The pre-dawn chill cut through Lucas's jacket as he and the Outlaws gathered at the hidden entrance—a battered maintenance grate beneath the overgrown compound wall. In the pale glow of emergency beacons, they checked gear one last time: EMP grenades hummed softly, stealth cloaks folded into compact pouches, and Sera's eyes flickered with data overlays.
Mira leaned in, voice low but urgent. "Once we're inside, digital surveillance will be on high alert. I'll breach the side panels, but Lucas, you need to lead the data dive. No mistakes."
Lucas nodded, heart pounding. "We all play our part. Let's move."
Ren crouched by the grate, inserting a code key. With a mechanical clank, it swung open to reveal a narrow maintenance shaft. One by one, the team slipped inside, careful not to trigger motion sensors. Lucas lagged, giving Sera a steadying glance.
"Focus on the data," he whispered.
She inhaled sharply, pain etched on her face. "If I fracture again... find me in the matrix."
He squeezed her arm. "Always."
They crawled in darkness, the distant hum of the Nexus core growing louder. When they reached the junction chamber, Ren knelt by a locked panel. Thorne took point, disabling the turret's override with a swift twist of his blade's hilt—a relic coded to mimic the master override key.
Mira slipped inside the panel and fingers flew across the circuit boards in a flash of code and sparks. "Firewall's thicker than we thought... Bypassing in three, two..." The lights on the panel blinked green. "We're in."
Lucas stepped forward, activating his HUD. A torrent of encrypted streams flooded his vision: player telemetry, neural feeds, security logs. He exhaled. "Redirecting the mainframe buffer to our ghost node... Now."
Instantly, the streaming data froze—a digital heartbeat paused.
In the sudden silence, the faint crackle of gunfire echoed. The grate above splintered as Nexus security burst in. Thorne roared, blocking the corridor with his shield, red sparks dancing off its surface.
"Hold them!" he shouted, swinging into action.
Lucas's vision blurred with adrenaline. He tapped twice, spilling a decoy data loop to buy them time. "Mira, upload the virus!"
Mira's fingers flew. Lines of malicious code spilled into the core's systems, moth-like patterns flickering across the central console. Sera murmured an incantation under her breath, reinforcing the virus with her glitchseer power.
A thunderous alarm shattered the calm. The core pulsed violently, then shuddered as systems began to collapse. Lights flickered and consoles sparked.
"Time to go!" Lucas barked, scooping the pulsing virus module.
They raced back through the shaft as alarms blared, Nexus operatives in hot pursuit. Once outside, Ren triggered an EMP grenade, throwing a shimmering pulse that crippled security drones in a wave of resonating silence.
They emerged into the breaking dawn, hearts pounding, lungs burning. Lucas held the virus module aloft, its dim glow like a beacon of hope.
He met their eyes. "We did it—but this is just the beginning."