What rose over Nova-Veridia was the sun, but to Kaelen, it felt more like the gleam of an unexploded bomb.
Thirty days. Thirty days in this city were worth thirty years in a normal world. With the collapse of the Syndicate, the leaden, static-charged clouds that choked the sky had broken apart, replaced by an unsettlingly clear blue. The familiar hiss of acid rain on the asphalt was gone. Instead, a sound he had never heard before echoed over the pile of rubble in Chronos Square: Silence.
Kaelen stood before the makeshift monument, fashioned from the remnants of the fallen tower. There was no granite or marble; just a mound of twisted steel girders, concrete blocks, and melted motherboards. At the very center of the mound, haphazardly spray-painted, was a colossal grinning face: two dots and an arc. Below it, a single imperative: *"Remember."*
People approached the monument, leaving synthetic flowers in their hands with a mixture of fear and reverence, then quickly retreating. Their shoulders weren't slumped as before, but a lingering suspicion remained in their eyes. They seemed to be waiting for the sky to static-flicker again at any moment.
"A beautiful day, Detective," a thick, resonant voice said. It was as if the earth's crust was speaking.
Kaelen turned without flinching. Titan wasn't in his familiar armor. He wore a massive worker's jumpsuit, stretched taut over his body. The inhabitants of Shelter 0 had emerged to the surface, carrying bricks for the city's reconstruction. The animalistic tension on Titan's face was gone, replaced by a weary peace.
"Yes, Titan," Kaelen said, pulling a cigarette from his crumpled pack and lighting it. He inhaled the smoke, filling his lungs with that familiar poison. "The sun is blinding me. It being so bright... it doesn't feel natural. It's like someone cranked the contrast all the way up."
Titan shoved his massive hands into his pockets. He fixed his gaze on the smiling face on the monument. "How is he?"
Kaelen exhaled deeply, blowing the smoke towards the sun. "I don't know. Nena is hiding him somewhere. 'I need to restart the system, the hardware got too hot,' she said. She doesn't want anyone to know his location. Not even me. Maybe she's right; heroes don't live long in this city."
***
The Police Station —its sign now read "Public Security Unit"— still smelled of dampness and stale coffee. Some things never changed. Kaelen's desk, as always, was cluttered with unsolved files and half-eaten sandwiches. But today, a single folder resting in the very center of the desk overshadowed all the other chaos.
Stamped in red on the folder were the words **"PROJECT: ZERO"**.
The coordinates Jester had whispered in that hell, just before losing consciousness. Kaelen lifted the cover. Black and white, grainy satellite photos spread across the desk. Beyond the borders of Nova-Veridia, in the Wastelands marked "Restricted Zone" on maps, a colossal crater was visible. At the center of the crater, half-buried in the earth, a metallic structure with organic lines could be discerned.
"The Emissary was right," Kaelen murmured to himself. He traced his finger over the photo. "This... This was just an antenna. The true source of the broadcast, the main server, is there."
The door creaked open. The whirring of the wheelchair's electric motor filled the room. Echo glided in, a thermal blanket on her lap. Her pale face seemed translucent in the sunlight streaming through the window.
*Is it time to go?* Echo's voice echoed not in Kaelen's ears, but directly in the center of his mind. The voice was no longer staticky as before; it was clear.
Kaelen snapped the file shut. He took his jacket from the back of the chair. "This city can take care of itself now, Echo. The Syndicate is gone, but its roots run deeper than we thought. We have a job to finish."
*Without Jester?* Echo's mental voice trembled on a mournful frequency.
Kaelen paused. He reached into a drawer and pulled out the police badge he had carried on his chest for years, its metal plating worn. He looked at the badge one last time, rubbed the word "Detective" off it with his thumb, and tossed it into the darkness of the drawer.
"Jester showed us the way," Kaelen said, his voice resolute. "Now it's our turn to walk that path. Until he recovers, we must keep the world in one piece. Otherwise, the punchline to the joke he'll tell us when he wakes up won't be very funny."
***
Miles beneath the city, even deeper than the old metro lines, lay Nena Volt's sanctuary in a forgotten mine tunnel. It was a technological cavern, where cables snaked like vines across the walls, and screens were the sole source of light.
Jester lay on a bed in the center of the room. He was no longer in that tank filled with green liquid. The acid burns on his body had given way to pinkish new skin tissue. In place of his severed leg was a matte black prosthesis, crafted by Nena from scrap parts and hydraulic pistons, looking far more elegant and deadly than his old one.
Nena frowned at the data on the screen of the tablet in her hand. **"Neural Activity: 15%... 40%... 85%..."**
The numbers climbed at an absurd speed.
"Come on, kid," Nena said, blowing and popping her gum. "Wake up already. You're getting boring. Charging you is doubling the city's electricity bill."
A slight tremor passed through the body on the bed. Then, it suddenly stopped.
Jester's eyes opened.
There was no human awakening in those eyes. They were like a computer's boot screen. His irises didn't hold a steady color; they flickered between honey, blood red, and neon purple. His pupils weren't round, but flickered like square pixel errors.
He sat up with a sudden movement. A mechanical crunching sound came from his spine. He looked around, his gaze scanning the objects in the room as if he saw virtual labels on each one.
"Where am I?" he asked. His voice was fractured and multilayered, like a skipping record.
"You're safe," Nena said, putting the tablet aside and approaching him. "Calm down. The war is over, Jester. We won. The Syndicate has fallen."
Jester looked at his hands. He flexed his fingers. Then he touched his metal leg. He felt the cold metal, but there was no relief on his face. He clutched his head in his hands, as if trying to silence the noise within his brain.
"No," he whispered. Then he let out a laugh, but it wasn't a joyful sound; it was a dry, mechanical observation. "The war isn't over, Nena. Only the 'Server' has changed. Haven't you read the patch notes?"
He got out of bed. A dull *CLICK* echoed as his metal leg hit the concrete floor. He walked to the mirror, not limping, but with a strange fluidity, defying gravity.
He looked at his face. His makeup was gone. That white mask, that red smile... The face of the man beneath was tired, pale, and terrifyingly ordinary.
He picked up the red lipstick from Nena's desk. He bit off the cap and spat it onto the floor. He began to write on the mirror, over his own reflection, with harsh strokes:
**1. ERROR**
**2. REVENGE**
**3. CHAOS**
He lowered the lipstick. He looked into the eyes of the man in the reflection. Then he slowly brought his hand to his mouth. He drew that famous, ear-to-ear smile. But this time, the smile was wider, sharper, more savage. It wasn't a clown's grin, but a predator baring its teeth.
"Where's Kaelen?" he asked, speaking to his reflection in the mirror.
"He left," Nena said, watching him from behind with her arms crossed. "To Sector Zero. He couldn't wait for you. He saw the file."
Jester smiled. The lipstick smudged slightly at the corners of his lips. "Typical Detective. Always misses the end of the movie. You don't leave the theater while the credits are rolling, do you?"
***
The Wastelands outside the city, unlike Nova-Veridia, were not gray but rust-colored. The horizon shimmered with heat haze. The armored all-terrain vehicle, carrying Kaelen, Titan, and Echo, sped forward, kicking up clouds of dust.
When that colossal metallic structure appeared on the horizon, all three fell silent. Sector Zero. It rose into the sky like a giant spear plunged into the earth's heart. The structure's surface was smooth, not reflecting sunlight, but seemingly absorbing it.
Kaelen raised his binoculars to his eyes. He searched for a symbol on the colossal gate at the structure's entrance. He expected to see the Syndicate's sharp, angular logo.
But what he saw was different.
"What is that?" Titan asked, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
"This isn't the Syndicate," Kaelen said, his voice icy. He lowered the binoculars. On the gate was an emblem of three intertwined rings, resembling an endless loop. "This is... **'The Consortium'**. I used to think it was just a legend. The hand pulling the Syndicate's strings."
Just then, the vehicle's radio crackled to life with an ear-splitting static. Frequencies clashed, and white noise surged through the cabin.
*...static sounds... a muffled melody... and then that laugh...*
**"Hey, Detective! Can you hear me? One-two, one-two... Microphone test."**
Kaelen flinched. His eyes welled up, but an involuntary smile appeared on his lips. "Jester?"
The voice from the radio clarified through the static interference, practically seeping into the vehicle.
**"You started the party without me! How rude. And I was going to bring the cake."**
Titan let out a booming laugh. A peaceful smile formed on Echo's face.
**"Buckle up, kids,"** Jester's voice said. This time, there was less playfulness and more pure menace in his tone. **"Because the second act is going to be much louder than the first. And spoiler alert: There's no happy ending this time."**
The radio went silent. Only the roar of the engine remained.
Kaelen downshifted and floored the accelerator. The vehicle sped towards the setting sun and that colossal, unknown metallic structure, the factory that produced humanity's nightmares.
Nova-Veridia was behind them. Ahead lay only the unknown.
**THE NAMELESS JESTER**
**BOOK 1: MEMORY LEAK - END**
**(TO BE CONTINUED: Volume 2 - SYSTEM ERROR)**