Caleb's apartment looked less like a home and more like a storage unit for a paranoid insomniac.
Blackout curtains were duct-taped over the windows to block the morning sun—and the relentless stream of data from the smart-billboard across the street. There were no mirrors; Caleb had smashed the bathroom vanity two months ago because his reflection kept showing a health bar that said [SANITY: DRAINING].
He sat on the edge of his mattress, staring at the empty air.
The Admin's message was gone, but the notification icon remained in the top right corner of his vision. A small, pulsing red envelope.
I will delete your character.
"It's a threat," Caleb whispered to himself, splashing cold water on his face from a plastic bowl he kept by the bed. "Just a high-tech threat. He can't delete a human being."
But he remembered the squatters shattering like glass. He remembered Arthur Sterling buffering in mid-air.
He can.
A sharp knock at the door made him jump.
[ENTITY: DETECTIVE CORWIN]
[PROXIMITY: 0 METERS]
[DOOR STATUS: LOCKED (BUT SHE HAS A KICKING LEG)]
Caleb pulled on a fresh shirt—one that wasn't stained with crane grease—and grabbed his sunglasses. He unlocked the door.
Maya stood in the hallway. She had scrubbed the mud off her face, but the bruises were blooming purple under her eyes. She held two coffees.
"You look terrible," she said, handing him one.
"It's the lighting," Caleb lied, taking the cup. "And the existential dread. Are we going?"
The Tech District of St. Lazarus was the opposite of Sector 4. It was clean, silent, and blindingly white. The buildings here didn't have brick facades; they were seamless sheets of smart-glass that displayed stock market tickers and weather updates.
Maya drove a nondescript sedan—the paramedic backup vehicle—into the underground parking garage of the "Vertex Tower."
"Aether Dynamics rented the entire 14th floor three years ago," Maya said, pulling up the case file on the dashboard. "They were developing 'Neural-Link Gaming' tech. Bankrupted in 2024 after a 'containment breach' during a beta test. The official report was redacted by the NSA."
"Of course it was," Caleb muttered.
He stepped out of the car. The garage was full of electric vehicles charging silently. To his Overlay, the air was filled with green connection lines linking the cars to the central grid.
[ZONE: TECH DISTRICT]
[FRAME RATE: HIGH]
[HIDDEN ITEMS: DETECTED]
They took the elevator up. Caleb leaned against the wall, fighting the urge to vomit. The elevator music was looping, and his HUD was identifying the track as [AUDIO_FILE_04.MP3]—corrupted and skipping.
"When we get in there," Maya said, checking her weapon, "keep your hands visible. Squatters might have moved in."
"Squatters don't move into the Tech District, Maya. The rent for the cardboard boxes is too high."
The elevator dinged. The doors slid open.
The 14th floor was pitch black.
Maya raised her flashlight. The beam cut through the dusty air, revealing a sprawling open-plan office. It was frozen in time. Desks were still cluttered with coffee mugs, stress balls, and dual-monitor setups. But everything was covered in a thick layer of grey dust.
"Power is cut," Maya whispered.
Caleb lowered his sunglasses.
To him, the room wasn't dark. It was glowing.
[LOCATION: AETHER DYNAMICS DEV_ROOM]
[TEXTURE QUALITY: LOW]
[OBJECTS: GHOSTED]
The walls were shimmering with wireframe grids. The desks weren't just dusty; they were tagged with developer notes that only Caleb could see.
[FIX LIGHTING HERE] floated over a lamp.
[COLLISION ERROR] floated over a toppled chair.
"This isn't just an office," Caleb murmured, stepping into the room. "It's a level editor."
"What?" Maya asked, sweeping her light across the cubicles.
"Nothing. Just... feels unfinished."
Caleb walked deeper into the maze of desks. He felt a strange sense of vertigo. The Overlay liked this place. The lag was gone. His vision was crisp, sharper than it had been in years. It was as if his brain recognized the Wi-Fi.
"Caleb," Maya called out. "Look at this."
She was standing in front of a glass-walled office at the back. The door etched with CEO - DR. E. KASPARov.
Inside, the office had been stripped. No computer. No files. Just a heavy mahogany desk and a whiteboard covered in faded marker.
Maya shined her light on the whiteboard. "It's gibberish."
Caleb looked at the board. To the naked eye, it was a mess of equations and diagrams.
But Caleb's Overlay locked onto the red marker strokes.
[CIPHER DETECTED]
[DECODING...]
The letters on the board rearranged themselves in his vision. The math equations dissolved, replaced by plain text.
"It's not gibberish," Caleb said, his voice trembling. "It's a patch log."
"A what?"
Caleb read the floating text that hovered over the whiteboard.
"Version 0.9: Neural mapping successful. Subjects experience mild hallucinations."
"Version 1.0: Reality Anchors tested. Failed. Subjects entered comatose state."
"Version 1.1: The Overlay is stable. We can now edit the user's perception of physics."
He stopped at the last entry, written in bold red.
"Version 1.2: The Admin Key is live. We don't need subjects anymore. We can edit the world directly."
"Caleb?" Maya touched his shoulder. "You're reading things that aren't there."
"I'm decrypting it," Caleb snapped, pointing at the board. "Dr. Kasparov. He didn't go bankrupt. He succeeded. He built a system that overlays reality and lets you change the code. That's what the gas is. It's... programmable matter."
Maya looked at the board, then at him. "Programmable matter? That's sci-fi, Caleb."
"Is it?" Caleb gestured to the empty room. "We saw a man freeze in mid-air. We saw smoke turn into glass. This company built the tool, and someone—The Admin—is using it."
"Okay," Maya said, her detective mode kicking in. "If Kasparov built it, where is he? The file says he died in the accident."
"Check the desk," Caleb said. He saw something glowing inside the top drawer. [ITEM: HIDDEN].
Maya pulled the drawer open. It was empty, except for a single, heavy silver keycard. It didn't look like plastic; it looked like brushed titanium.
"No logo," Maya said, picking it up. "What does this open?"
Caleb stared at the card. A label popped up.
[ACCESS KEY: SERVER FARM B]
[LOCATION: SUB-LEVEL 3]
"Sub-level 3," Caleb said. "This building only has two basements."
"Official blueprints say two," Maya corrected. "But tech companies always dig deeper."
Suddenly, the room flashed red.
Not the emergency lights. The room itself. The wireframe grids on the walls turned from blue to blood-red.
[ALERT: INTRUDER DETECTED]
[DEFENSE PROTOCOL: INITIATED]
A mechanical whirring sound came from the ceiling.
Maya swung her flashlight up. "Did you hear that?"
"Run," Caleb whispered.
"What?"
"RUN!"
He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the exit.
From the ceiling panels, small, spherical drones dropped like spiders. They didn't have propellers. They floated on silent magnetic fields. And in the center of each drone, a red eye began to charge.
[ENEMY: SENTRY DRONE Mk.I]
[WEAPON: TASER BOLT]
[QUANTITY: 12]
"Drones!" Maya yelled, drawing her weapon. She fired two shots. Bang! Bang!
One drone exploded in a shower of sparks. The others scattered, moving with impossible, jerky speed—lagging through the air.
ZAP.
A bolt of blue electricity hit the carpet inches from Caleb's foot, singing the fabric.
"They're guarding the exit!" Caleb shouted. "We can't use the elevator!"
"Stairs!" Maya pointed to the emergency door.
They sprinted through the maze of cubicles. The air filled with the hum of charging capacitors.
Caleb didn't look back. He used the Overlay.
[INCOMING ATTACK: REAR LEFT]
"Duck!" Caleb yelled.
Maya dropped. A taser bolt sailed over her head, shattering a glass partition.
They burst through the stairwell door. Maya slammed it shut, jamming the handle with her baton just as a heavy thud hit the other side.
"They're trying to cut through!" Maya gasped, backing away.
"We can't go up," Caleb said, looking at the stairwell signs. "Lobby is locked down. The system knows we're here."
He looked down the spiral of concrete stairs, descending into the dark.
"The keycard," Caleb said. "It opens Sub-level 3. That's where the server is. That's where the Admin is controlling them from."
Maya looked at the baton bending under the strain of the door.
"We're going to the basement," she decided. "Into the monster's den."
"It's not a den," Caleb said, starting down the stairs, the silver keycard burning a hole in his pocket. "It's the source code."
[QUEST UPDATED: DESCEND TO THE UNDERWORLD]
[DEPTH: -3 FLOORS]