The safe house was a concrete box on the edge of the industrial zone, smelling of stale dust and old insulation. It was quiet, save for the low hum of a portable generator.
Vance sat on a rusted crate, holding the bio-metric chip he had ripped from Envy's corpse. The small silicon wafer pulsed with a faint, rhythmic blue light, like a tiny, beating heart.
Key No. 1.
"Are you going to use it?" Cerberus asked. The boy was cleaning his tactical knife in the corner, but his eyes were fixed on the chip.
"It's not a trophy. It's an upgrade," Vance said.
He reached behind his head, brushing aside his hair to reveal the neural port at the base of his skull. His fingers found the secondary slot—the expansion drive that had been empty since birth.
He slid the chip in.
Click.
[Hardware Detected. Analyzing...][Source: Administrator Envy. Clearance: Level 3.][Unlocking Partition: Visual Cortex Override.]
Vance gasped. A spike of white-hot pain shot through his optic nerves. For a second, his vision dissolved into static. When it cleared, the world looked sharper, overlaid with new, ghostly reticles.
"Vance?" Cerberus stood up, concerned.
Vance looked at the boy. He focused his will on the new partition in his mind.
Access.
His vision lurched.
Suddenly, he wasn't looking at Cerberus. He was looking from Cerberus.
He saw himself sitting on the crate, face pale, eyes wide behind sunglasses. He saw the data stream of Cerberus's tactical visor: [Target: Friendly. Heart Rate: Elevated.]
Vance blinked hard, severing the connection. His perspective snapped back into his own body. A warm trickle of blood ran from his left nostril.
"I'm fine," Vance wiped the blood away, a cold smile touching his lips. "I just borrowed your eyes for a second. Visual Parasite. Useful."
He had the eyes of the voyeur god now.
Vance turned to the desk where Old Ghost's data drive sat connected to a holographic projector.
"Now for the other problem."
He hit the activation key.
The projector whirred. A cone of blue light erupted, coalescing into a storm of fragmented images. There was no single face. It was a kaleidoscope of thousands—men, women, children, screaming, laughing, crying.
A cacophony of voices filled the room, overlapping into a wall of white noise.
"I am Unit 734—Please don't kill me—System failure—Where is my face?"
Vance inhaled. To his synesthetic senses, the hologram didn't smell like a person. It smelled like Shattered Glass and Ozone. Sharp, chaotic, and dangerously unstable.
"Nyar," Vance said calmly.
"Who is Nyar?" The chorus of voices screamed back. "I am everyone! I am no one!"
The hologram flickered violently. The entity was dissolving into the sea of stolen memories. Without Envy's containment cell, Nyar was losing his cohesion.
"Pull the plug," Cerberus warned, stepping forward. "He's losing it."
"No." Vance stood up and walked into the blue light. "He needs an anchor."
"Listen to me!" Vance shouted over the noise.
The voices quieted slightly.
"You are a mirror," Vance said ruthlessly. "You reflect everyone you see. But a mirror cannot reflect itself. That is why you are lost."
The storm of faces slowed.
"A mirror..." a synthesized voice whispered. "Empty."
"Yes. You are empty. And that is your power," Vance continued. "Because you are empty, you can become anything. But you need a frame to hold the glass."
Vance extended his hand into the light.
"I offer you a contract. I am going to burn the Seven Deadly Sins. I am going to tear this city down. I need a witness."
"Be my eyes. Be my mask. Record the fall of the gods. That is your purpose."
The chaotic swirling stopped. The blue light condensed, forming a single, featureless mannequin head.
"A show," Nyar's voice stabilized, echoing with a digital reverb. "I like tragedies."
The mannequin morphed into the face of a mischievous young man with a fox-like grin.
"Contract accepted. I am yours, Vance."
[System Integrated. Nyar Online.]
Vance exhaled, leaning against the table. "Good. Now we rest. Tomorrow, we hunt Gluttony."
ZZZT.
The lights died.
The portable generator sputtered and cut out. The ventilation fan stopped. The faucet in the corner gurgled and went dry.
Total blackout.
"Power cut," Cerberus said, his night-vision eyes glowing in the dark.
"Not just us," Vance walked to the window.
Outside, the industrial district was vanishing. Streetlights flickered and died, block by block, as if a giant hand were snuffing out candles.
A screech of audio feedback tore through the city's emergency broadcast speakers.
"Citizens of District 9."
The voice was wet, heavy, and thick with grease. Vance recognized it immediately. [Gluttony].
"Due to the terrorist actions of the criminal known as Vance, the central infrastructure has been compromised."
"Effective immediately, District 9 is under Martial Rationing. Water pumps are shut down. Power grids are restricted. Food distribution is suspended."
"Hand over the criminal. Until his head is on a plate, the city will not eat. The city will not drink."
The broadcast ended with a heavy click.
Vance stood by the window, bathed in the faint, toxic moonlight. He sniffed the air.
The smell of Bleach from Envy's tower was gone.
Now, the wind carried a new scent. It was heavy, metallic, and cloying.
It was the smell of Hunger.
"He turned off the tap," Vance whispered. "He wants to starve the rats to flush us out."
"We can't fight the whole city," Cerberus said, gripping his knife.
"We don't have to." Vance turned back to the darkness of the room, his eyes cold. "He thinks hunger is a weapon. I'll show him it's a noose."