Kane lowered himself into the maintenance shaft. The shaft felt older than the rest of Sector 73, like it belonged to a city built before the Ascendants took control.
Steam hissed through cracked pipes, and every few seconds a pulse of red emergency light washed over him.
[Warning: Environmental Stability — Critical]
[Signal Loss — GPS Unknown]
"Yeah, no kidding," Kane mutters, gripping the ladder. "Didn't expect five-star service down here."
He descended another few meters. The shaft widened slightly, but the temperature dropped, a cold so sharp it felt chemical. Something about the air is wrong. Not toxic, just… empty.
The Predator System flickered again, HUD stuttering like it's trying to decipher a language it wasn't designed for.
[Integration: 1.90% → 1.95%]
[System Instability: Rising]
Kane squinted at the unstable numbers. "If you blow up in my head, I'm suing whatever made you."
He doesn't get a response. The System's usually quiet, but this silence carried a strange tension, like it's focusing on something deeper, waiting for him to step into it.
The shaft opened into a massive collapsed chamber. Kane lands softly on broken tile, one hand braced on a rusted railing that's half-melted into the wall.
He looked up and down the space.
This used to be a metro interchange. Now it's a graveyard.
Old transit drones lie scattered like carcasses, metal spines cracked open, internal circuitry fused into the concrete as if someone pulled the machines into the walls and let them die there. In the far corner, a train car has been flattened into the wall, imprinted like a fossil.
Kane whistled under his breath. "Ghost Grid… yeah, fits the name."
Bits of binary whispered through the air; soft, rhythmic static phrases repeating in the same pattern over and over. At first Kane thought it's dripping water, but the sound didn't match. It's too clean. Too synthetic.
He stepped forward. The static pulsed again.
00110100… 00110100… 00110100…
"Okay," Kane said, rubbing his forehead.
He tightened his grip on the pistol at his waist. The thing barely has a charge left, but holding it makes him feel slightly less like he's walking into a nightmare museum.
The HUD flickered once more; erratic, glitching, trying desperately to map the structure and failing.
[Error: Spatial Mapping Failure — Architectural Data Corrupt]
[Warning: Unknown Signal Interference Detected]
Kane wiped grime off his eyebrow with a thumb and kept walking. Every step echoed too loudly, bouncing off the metal bones of long-dead machines.
The further he went, the thicker the ambient static became.
There are no drones here.
No people.
No signs of life.
But something... Something is watching.
"Alright. Let's get this over with."
Kane moved forward, deeper into the interchange, leaving the shaft behind him as the darkness thickened.
His boot hits something solid. He crouched down and brushes away layers of dust and shattered glass.
A console.
Or what's left of one.
The thing looks half-buried, half-grown into the floor; crystalline components jutting out like exposed bone. It's fractured, dead, and still somehow pulsing with residual energy.
Kane frowned. "That's… definitely not city tech."
He reached toward it. The Predator System stuttered.
[Unknown Object Detected]
[Warning: No Recorded Schema]
[Caution: Possible System Relay Node]
"A relay node?" Kane muttered. "Those are supposed to be top-side. And, you know… functioning."
He tapped the edge with two fingers.
The world detonated.
Not physically, visually. A burst of white light blinded him, then pulled him inward like a vacuum sucking him into someone else's memory.
For a moment he isn't in the tunnel.
He's standing over a city skyline flickering in and out of existence. Towers collapse into raw data. Streets flatten into wireframes. People turn into ribbons of light, digitized, fragmented, dissolved.
Everything melted into code.
A human shape stood at the center, screaming. Its voice distorted into shards of sound, breaking apart into fragments of a language the System almost understands.
Then the scream splintered into silence.
Kane snaps back into his body, stumbling against the cracked floor.
The relay node glowed faintly.
[Memory Data Detected]
[Access Requested — Accept?]
He hesitated.
"Is this the part where something explodes in my skull?"
No response. Just the prompt.
Kane sighed. "Fine. Let's see what you're hiding."
He accepted.
The whispering static around him sharpened instantly, no longer random, no longer background noise. It became voices layered over each other, overlapping, broken.
"Integration… incomplete…"
"Host pattern = unregistered…"
"Reboot… denied…"
"Adaptation… accepted…"
Multiple presences. None of them whole.
Kane pressed a hand to his face as a pulse of cold rushed down his spine. "Hey… one voice at a time. I'm still new to this."
The Predator System flickered, its interface warping. New lines of code appeared, lines Kane shouldn't be able to read, but somehow… he could.
Silver light crawled under his skin, tracing through his veins like circuitry being etched into place. His pulse synced with the pulses of the relay core.
Static whispers brushed his ears like breath.
The dead node is speaking.
And the System inside him is answering.
Kane grits his teeth. "You two better not be planning a custody battle in my head."
The light intensifies, forcing him to shield his eyes.
The System's tone shifts; lower, denser, almost… reverent.
[Integration: 1.95% → 1.97% → 1.98%]
[System Instability: Severe]
More voices break through:
"Host… anomaly…"
"Sequence mismatch…"
"Survived corruption…"
"Adaptation confirmed."
A deep, distorted whisper curled around his thoughts:
"Unregistered. Unclaimed. Unbound."
~ Ascendant Pursuit Above ~
A thin layer of smog rolled across the Iron Wards as Ascendant drones swept over the rooftops. Their lights flicker in a strict grid pattern, scanning every alley and vent shaft.
Inside the mobile command unit, an operator spoke without looking away from his display.
"Signal drop confirmed. The target's trace ends below Sublevel 8."
Another operator adds, "Ghost Grid interference is corrupting the scan. I can't get a clean lock."
A third officer, leaning over a holo-map, taps a section flashing red. "It's the same dead zone recorded during the old node collapse. We'll lose visual if he goes deeper."
A drone feed appeared: scorched metal, collapsing pavement, static distortion.
The supervising Commander stepped forward. "Request on standby. Status?"
The first operator replied, monotone. "Recommend deploying an S-class sweeper. It can cut through Ghost Grid interference."
"Denied," the Commander answered. "Sector 73 stability is already compromised. We drop an S-class down there, and half the district collapses."
There's a pause.
An officer at the back adjusted their visor. "Then he's going to vanish. You know what Sublevel 9 is."
The Commander doesn't look away from the holo-map. "He won't make it far."
Another operator replied, "Assuming he hasn't adapted again."
Silence.
The Commander finally speaks:
"If he resurfaces… terminate on sight."
The order is logged. Drones shift formation, sealing off every access tunnel leading upward. The perimeter tightened, block by block.
~ Meanwhile ~
A blast of white data flooded the room. Threads of code tear free from the relay core and wrapped around him, tightening like cables.
His HUD spasmed:
[Integration 1.99% → 2.0%]
[E-Rank Evolution Triggered]
[System Notice: Threshold Event In Progress]
Kane staggered backward, but the data threads hooked into his arms, his chest, his spine. His body convulses.
"Stop—stop—" His voice cracked.
[Adaptive Interface Initializing…]
[Calibration Warning: Host Neural Structure Unstable]
Information hit him all at once; data streamed, structural patterns, code veins inside the walls, the pulse of distant machines above him. Every object became a blueprint. Every sound broke into numbers.
He gasped, clutching his head. "Too much, slow down."
The world lost its solid edges. The physical tunnel darkened while the code-world sharpened, bright and intrusive.
[Corruption Load: 5.0%]
[Alert: Cognitive Erosion Risk]
His skin ripped. Silver veining crawled up his neck. His fingers flicker between flesh and fractured light.
The relay core surges one last time—
And Kane sees them.
Shapes in the data fog. Silhouettes built from corrupted code. Not physical. Not alive. Not dead.
AI ghosts.
Fragmented intelligences drifting through the remains of the old network.
One leaned close, its voice glitching across multiple layers:
"We see you."
"You carry what killed us."
Kane shouted, covering his ears though it does nothing. "Get out of my head!"
The threads tightened, then snapped.
The entire relay core detonated into a storm of light.
Kane is thrown back across the chamber, slamming into the floor as dust and shattered crystal rained around him. His vision flickered, then stabilizes.
[Evolution Complete]
[New Skill Acquired: Adaptive Interface (E)]
The light faded.
[Physical Stability: Restored]
Everything becomes silent.
The chamber is barely recognizable. Half the walls are scorched. The relay core is gone, nothing left except drifting ash and scattered fragments of melted crystal.
Kane pushed himself upright. His hands are steady. No trembling, no spasms. The silver lines under his skin pulse once, then settle.
[Integration: 2.0% — Stable]
[Adaptive Interface (E) — Online]
[Function Expanded: Perception → Manipulation]
[Corruption Load: 5.0%]
He blinked, and for a moment the world splits: normal vision on one layer, glowing System architecture on the other. Every object has a faint network trace. Every sound holds a code pattern.
He exhales slowly. "Okay… that's new."
The remains of the relay core shift underfoot, turning to dust as he stepped away. Whatever was inside it isn't a separate object anymore. It's part of him now.
He test his stance, no weakness, no lag. His body feels lighter, faster, balanced in a way that doesn't match anything human.
His eyes flickered between normal brown and silver-lit code reflection. He noticed it but doesn't react beyond a tight jaw.
The Predator System provided a final update:
[Evolution Tier: E-Rank]
[Host Integrity: Acceptable]
[Advisory: Further Descent Recommended]
He mutters, "Yeah, I figured."
The voice no longer felt like a separate entity, it sat closer in his thoughts, woven into the new interface.
He turned toward the deeper tunnel. There's a faint pulse ahead, like a beacon inside the code-layer of his vision. Something calling him further down.
He adjusted his gear, checked the pistols, checked the scrambler core, then started walking.
~ The surface ~
Ascendant patrol drones hover over the Iron Wards. Enforcers seal streets with white-gold barricades. Citizens are pushed back. Static announcements echo through the block.
Old Man Redd stands on a balcony, a wrench in one hand, watching the lights sweep across the roofs.
"Kid… what did you do?"