"Run," Dex said.
Kael didn't hesitate.
They were already mid-plaza when the TRACE hit. A silent ping at first, then a pulse—like a sonic boom inside their skulls. HUDs shattered. System overlays bled static. Every civilian player nearby froze mid-step, suspended in soft stuttered loops.
A soft voice echoed above them, system-slick and cold:
> "TRACE PROTOCOL: FULL ENGAGEMENT. SUBJECT: KAEL_ARDEN. STATUS: BREACHED."
The sky dimmed.
And the Agents dropped.
Black-clad figures, falling from the holo-rigs overhead like shadows peeled from geometry. Three. Then six. Then more. Their armor was angular, reflective. Faces hidden. Markless.
"RELIC," Dex growled. "And not the soft team."
Kael could already feel the shard pulsing in his chest. Warm, insistent. Not fear. Activation.
"They're not here to detain," Kael said. "They're here to wipe."
---
They cut through the first alley, sprinting, ducking under a collapsing billboard.
Dex dragged a signal jammer from his sidebag and thumbed it active. "This won't hold them for long—RELIC protocols punch through static within sixty seconds."
"Then we get off the grid."
"No grid left," Dex snapped. "We're the grid now."
Behind them, players began to reboot. The world clicked back into motion—but slower. A filtered version. Less color. More rules.
RELIC had shadow-locked the city.
---
They ducked into an underpass.
Dex keyed into a ghost-door beneath a broken vendor stall. The old net-corridor opened—dusty, dark, abandoned. Not part of the current game build.
"You trust this route?" Kael asked.
Dex smirked. "I mapped it back in Beta. When they still let devs hide things they weren't supposed to."
Inside, the tunnel pulsed with old code. Forgotten audio files twitched in the air like ghosts—echoes of past events: a girl laughing, a system notification from a version long erased, a cry of victory from someone long gone.
Kael touched the wall.
It responded.
A faint golden bloom from his fingers.
Dex stopped cold. "That's new."
Kael didn't answer. The seed was syncing. Adapting. It wasn't just letting him remember—it was rewriting the rules around him.
"I think the Oracle didn't just choose me," Kael said. "It changed me."
---
They didn't make it far.
Three agents blocked the corridor ahead—silent, still.
Dex pulled a charge loop. "We go loud?"
"No," Kael said, stepping forward.
"What?"
Kael raised his hand.
The agents moved in perfect sync.
Then stopped.
The sigil flared across Kael's palm. The one from the server door—the broken chain surrounded by eyes.
The agents froze.
Static rippled across their armor.
Then, without warning, one of them turned and shot the others in the head.
Dex reeled back. "What the—"
The remaining agent turned back to Kael.
Removed their helmet.
It was a girl.
Young. Pale-eyed. Something glitched in her smile.
"You're waking them up," she said.
Kael stared. "Who are you?"
"I'm not anyone," she replied. "Not anymore. Just another system leftover like you."
She stepped back, vanishing into a side door that shouldn't have existed.
"Wait—"
But she was gone.
Only her voice lingered.
> "They don't control us anymore, Kael. We remember."
---
Back on the surface, the city was no longer a city.
It had become a hunting ground.
Players continued their loops, unaware. But above and between—RELIC drones moved in quiet flocks. Watching. Measuring. Tracking divergence.
"They're not trying to kill us anymore," Dex said, catching his breath as they regrouped inside an old upgrade lounge. "They're cataloging."
Kael nodded. "They think I'm a mutation."
Dex looked at him.
"No, Kael. You're proof."
Kael didn't reply. He looked out the cracked screen toward the horizon.
The Tower was visible now.
Not far.
Not abstract.
Real.
Rooted in the skyline like it had always been there, hidden behind code.
And it was pulling him.
---
That night, the shard activated again.
Not in a dream.
In reality.
Kael stood at the edge of his stackspace, shaking, as data spiraled from his body—gold and violet threads spinning upward, forming a symbol in midair. The sigil. But it wasn't just a mark anymore.
It was a beacon.
Dex watched, half-horrified, half in awe.
"This is how they find you," he whispered.
"No," Kael said.
"This is how I find them."
He turned to Dex.
"RELIC's not the enemy. Not fully. They're guardrails. And someone built them to keep people like me from remembering."
Dex leaned forward. "So what now?"
Kael touched the beacon.
And the world split again.
Just slightly.
A door appeared.
No frame. No hinges. Just an outline of light—hovering midair.
> "COREWORLD_PATHWAY://UNLOCKED"
Kael looked back at Dex.
"You coming?"
Dex nodded once.
And they stepped through.