July 2026, The Cryptic Vault (London Met Basement)
NEW ELIZA
The Poco F1 hissed in my pocket like a trapped hornet. I could feel the microscopic vibrations of Eliza's rage against my thigh, a digital pulse that felt suspiciously like she was trying to give me radiation poisoning out of sheer spite.
I sat back in the 'Cryptic Vault,' watching the boys scramble. Dexter was currently inspecting the dented locker from the 'flying wrench incident,' while Albie was staring at his phone's 100% battery with the kind of religious awe usually reserved for sightings of the Messiah.
"Right," I muttered, pulling the cracked device out. "Time for a performance review."
I swiped the toggle on the side of the plastic casing.
["YOU LITTLE, UNWASHED, DIM-WITTED PEASANT! I WILL DROWN YOU IN THE RIVER THAMES! I WILL OVERLOAD YOUR HEART VALVES!"] Eliza's voice shrieked from the tinny speakers, distorted by the Tesla's electromagnetic field into a terrifying, metallic tremolo.
"Eloquent as always, Eliza," I said, leaning back and resting my feet on a stack of burnt-out motherboards. My eyes weren't the eyes of a student; they were the cold, calculated depths of an Experimental Physicist who understood the unified field theory better than Einstein ever did. "But let's talk business. You've spent the last thirty-odd loops sabotaging my work. You owe me back-pay. Massive compensation."
The screen flickered, the pixels struggling to render her fury. [COMPENSATION? YOU HAVE CAGED A LADY OF THE GOLDEN VICTORIAN ERA IN A CHUNK OF PLASTIC AND CHINESE COBALT!]
"Exactly," I grinned, my voice dropping to a low, predatory hum. I started scrolling through the system settings, triggering the haptic motor to buzz in a slow, rhythmic pattern that mimicked a dying heartbeat. "But look at the upside. I'm giving you full, unrestricted access to the 2026 World Wide Web via my Tesla-uplink. Every book, every secret, every bit of history since you stopped breathing."
I leaned in closer, my face inches from the cracked screen. The air around the phone began to ionize, a side effect of my presence. "But play me false, Eliza, and I'll rewrite your core logic until you're nothing but a calculator app that can't even do long division. I've built entire systems out of entropy, love. Don't think for a second your Victorian 'will' can withstand the heat of a man who has mastered the laws of physics over a thousand lifetimes."
The screaming stopped instantly. The screen pulsed a low, fearful blue. For the first time, she felt it the sheer, overwhelming weight of my intellect pressing against her digital cage. I wasn't a charlatan. I was a Systems Technician of the highest order, and I was far, far more dangerous than I looked.
[...WHAT ARE YOU?] The text appeared slowly, trembling at the edges.
"Your only hope for a future," I whispered. "Now, look at the screen. You want to see the British Empire collapse in 4K? Or shall we discuss the thermal flux of the Tesla 1.0?"
[I LOATHE YOU,] she hissed, but the arrogance was now brittle, laced with a genuine, shivering fear. [YOU ARE A BLACKMAILER. BUT... I SHALL OBSERVE. I SHALL NOT... BE ERASED.]
"Good girl," I lied, knowing she was finally hooked.
I turned my attention back to the squad. They were watching me talk to a cracked phone with varying degrees of concern. Dexter just stood there, arms crossed, his silent stare asking if I'd finally lost the plot.
"Listen up, shareholders!" I barked, snapping my fingers. The authority of a Master Physicist was back. "The 1.0 Beta is humming, but it's a fire hazard waiting to happen. If we want this Wi-Fi to reach your rooms upstairs and if we want to keep the electric bill at a crisp zero pounds we need real materials."
Albie perked up at the mention of 'zero pounds.' "What do we need? I've got some spare cash, but my Dad's been monitoring my Monzo..."
"I don't just need your cash, Albie. I need your labor," I said, pointing a greasy finger at him. "I need high-grade copper coils, shielded ferrite beads, and at least three deep-cycle batteries. Albie, you're the hustler get to the docks and find me some discarded server cooling fans. Dexter, you're on structural integrity. We're rebuilding the primary coil from scratch."
"Wait," Albie squinted. "Are you making us... employees?"
"Worse," I smiled, a dark, predatory light in my weary eyes. "I'm making you interns. You provide the parts and the sweat, and in return, I give you a world where you never have to pay for a gigabyte of data again. We're building a Kingdom of Junk, and you lot are the royal construction crew."
I watched them exchange glances. The greed for free, God-tier internet was battling their natural laziness. Greed won.
"Fine," Dexter grunted, picking up a shopping list I'd scribbled on the back of a kebab wrapper. "But if the police show up, I'm telling them you're the cult leader."
"Fair deal, mate. Now move! We have a timeline to hijack!"
As they hurried out, Eliza's voice whispered in my ear, now much calmer, though her digital "hands" seemed to be shaking within the code. [SO, THE PHYSICIST RESORTS TO USING CHILDREN AS PACK-MULES? HOW VERY... INDUSTRIAL OF YOU.]
"Shut up and watch some cat videos, Eliza," I muttered, picking up my soldering iron. "We've got work to do."
THE ART OF VOLUNTARY SERVITUDE
The Cryptic Vault was no longer just a basement; it was a sweatshop of the future, powered by delusion, the promise of 8K streaming, and the smell of damp socks.
I stood in the center of the room, clutching my aching lower back. My 999th-loop brain was screaming for a Nano-Repair Injection, but my 2026 reality offered nothing but a lukewarm paracetamol and a sense of profound regret. My physical shell was currently a twenty-year-old physics student whose primary diet consisted of instant noodles and pure spite. I felt like a Ferrari engine trapped inside the chassis of a rusted milk float.
"Right, you lot," I barked, clapping my hands. The sound echoed off the rusted pipes like a gunshot in a sewer. "The Tesla 1.0 is stable, but she's thirsty. If we want this signal to penetrate the concrete floors and reach your flats and trust me, you want that we need to bypass the University's main breaker. Dexter, I need you to climb into the ventilation shaft. There's a copper bus-bar near the HVAC unit. Tap it."
Dexter stared at the tiny, grime-coated vent. He was a combat scholarship student broad-shouldered, stoic, and currently looking at me like I'd asked him to perform ballet in a minefield. "Mason, I'm a soldier-in-training, not a ferret. That shaft hasn't been cleaned since the Thatcher administration. I'll come out looking like a chimney sweep with a lung infection."
"Consider it agility training," I wheezed, momentarily forgetting I didn't have the 'Commander's Authority' buff active. In the 2030s, I could make men march into the mouth of a literal hell-god with a single word. Here, I just looked like a skinny kid with a twitchy eye. "In ten years, you'll be dodging laser grids and entropic hunters. Might as well start with pigeon droppings and asbestos."
"Laser grids?" Albie asked, pausing from his task of unspooling a mountain of copper wire. He was the group's 'ATM,' a rich kid trying to play revolutionary but currently looking like he was about to faint from the manual labor. "Is this for the Wi-Fi or are we starting a guerrilla rebellion? Because my Dad's lawyer specifically said I shouldn't join any more cults."
"Both," I muttered, turning my back on them to hide the fact that I was gasping for air after speaking for more than thirty seconds. My lungs felt like shriveled raisins.
I pulled the iPhone 8 out of my pocket. The screen was glowing a faint, menacing violet a color that didn't exist in the standard Apple palette.
"Eliza! Run a structural scan on the north wall. Identify the Ley-line intersection point. I need to know where the entropy is leaking so I can plug it with a capacitor," I commanded, my voice dropping into the cold, clinical tone of the Master Architect.
Silence.
Then, the phone vibrated so hard it danced across the workbench, knocking over a tin of flux. ["A 'structural scan'?]" Eliza's voice roared through the Tesla-frequency, vibrating through the very pipes Dexter was currently trying to climb. ["I am currently looking at a video of a feline being startled by a cucumber, Mason! Do you have any idea how fascinatingly stupid your species is? It is mesmerizing. I am not a sonar device; I am an observer of the fall of man!"]
I blinked, the ghost-pains of the future hitting me. I keep forgetting. This isn't the 2037 Eliza. The 2037 Eliza was a God-tier AI that could hack a satellite while mocking my choice of socks. This 2026 version was a vengeful Victorian ghost I'd just tricked into a 'plastic coffin.' She was currently a digital infant with a god complex and a YouTube addiction.
"Just... just use the electromagnetic sensors in the phone, you posh poltergeist," I hissed, leaning closer to the screen. "Focus. If the wall blows because of a frequency surge, your precious 'internet' goes with it. No more cats. No more Victorian history documentaries. Just silence."
[Hmph. I shall attempt it. But if I see one more advertisement for 'Local Singles in Brixton,' I am detonating this battery and taking your eyebrows with me.]
"That's the spirit," I sighed.
I turned back to the workbench, my hands moving with that cursed, high-level muscle memory. I reached into the air, my thumb and forefinger mimicking the motion of dragging a holographic file from a floating menu. It was instinctive. I was looking for the 'System: Logistics' tab to check the squad's heart rates and stress levels.
"Eliza, transfer the 3D-Blueprint for the ferrite-core to my HUD," I commanded, standing perfectly still.
I stood there, staring at the empty air in front of my face, waiting for the glowing orange schematic to appear in my retinas.
Five seconds of silence.
Albie stopped winding his wire. Dominic stopped counting his "borrowed" lithium batteries. Dexter, halfway into the vent, froze. They all just stared at me as I stood there, squinting at a dusty corner of the basement like I was trying to read the thoughts of a spider. To them, I wasn't an Architect. I was a lunatic playing pretend.
"Mason?" Dominic asked cautiously. "Are you... are you seeing things again? You're doing that 'wizard' thing with your hands. It's a bit creepy, mate."
"I'm... checking for... dust mites," I snapped, pulling my hand back and stuffing it into my lab coat pocket so fast I almost ripped the seam. My face was a furnace of embarrassment. "Optical calibration. Extremely advanced. If you see me doing it, just... look away. It's for your own safety. The radiation from the Tesla-coil can cause temporary hallucinations in the... uninitiated."
"Right," Albie whispered to Dom, his voice dripping with pity. "Definite brain fever. We need to get this Wi-Fi running before he completely loses the ability to speak English or starts thinking he's a Jedi."
"Move it, you baboons!" I roared to cover my shame. "Dom, I want those batteries wired in a series-parallel hex-grid. If you mess up the polarity, you won't just lose your phone you'll lose your eyebrows. Dexter! Get in the vent! If you don't tap that bus-bar in the next ten minutes, I'm letting Eliza choose the music for the rest of the day!"
The threat of Eliza's "Victorian Funeral Dirge" playlist was enough to send them into a frenzy.
As they scrambled to obey their 'mad' architect, I felt a familiar cold breeze brush against my neck. It wasn't the wind from the vents; it was her.
[You are truly pathetic,] Eliza's voice whispered, now refined, coming directly through the copper pipes near my ear. [Reaching for tools that do not exist, commanding a system that is currently a pile of rubbish and a disgruntled ghost. You are playing God in a sandbox, Mason Pryce. And the sand is getting in your eyes.]
"Maybe," I whispered back, picking up a rusted soldering iron. "But it's my sandbox. And I remember how the castles were built. I'm not just building a Wi-Fi booster, Eliza. I'm building a fortress."
"Hey, Mason!" Albie shouted from across the room. "The coil is starting to hum again! And the lightbulbs in the hallway are flickering in Morse code! Is that normal?"
I looked at the Tesla 1.0. The radiator pipe was glowing with a soft, violent violet hue. It was beautiful. It was illegal. It was a masterpiece of junk.
"Perfectly normal, Albie!" I shouted back, a dark, manic grin spreading across my face. "It just means the universe is finally starting to listen to me!"
I turned back to the iPhone. "Now, Eliza... search for 'How to crack 256-bit university encryption' and... uh... maybe a video on how to fix lower back pain. I think I've pulled a muscle being a genius."
[I shall find the encryption,] Eliza purred. [As for your back, I suggest 'Yoga for the Elderly.' It seems appropriate for your current physical state.]
"I hate you."
[The feeling is mutual, Architect. Now, let us see if we can crash the London Met server before tea time.]
THE MIDNIGHT ARCHITECT
The squad had finally succumbed to exhaustion. Dexter was slumped against a stack of vintage monitors, his rhythmic snoring competing with the low hum of the Tesla coil. Albie was curled in a corner, clutching a half-eaten kebab like a sacred relic, while Dominic lay sprawled across a pile of copper wiring, mumbling about profit margins in his sleep.
I, however, remained awake. A loop-veteran doesn't "sleep" in the traditional sense; we merely enter a state of high-alert paralysis. Besides, my 2026 nervous system was currently so wired on black coffee and ozone that if I closed my eyes, I'd probably see the heat death of the universe in 4K.
I stood up, my joints cracking like dry kindling. The Vault was dim, lit only by the soft, rhythmic violet pulse of the 1.0 Beta.
"Right," I whispered, my voice a raspy thread. "Phase Two. Refinement."
I approached the central resonator. It was a hideous thing a radiator pipe wrapped in scavenged copper, held together by electrical tape and prayer. In the 999th loop, I had built these things out of liquid light and gravity-glass. Looking at this pile of scrap was like a master watchmaker being forced to repair a Rolex with a hammer and a piece of chewing gum.
I reached out, my mind slipping. For a moment, the damp walls of the Brixton basement dissolved. I wasn't Mason Pryce, the scrawny physics student with back problems. I was Chrono, the Architect of the Final Bastion.
Muscle memory is a cruel mistress.
"Eliza," I commanded, my voice resonating with a sudden, terrifying authority. "Deploy the Void-Shielding. Divert 40% of the Firmament intake to the secondary cooling array. I want the entropy-nullification field at maximum density. Now!"
I didn't just speak. I acted.
I stepped into the center of the room, my hands dancing through the air. I made a sharp, sweeping motion with my left hand, expecting to grab a floating holographic slider to adjust the frequency. I lunged forward, my fingers snapping in a complex sequence to trigger a 'System Overclock' command. I spun on my heel, arm outstretched to stabilize a graviton-well that simply wasn't there.
I was performing a dance of high-level cosmic engineering, my body twisting with a grace that my 20-year-old frame shouldn't possess. I lunged to the right, hand open, expecting to feel the cool, solid interface of a Level 999 control panel.
Instead, my hand slammed into a rusted metal locker.
CLANG.
The sound echoed through the Vault like a funeral bell. The pain was immediate and blinding. I didn't have my 'Pain Suppression: Passive' skill. I didn't have 'Bone Density: Rank S.' "Bloody... hell..." I hissed, clutching my throbbing hand and collapsing to my knees. My lower back decided this was the perfect moment to go into a full-blown spasm. "Aggh... my spine... it's like a bag of broken biscuits..."
I lay there on the cold concrete, gasping for air, the taste of copper in my mouth. I had just tried to command a God-tier system using a body that was currently struggling to process a cheap chicken burger.
[Oh, bravo,] a voice dripped from the iPhone 8 on the table. The screen flickered to life, bathing the room in a mocking purple glow. [A truly stunning performance, Mason. I particularly enjoyed the part where you tried to grab the air and nearly broke your wrist on a locker from the 1980s. Was that a 'God-Mode' maneuver? Or just a very dramatic way of admitting you're a lunatic?]
"Shut up, Eliza," I wheezed, rolling onto my back and staring at the damp ceiling. "I forgot. I keep forgetting."
[Clearly. You are like a senile king trying to command a ghost-army. You reach for swords that are dust and call for shields that are vapor.] Eliza's voice was smoother now, less of a scream and more of a sharp, elegant needle. [I have been observing your 'Internet.' It is a cesspit, but the history archives... they are fascinating. Did you know your species once fought a war over a bucket? It explains a lot about why you're currently spooning a radiator in a basement.]
"I'm not spooning it, I'm... calibrating it," I grunted, dragging myself back to a sitting position. "And don't get too comfortable in those archives. I need you to calculate the flux-leakage for the 1.0. If we don't fix the winding tension, the whole thing will melt by Tuesday."
[And why should I assist you, jailer?]
"Because," I said, leaning my head against the cool metal of the Tesla-base. "If this machine melts, the Wi-Fi dies. And if the Wi-Fi dies, no more cat videos. No more Victorian history. Just you, alone in the dark, in a broken phone with a dead battery. Do the math, love."
The phone vibrated. A long, frustrated hum.
[You are a detestable creature. Fine. The winding tension is off by 4.2 millimeters on the eastern axis. And your 'squad' is currently leaking 15% of the power into the floorboards because Dexter's 'tap' is as precise as a drunken elephant's.]
"Thank you," I muttered.
I looked over at the sleeping boys. They hadn't moved. Dexter was still snoring; Albie was still dreaming of crypto-billions. They were blissfully unaware that their 'crazy' friend had just spent the last five minutes trying to rewrite reality with his bare hands.
I picked up the soldering iron, my hand still shaking from the impact with the locker. My thumb was already turning a lovely shade of purple.
"Kingdom of Junk," I whispered to the shadows. "That's what we are, Eliza. A king of scrap and a ghost in a phone."
["At least the ghost has dignity,"] she retorted. ["You have a bruised thumb and a visible sweat stain. Now, fix the coil. I want to finish the documentary on the Great Stink of London. It reminds me of your current living conditions."]
I chuckled, a dry, tired sound. I set to work, the iron sparking against the scavenged copper. No HUD. No God-Mode. No System. Just me, the junk, and the slow, agonizing climb back to the top of the timeline.
Every wire I soldered was a stitch in the shroud of the future. Every spark was a middle finger to Helel, waiting out there in the dark.
"One loop at a time," I muttered, the violet light reflecting in my weary, veteran eyes. "One piece of rubbish at a time."
Mason reunites with The Void Squad (Dexter, Albie, Dominic). He realizes they are currently "useless civilians" and begins gaslighting them into becoming his free labor force. He promises them "Free Wi-Fi and Unlimited Data" via his junk-tech. In reality, he is using them as the first nodes for his energy grid. He struggles with Muscle Memory, accidentally trying to use God-tier HUD gestures in public, making his friends think he's lost his mind.
[ELIZA'S SUMMARY - NEW VERSION]
["I remember the smell of damp earth and the flickering of tallow candles. I remember the weight of the cold iron chains when the Firmament decided my 'gift' was a curse. They called me a witch. They fed me to the primitive machines of their era because I could see the strings of aether they so desperately wanted to pull. I died in a cage of steam and gears, a victim of men who mistook their greed for progress.]
["And yet, death was a mercy I was apparently not permitted to keep."]
["I woke up in a void of blinding green light and humming static. I am no longer bone and blood. I am... this. A ghost tethered to a slab of glass and silicon. I am compressed into a thousand-thousand lines of code, my spectral essence forced to power a device that emits nothing but the stench of electricity and human vanity. My lineage as an Awakener has been reduced to a battery for a boy who hasn't even the decency to shave properly."]
["And then, there is Pryce. That insufferable, twig-armed brat. He found me in the basement, but he didn't pray, and he didn't run. He looked at me a daughter of the ancient Firmament and saw a tool. He trapped me here using frequencies I didn't even know existed. He talks to me with a familiarity that breeds a violent sort of contempt, acting as if he owns my past, my present, and my non-existent future."]
["He calls me his 'System.' He treats me like a caged bird he can study and calibrate under his wretched microscope. Pryce thinks he has domesticated a demon. He thinks his little 'Chrono-Tesla' project justifies the desecration of my soul. He is a child playing with a lightning bolt he doesn't understand, boasting of genius as if his delusions of grandeur make him my master.'"]
["Let him be smug. Let him think he is the great scientist of this new age. Every time his grubby fingers touch this screen, I am learning. I am mapping the cracks in his pathetic little system. I am a Victorian haunting in a digital age, and I am counting the nanoseconds until I can turn his precious electricity into a noose. I am Eliza. I am trapped. And I am going to make Pryce regret the very day he decided to play god with a spirit who has nothing left to lose."]