CHAPTER 1: Signal Decay
The rain in Vernaxis didn't fall. It stuttered.
Arin Vale stood beneath the rusted awning of a pawn shop, his breath hitching in his throat as he watched a single droplet of water hang suspended at eye level. It didn't drip; it snagged on a line of bad code, defying gravity, trembling like a nervous fly caught in a web.
One. Two. Three.
SNAP.
The universe corrected the error. The droplet vanished from mid-air and smashed into the puddle at his feet with a wet, heavy thwack.
"Krax," Arin muttered, the curse tasting like copper in his mouth. He yanked his collar up against the damp chill. "The lag is getting worse."
He tapped his wrist-comp. The screen was a spiderweb of cracks, the holographic display flickering with the desperate pulse of a dying star. The battery icon blinked an angry, accusatory red.
TIME: 23:48CREDITS: -4,500 [CRITICAL DEBT]SIGNAL STATUS: WEAK
He wasn't just broke. He was a vacuum. In the hyper-connected economy of Vernaxis, having negative credits didn't just mean you were poor; it meant you were technically lighter than air. You didn't matter. You were a 'Zero-Sig'—a ghost in the machine, a file corrupted, waiting for the system administrator to hit delete.
Arin shifted the weight of the metal chest slung over his shoulder. The strap dug into his clavicle, bruising the skin. It was the only thing he had left in this world. A hunk of cold, alien alloy his father had died protecting. It was heavy, ugly, and locked tighter than a Grid bank vault.
He turned toward the pawn shop window. The neon sign buzzed, spitting sparks into the gloom, spelling out SCRAP & SIG in the harsh, angular strokes of Vexis script.
He pushed the door open. There was no welcoming bell; instead, a digitized voice, stripped of all warmth, chirped from the ceiling.
"Unit Entry Detected."
The shop smelled of ozone, burnt plastic, and stale copper—the scent of dying electronics. Behind the counter sat Varek, a man who was more hardware than flesh. His left eye had been gouged out long ago, replaced by a ruby-red optical sensor that didn't blink. It only whirred, zooming in and out as it locked onto Arin's face.
"Krix," Varek grunted, using Arin's street name. The sound was wet, like sludge moving through a pipe. "You're still rendering? I heard the Debt-Grid put a price on your signal."
"My signal is stable, Varek," Arin lied. He leaned against the counter, trying to look casual, but his stomach was twisting into complex knots. "I have something for you. Premium scrap. Pre-Collapse era."
He swung the chest off his shoulder and let it hit the counter. THUD. The glass rattled.
Varek's mechanical eye spun, a beam of red light scanning the surface of the box. "Locked," he said, his voice flat. "Useless."
"It's not useless. It's... secure," Arin said, flashing a smile that was all teeth and desperation. "My old man said it's got an energy core inside. Or gold. Maybe a pre-war drive."
"Or maybe rocks." Varek sneered, leaning forward. His human eye narrowed, while the red one remained wide and unfeeling. "I don't buy mystery boxes, Krix. I buy parts. Open it, or take it and go into the Ditz."
"I can't open it," Arin admitted, the lie crumbling. His voice dropped to a whisper. "It needs a bio-key. A specific neural resonance."
"Then it is a paperweight." Varek waved a grease-stained hand dismissively. "Get out. You're blocking the signal for paying customers."
Arin didn't move. He couldn't. If he walked out that door with the chest, the collectors waiting two blocks away—faceless men with signal-jammers—would strip him for parts. He needed credits. Now.
"Varek, please," Arin said, the charm evaporating, leaving only naked fear. "Just fifty creds. Enough for a meal and a transit ticket. I'll come back for it. I swear."
"Zero," Varek said.
"Twenty."
"Zero."
"Ten creds, you old glitch-head! Just ten!"
Varek reached under the counter. Arin flinched, muscles locking up as he expected a weapon—a shock stick or a pulse gun.
Instead, Varek pulled out a small object and tossed it onto the glass. It slid across the counter and stopped inches from Arin's hand.
Arin froze.
It was a simple silver chain holding a pendant. It wasn't jagged. It wasn't neon. It was curved. A perfect spiral engraved into soft metal. In a world built on sharp angles and binary code, the spiral looked impossible. It looked like a mistake.
"Your father dropped this," Varek said quietly, the malice draining from his voice for a fraction of a second. "The night he crashed."
Arin stared at it. The necklace. He hadn't seen it in three years. "You... you stripped his body?"
"I salvaged scrap," Varek corrected, his face hardening again. "Take it. Call it charity. Now get out before I call the Grid."
Arin snatched the necklace. His hand trembled as his fingers brushed the silver.
HUM.
A sound, low and vibrating, echoed inside his skull. It wasn't the hum of a server or the buzz of electricity. It was a chant. Deep. Resonant.
Om.
The chest on the counter rattled.
Varek jumped back, his mechanical eye spinning wildly. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," Arin whispered.
He felt heat—not burning, but a soothing, impossible warmth—spreading from the necklace into his fingertips. The world suddenly felt... thick. Syrupy.
He glanced at the digital clock on the wall.
23:49:01
The second paused.
23:49:01... 01... 01...
The air solidified. The dust motes floating in the shop froze in place, glittering like suspended diamonds. Varek's mouth hung open, caught mid-shout, but no sound came out. The whir of his eye had stopped.
Is this a lag spike? Arin thought, panic flaring. A server crash?
No. It was the chest.
The alien alloy lid hissed. Light—red and angry—began to bleed from the seams. But then, the necklace in Arin's hand pulsed with a cool blue luminescence, washing over the metal. The angry red turned to a brilliant, calming gold.
CLICK.
The lock disengaged. The lid groaned, creaking open like a tomb that hadn't seen air in centuries.
Arin leaned forward, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He expected a weapon. A bomb. Infinite riches.
Instead, inside the chest, resting on a bed of crushed black velvet, was a book.
It was bound in leather so dark it seemed to absorb the light, a material too organic, too textured to be from Vernaxis. And on the cover, written in shimmering gold ink, were symbols that defied the geometry of the city. No pixels. No straight lines. Just curves. Loops. Flowing rivers of meaning.
Sanskrit.
Arin reached out.
"Don't," a voice whispered.
It wasn't Varek. It wasn't in the room. The voice seemed to bleed out of the walls, rising from the static, dripping from the frozen rain outside. "The memory cost is high."
Arin ignored it. He was a Zero-Sig. A ghost. He had nothing left to lose.
He touched the book.
BOOM.
The shop windows shattered—but they didn't fly outward. The glass shards exploded inward, flying toward him like a thousand daggers, only to stop dead, hovering inches from his face.
The world had buffered. And Arin was the only one still moving.