life.
He sealed the door behind him and exhaled. "Home," he said softly.
The word echoed once and vanished into the low buzz of the machinery.
He stripped off his gloves, dropped his damp jacket onto a chair, and sat at the nearest bench. His reflection looked back from a darkened monitor—tired eyes, face streaked with grime, hair plastered to his forehead.
"Did it change me?" he said quietly. "Or am I just losing it?"
The terminal flickered to life under his hand, lines of code filling the screen. Old projects—scramblers, jammers, lock bypass algorithms—blinked back at him, comfortingly logical. But the numbers refused to stay still. They seemed to move when he wasn't looking, letters crawling like static.
He rubbed his temples. The pain behind his eyes throbbed harder now, each pulse syncing with the faint electrical hum in his skull.
Then it came again—the voice.
[Neural Link: Active.]
[User Synchronization… 68% → 74%. Stabilizing.]
He froze. The voice wasn't external. It vibrated through the nerves behind his ears, a sound only his mind could hear.
He looked around the room instinctively, as though he could find its source. "No," he whispered. "Not now."
[Steal Count: 3.]
[Next unlock: 10.]
[System Load: Moderate.]
The tone was even, almost mechanical. It wasn't asking him anything. It was simply reporting—like a system log that had learned to speak.
Jace's throat went dry. "You're not real," he said under his breath.
[Correction: User-Real/Interface-Real… true.]
A flicker of blue light passed across his vision—transparent, like data reflected on the surface of his eye. For a heartbeat, he saw fragments:
A vault. A scientist's ID tag. His own hands reaching for light.
Then, darkness.
He stumbled back from the desk, breathing hard. The workshop around him seemed to warp slightly—the hum of the lights deepening into a pulse.
---
The Mirror and the Machine
He reached the sink in the corner, gripping its edge until his knuckles went white. The cracked mirror above it reflected a stranger.
His pupils dilated, catching the faintest glimmer of blue from somewhere deep inside. His skin was pale, damp with sweat. His chest rose and fell too fast. He looked like someone running from something invisible—and maybe he was.
The voice came again, quieter now.
[Warning: Neural instability detected.]
[Recommendation: System calibration.]
He barked a laugh that didn't sound like humor. "Calibration? I'm not one of your machines."
[Statement logged.]
The words hung there, meaningless yet undeniable. He splashed cold water on his face, the shock grounding him for a moment. Droplets rolled down his neck, tracing paths over scarred skin.
He stared at his reflection again, and for just a second, the mirror glitched—his own image flickering into static, replaced by a silhouette of light and data before snapping back.
He stepped away fast, heart racing. The air itself felt charged now, faint vibrations crawling across his fingertips.
Whatever this System was, it wasn't dormant anymore.
He needed answers. But more than that, he needed control.
---
Between Flesh and Code
Back at the bench, the terminal chimed again—soft, almost polite.
[User condition: Stable.]
[System Sync: 83%.]
[Status: Thief—Rank: Novice–Epsilon.]
He blinked. That last line hadn't appeared before. It was a title—clinical, factual, but personal in a way that made his stomach turn.
"Thief," he whispered. "You even know what I am."
[Identity parameters loaded.]
He laughed once, bitterly. "You think you can name me?"
Silence. Then, faint static in the back of his skull, like a breath before speech.
[Not naming. Recognizing.]
He didn't have an answer for that.
The exhaustion hit suddenly, like a breaker flipping. The rush of adrenaline, the hours of running, the mental strain—all at once, his body demanded rest. He dropped into his chair, elbows on his knees, eyes unfocused.
Through the cracked window, the first light of dawn smeared across the city—a dull gradient of gray-blue through polluted clouds. Syndralis looked almost peaceful from this angle. Deceptive.
He stared at the light until the voice came again, softer, almost a whisper.
[User Synchronization: Stable.]
[Sleep cycle recommended.]
He leaned back, eyes half-closed, the tension slowly unwinding from his muscles. His mind drifted—not quite dreaming, not quite conscious. Somewhere between flesh and code.
For a brief moment, he thought he heard something beneath the System's hum. A memory, faint and human. His mother's voice. A scream. The same blue light from years ago.
Then the sound faded, replaced by the steady pulse of the machine inside him.
He whispered to the darkness, "You changed me."
The System didn't answer. It didn't need to.
The silence itself was confirmation.
Outside, New Syndralis began to wake, unaware that somewhere in its forgotten edges, a thief had become something else entirely.