Dawn in the Stack was not marked by the rising of a sun. The Dyson Swarm's outer shell blocked any direct view of the dying star that powered their existence. Instead, morning was signaled by the shift in the atmospheric recyclers—a heavy, mechanical thud-hiss that echoed through the sector as the night's toxic accumulation was vented and replaced with slightly less toxic, filtered smog.
Kai stepped out of Container 1408, locking the door behind him. He pulled his collar up against the gray drizzle that fell from the condensation pipes far above. It was acid rain, mild enough not to burn skin immediately, but corrosive enough to eat through cheap metal over a few months.
He took a deep breath. The air tasted different today.
Before, it had just tasted like pollution—sulfur, ozone, unwashed humanity. Now, his upgraded senses deconstructed the scent profile like a spectrograph.
[ ATMOSPHERIC ANALYSIS ][ > NITROGEN: 76% ][ > OXYGEN: 19% ][ > PARTICULATE MATTER (INDUSTRIAL): 3% ][ > UNIDENTIFIED CHEMICAL AGENT: 0.04% ]
< TRACE AMOUNTS OF STIM-GAS. > Cipher's voice was a low hum in his auditory cortex. < THE CORPORATIONS PUMP IT INTO THE VENTILATION TO KEEP THE WORKFORCE PRODUCTIVE. OBEDIENT LITTLE DRONES. >
Kai ignored the commentary, though a flicker of anger warmed his chest. He scanned the walkway.
The morning rush was beginning. The metal gangways connecting the container stacks were crowded with laborers heading to the factories in the Lower Ring. They moved in a sluggish, uniform stream, their gray jumpsuits blending into the dull metal of the environment.
To Kai, they were no longer just tired neighbors. They were wireframes of exhaustion.
[ NPC: FACTORY DRONE ][ HEALTH: 65% ][ ENERGY: LOW ][ STATUS: DEPRESSED ]
He walked among them, but he didn't feel like one of them anymore. His steps were lighter, his balance perfect. The constant, grinding ache in his joints—a symptom of growing up in a high-gravity sector without gene-mods—was gone.
He felt... optimized.
But the hunger was a ravenous beast. His stomach cramped violently, a reminder that the Entropy Sutra extracted a heavy toll for its power.
He headed for the lift cluster, aiming for Level 12, the "commercial" district of Block 7. It was really just a wider platform where vendors set up illegal food carts, hooking their cookers into the sector's power lines.
The smell hit him before he saw the carts—synthetic fat frying in recycled oil. To anyone from the Upper Ring, it would be nauseating. To Kai, right now, it smelled like salvation.
He approached a stall run by a large, four-armed synthetic named Unit-88. The droid had been hacked so many times its original programming was lost; now it just grumbled and served noodles.
"Bowl. Large. Double pork," Kai ordered, leaning against the counter.
Unit-88's optical sensor swiveled to him. "Credits first, Null. No tabs."
Kai tapped his cred-stick against the reader. It beeped a confirmation.
[ TRANSACTION COMPLETE: -8 CREDITS ][ BALANCE: 172 CREDITS ]
The droid ladled a heap of steaming, gray-ish noodles into a paper bowl and topped it with two squares of pink, gelatinous protein.
Kai grabbed chopsticks and shoveled the food into his mouth. He didn't taste it. He just swallowed.
< DISGUSTING. > Cipher critiqued. < ZERO QI CONTENT. HIGH SODIUM. BARELY ENOUGH CALORIC VALUE TO RUN YOUR BACKGROUND PROCESSES. YOU NEED MEAT. REAL MEAT. FROM A BEAST. >
"I can't afford real meat," Kai thought back, swallowing a lump of synthetic pork. "This keeps me moving."
As he ate, he listened. His hearing, sharpened by the breakthrough to Hardware Forge Stage, picked up conversations over the hiss of the rain and the sizzle of woks.
"...heard it blew out the whole grid on Level 14 last night."
"...my heater fried. Cost me a week's wages to replace the coil."
"...Firewall drones were scanning the area an hour ago. They think someone was running an illegal fabricator."
Kai paused, a noodle hanging from his lip. The Firewall had already scanned Level 14? That was fast. Too fast.
[ THREAT ASSESSMENT: MODERATE ][ FIREWALL ALERT LEVEL: ELEVATED ]
He finished the bowl in three more bites and tossed the container into a recycler bin. He needed to get off the main thoroughfares. If the drones were sweeping, they might be running facial recognition scans. As a Null, Kai wasn't in the system, which usually made him invisible—but if they were looking for an anomaly, "Subject Zero" would light up like a flare.
He pulled his collar tighter and ducked into a narrow maintenance alley.
"Where to?" Kai asked the empty air.
< WE NEED RESOURCES. > Cipher said. < YOUR WEAPON IS GARBAGE. YOUR DEFENSES ARE NON-EXISTENT. AND WE NEED TO TEST YOUR NEW HARDWARE. FIND A DUNGEON. >
"There are no dungeons here," Kai muttered. "Just slums."
< INCORRECT. EVERY SYSTEM HAS CACHE FILES. DELETED DATA. HIDDEN DIRECTORIES. LOOK CLOSER. >
Kai slowed his pace. He activated the Entropy Sutra's vision fully.
The world lost its color, turning into a monochrome blueprint. The walls of the alley became transparent wireframes. He could see the power conduits pulsing behind the metal plates. He could see the flow of water and waste in the pipes.
And he saw the glitches.
They appeared as distortions in the air, shimmering patches of static where the reality render wasn't quite perfect.
Most were small—a flickering texture on a wall, a puddle that didn't reflect light correctly. But down the alley, near a sealed ventilation shaft, there was a tear.
It looked like a jagged wound in the fabric of the world, bleeding faint, purple code.
[ ANOMALY DETECTED ][ TYPE: SPATIAL FRACTURE (STABLE) ][ ACCESS LEVEL: HARDWARE FORGE ]
"What is that?" Kai whispered, stepping closer.
< A DATA NODE. A FRAGMENT OF THE OLD CODE THAT THE HEAVEN SERVER FAILED TO OVERWRITE. THINK OF IT AS... A TREASURE CHEST. OR A TRAP. >
Kai gripped the jury-rigged shock baton in his pocket. "Treasure chest sounds better."
He approached the ventilation shaft. The grate was welded shut, rusted solid. To a normal person, it was a wall.
But Kai saw the structural weakness.
[ OBJECT: VENTILATION GRATE ][ DURABILITY: 40% ][ WEAK POINT: LOWER RIGHT WELD ]
He didn't use the baton. He planted his feet, took a breath to cycle his Qi, and kicked.
CLANG.
The grate buckled inward. A second kick sent it clattering down the shaft.
Kai peered inside. It wasn't a ventilation duct. The space behind the grate didn't match the architecture of the building. It opened into a dark, concrete tunnel that shouldn't exist in the metal hive of the Stack.
"Old world," Kai realized. This was part of the colony ship structure, buried deep beneath the new construction.
He climbed through the opening.
The tunnel was silent, save for the drip of water. The air was cooler here, smelling of ancient dust and dry rot.
Kai moved cautiously. The purple static he had seen outside was thicker here, clinging to the walls like glowing moss.
[ ENTERING ZONE: SECTOR 7-B (CORRUPTED) ][ ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD: LOW ]
He walked for ten minutes until the tunnel opened up into a larger chamber.
It looked like an old server room. Rows of massive, monolithic cabinets stood in silent ranks, covered in dust and cobwebs. Most were dark, dead relics of a forgotten age. But at the far end of the room, one console was flickering with a faint amber light.
And guarding it was a Scavenger Bot.
It was a small, spider-like droid, about the size of a dog. It was clearly damaged; one of its four legs was missing, sparking against the floor, and its optical sensor hung loose from its chassis.
But the laser cutter mounted on its back looked functional.
[ ENEMY DETECTED: MAINTENANCE DROID (MODEL T-40) ][ STATUS: CORRUPTED / HOSTILE ][ THREAT LEVEL: MEDIUM ][ WEAKNESS: SENSOR ARRAY / POWER CORE ]
The droid screeched—a sound of dial-up static amplified to a scream—and scrambled toward Kai, the laser cutter powering up with a high-pitched whine.
Kai didn't run. He felt that strange calm settle over him again. The combat protocol.
< EXECUTE. >
He waited. The droid was fast, skittering over the debris. At five meters, the laser fired.
A beam of red light slashed through the air.
Kai didn't dodge randomly. He saw the targeting vector calculation appear in his vision a split second before the shot.
[ TRAJECTORY: CHEST / CENTER MASS ]
He side-stepped. The laser burned a black scorch mark on the wall behind him.
He stepped forward, closing the distance. The droid adjusted its aim, the servos whining.
Too slow.
Kai drew the shock baton. He thumbed the switch on the battery pack.
Snap-hiss.
The copper wire coil glowed orange.
He swung.
He didn't aim for the armored chassis. He aimed for the exposed bundle of wires where the missing leg should have been.
[ STRIKE POINT CONFIRMED. ]
The baton connected.
CRACK-ZAP.
The electrical discharge from the baton surged into the droid's exposed internals. The machine convulsed, its legs scrabbling frantically on the concrete. Blue sparks showered the room.
Kai didn't stop. He brought the baton down again, smashing the optical sensor. Glass shattered.
The droid collapsed, smoke pouring from its chassis. The amber light on its laser cutter died.
[ ENEMY DEFEATED ][ COMBAT DATA ANALYZED: REACTION TIME IMPROVED BY 0.2s ][ LOOTABLE OBJECTS DETECTED ]
Kai stood over the wreckage, breathing hard. He felt... good. Powerful. For years, he had run from machines like this. Even a broken maintenance droid could kill a Null.
Now? It was scrap.
He knelt down and began to strip the droid. His hands moved with intuitive knowledge he didn't possess yesterday. He ripped out the laser cutter assembly. He pulled the power core—a small, cylindrical battery glowing with faint green light.
[ ITEM: MICRO-FUSION CELL (DEPLETED) ][ ENERGY: 120 KYL ][ USE: CONSUMABLE / CRAFTING MATERIAL ]
"Consumable," Kai noted.
< YES. EAT IT. > Cipher demanded.
Kai hesitated, looking at the glowing green battery. It seemed insane. But the hunger in his gut was screaming.
He held the battery in his hand. He didn't put it in his mouth. Instead, he focused on the vortex in his Dantian. He visualized the Entropy Sutra reaching out, like invisible tendrils.
He placed the battery against his palm.
Absorb.
He felt a jolt, like grabbing a live wire. But instead of pain, it was a rush of pure energy. The green light in the battery dimmed, swirled, and flowed into his skin.
The battery casing crumbled into grey dust in his hand.
Inside him, the gray vortex spun faster. The feeling of cold power spread through his limbs.
[ ENERGY ABSORBED: 120 KYL ][ QI RESERVES: 28/100 ][ HARDWARE FORGE STAGE: STABILIZING ]
"Incredible," Kai breathed. He wasn't just eating food; he was eating power.
He stood up and walked to the flickering console at the end of the room. He wiped the dust from the screen.
It was an old terminal. The text on the screen was blocky, primitive.
> SYSTEM ERROR: CONNECTION LOST> LAST BACKUP: 472 YEARS AGO> ARCHIVE ACCESSIBLE
Kai placed his hand on the console. "Cipher? Can you read this?"
< CHILD'S PLAY. THIS IS A LEGACY SERVER. LET'S SEE WHAT GHOSTS ARE HIDING IN HERE. >
Text scrolled rapidly across Kai's vision as Cipher interfaced with the terminal through Kai's touch.
< DOWNLOADING LOGS... >< DECRYPTING... >< FILE FOUND: "PROJECT ASCENSION" - PERSONAL LOG, DR. ARIS. >
"Dr. Aris?" Kai frowned. That name sounded familiar. He checked his internal database—the knowledge base he had built growing up in the Stack.
[ QUERY: DR. ARIS ][ MATCH FOUND: LEAD RESEARCHER, AZURE BIO-SYSTEMS (CURRENT) ][ TITLE: THE SPLICER ]
This was an old log from the man who now ran one of the Trinity Corporations.
< PLAYING AUDIO LOG. >
A voice crackled in Kai's head. It sounded younger, arrogant, but unmistakably the same man he had seen on the holographic billboards.
"Day 402. The trials on the indigenous population are failing. Their biology rejects the standard cultivation implants. The rejection rate is 98%. However... Subject 7 showed promise. He survived the initial bonding with the Entropy Shard before... dissolution. It confirms my theory. To pierce the Heaven Server, we cannot use Order. We must use Chaos. But the human body is too fragile. We need a blank slate. A Null."
The audio cut out with a burst of static.
Kai stood frozen in the dark room.
"A Null," he whispered. "He was looking for a Null."
< HE WAS LOOKING for YOU, > Cipher said softly. < OR SOMEONE LIKE YOU. THIS LOG IS CENTURIES OLD. THEY HAVE BEEN TRYING TO CRACK THE CODE FOR A LONG TIME. >
"So I'm not an accident," Kai said, his grip tightening on the console until the plastic cracked. "I was made? Or selected?"
< DOES IT MATTER? YOU HAVE THE SHARD NOW. YOU ARE THE ANOMALY THEY WANTED. AND NOW, YOU ARE THE ANOMALY THEY FEAR. >
Kai stepped back from the console. He looked at the laser cutter assembly he had salvaged from the droid.
"It matters," Kai said. "If Aris knows about the Nulls... if he knows about the Entropy Shard..."
< THEN HE WILL COME FOR YOU. EVENTUALLY. BUT RIGHT NOW, YOU ARE TOO SMALL TO BE NOTICED BY A GOD. >
"Then I need to get bigger," Kai said.
He looked at the laser cutter.
[ OBJECT: LASER EMITTER (DAMAGED) ][ POTENTIAL: INTEGRATION INTO SHOCK-BATON ]
He sat down on the floor of the ancient server room. He took out the shock baton, the wire, and the laser parts.
"Cipher," Kai said. "Walk me through the schematic. I want this thing to cut through steel."
< NOW YOU'RE TALKING. LET'S OVERCLOCK IT. >
By the time Kai emerged from the vent shaft, it was "morning" again—meaning the recyclers had shifted cycles.
He felt different. He looked different.
He had scavenged a pair of heavy, rubber-soled boots from the Sump market on his way back up, trading the last of his credits for them. His coat was buttoned tight.
At his hip, hidden under the coat, hung his modified weapon. It was no longer just a rod with a battery. It was sleek, wrapped in insulating tape, with a focusing lens taken from the droid mounted at the tip. It hummed with a low, menacing vibration.
[ WEAPON: PLASMA-ARC ROD (TIER 1) ][ DAMAGE: HIGH HEAT / ELECTRICAL ][ SPECIAL: ARMOR PIERCING ]
He climbed the stairs to Level 14. He was tired, but his Qi reserves were higher than they had ever been.
He reached Container 1408. He tapped the code.
The door didn't open.
Kai frowned. He tapped it again.
Nothing. The magnetic lock was disengaged, but the door was jammed.
He grabbed the handle and shoved. It slid open a few inches, blocked by something on the inside.
"Rin?"
Silence.
Kai forced the door open, squeezing through the gap.
The room was a wreck.
The shelves had been pulled down. Computer parts were scattered across the floor. The mattress was overturned.
Rin was gone.
Kai stood in the center of the chaos. His heart stopped.
On the wall, spray-painted in neon green glowing paint, was a symbol.
A snake coiled around a gear.
The Iron Vipers.
And below it, a message scrawled in jagged letters:
INTEREST DUE. COME TO THE BOILER ROOM.
Kai stared at the message. The red text of the Entropy Sutra flared in his vision, analyzing the paint, the destruction, the trajectory of the struggle.
[ SCENE ANALYSIS: FORCED ENTRY ][ TIME ELAPSED: ~2 HOURS ][ VICTIM STATUS: UNKNOWN ]
The cold calculation of the system tried to take over, tried to turn this into just another data point.
But Kai wasn't a machine.
A roar built in his throat, primal and raw. The heat in his Dantian flared, not controlled this time, but explosive. The temperature in the room spiked.
< CALM DOWN, > Cipher warned. < YOUR HEART RATE IS CRITICAL. >
"No," Kai said. His voice was dead.
He turned and walked out of the container. He didn't lock the door. There was nothing left to protect.
He walked to the railing of the walkway and looked down into the depths of the Stack. The Boiler Room was ten levels down, in the heat-exchange sector controlled by the Vipers. It was their fortress.
[ NEW OBJECTIVE: RESCUE RIN ][ THREAT LEVEL: SUICIDAL ][ PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS: 2.4% ]
Kai dismissed the notification with a thought.
He drew the Plasma-Arc Rod. He triggered the ignition.
A blade of crackling, superheated blue plasma ignited at the tip, hissing in the damp air.
"Cipher," Kai said.
< YES, HOST? >
"Route all power to combat sub-routines. Disable safety protocols."
< THAT WILL DAMAGE YOUR HARDWARE. >
"Do it."
< ...ACKNOWLEDGED. LIMITERS REMOVED. LET'S GO BREAK SOME THINGS. >
Kai vaulted over the railing, dropping into the smog, falling toward the red glow of the Boiler Room below.