Warsaw, Poland. Present day.
Rain pelted against the windows of the fifth-floor safehouse.
Different country, same weather, Elias thought grimly.
The apartment was standard issue—sparse furnishings, reinforced door, bulletproof windows, three separate exit routes.
Nothing that would draw attention from neighbors.
Nothing that would betray its purpose as a temporary refuge for operatives like him.
Elias Vale's hands trembled as he disengaged the Shimmerskin's neural interface.
The microscopic connection points detached from his central nervous system with a sensation like ants crawling beneath his skin.
He exhaled slowly, focusing on the technique Dr. Chen had taught him years ago.
Visualize the separation.
Accept the discomfort.
Do not resist.
The bodysuit peeled away from his torso, the nanofabric folding in on itself as it disengaged.
Once removed, it resembled nothing more extraordinary than a wetsuit made of slightly iridescent material.
Nothing that would reveal its true capabilities.
Nothing that would betray how it had kept him alive tonight.
Elias hung the suit on its specialized rack, watching as the material seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat.
Self-repair protocols, working to mend microscopic tears and recalibrate sensor arrays.
After five years, the technology still fascinated him.
After five years, it still terrified him.
His skin felt clammy where the suit had been, bones aching like metal grinding against metal.
The familiar post-mission symptoms, growing worse with each deployment.
Dr. Chen called it "interface fatigue."
The team medics called it "ghost sickness."
Elias called it the price of doing business.
He limped to the bathroom, the pain in his joints flaring with each step.
The mission had required nearly twelve hours in the suit.
Twelve hours of phase-shifting, adaptive camouflage, enhanced sensory input.
Twelve hours of the suit integrating with his nervous system in ways that human bodies were never designed to endure.
The stabilizer injector waited on the bathroom counter—standard equipment for all Shimmerskin operators.
Not that there were many of them left.
Of the original twelve agents recruited to Task Force EIDOLON, only Elias remained active.
Three dead.
Two institutionalized.
The rest... retired with conditions he didn't care to contemplate.
He pressed the injector against his thigh, gritting his teeth as the needle penetrated muscle.
The stabilizer compound burned like liquid nitrogen as it entered his bloodstream.
"Goddamn it," he hissed, riding the wave of pain.
The stabilizer's effects began almost immediately.
His trembling hands steadied.
The bone-deep ache receded to a dull throb.
His thoughts, scattered and fragmented, began to realign into coherent patterns.
But the overlay—that remained.
The heads-up display that had appeared during the airfield extraction still traced his vision.
Translucent blue metrics and status indicators hovered at the edges of his perception.
Another side effect, he told himself.
Another temporary glitch that would fade with time and rest.
Except it hadn't faded since that night on the tarmac.
If anything, it had become more defined, more integrated with how he perceived the world.
The bathroom mirror reflected a man he barely recognized.
Forty-two years old, but looking closer to fifty.
Once-dark hair now streaked with premature gray.
Eyes that had seen too much, knew too much.
The face of a man who had walked between worlds.
As he stared at his reflection, new lines of text emerged in his field of vision:
[LEVEL 1 – INITIATED]
[AWARENESS: 8]
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
[TACTICS: 9]
[SYSTEM COMPATIBILITY: 37%]
"What the hell?" he muttered, blinking hard.
The text remained, anchored to his perception as if projected directly onto his retinas.
This was new.
This was concerning.
In five years of wearing the Shimmerskin, through dozens of operations across six continents, he'd experienced plenty of side effects—sensory distortions, temporal displacement, even brief hallucinatory episodes.
But nothing like this structured interface, these game-like prompts and metrics.
This was something new entirely.
Something that had only begun at the airfield extraction the night before.
He leaned closer to the mirror, studying the unfamiliar metrics.
The display expanded, responding to his focus.
The display expanded, responding to his focus.
A diagnostic window materialized beside the main readout, containing technical information he didn't understand.
And beside that, a floating message:
"Artifact Detected: SHIMMERSKIN // Non-native Interface // Legacy Protocol"
Elias froze, comprehension dawning with frightening clarity.
The suit was talking to the system.
And the system... was talking back.
"Not possible," he whispered to his reflection.
The stabilizer must be causing hallucinations.
Or perhaps this was the neural deterioration Dr. Chen had warned about.
The inevitable consequence of pushing human physiology beyond its limits.
He splashed cold water on his face, hoping to shock his perception back to normal.
The display persisted, unaffected by the water or his desperate wish for it to disappear.
A soft chime sounded, audible only to him.
[TUTORIAL AVAILABLE]
[ACCESS Y/N?]
Elias stepped back from the mirror, nearly tripping over the bathroom rug.
This wasn't a side effect.
This wasn't a hallucination.
This was something else entirely.
His secure phone buzzed on the counter, the vibration seeming unnaturally loud in the quiet apartment.
Director Marshall's encrypted line.
He answered automatically, years of training overriding his current state of disorientation.
"Nighthawk secure," he said, his voice steadier than he felt.
"Confirmation of package delivery?" Marshall asked without preamble.
The data drive.
The mission.
Reality reasserted itself with brutal efficiency.
"Package delivered. Courier secure."
"Extraction status?"
"Complete. At primary safehouse."
"Physical condition?"
Elias hesitated, staring at the floating interface still visible in his field of vision.
[INCOMING COMMUNICATION: CLASSIFIED]
[RECOMMEND DISCRETION]
The HUD was... advising him?
"Standard post-operation fatigue. Nothing unusual."
The lie came easily, a survival instinct honed by years in the field.
"Medical evaluation upon return," Marshall ordered. "The data suggests anomalous readings during your extraction."
Of course it did.
The suit recorded everything—vital signs, stress levels, neural patterns.
"Acknowledged," Elias replied. "Anything else?"
"The package contents are being analyzed now. Preliminary assessment suggests it was worth the risk."
"Good to know."
"Transport arrives at 0600. Be ready."
The line went dead without further pleasantries.
Elias set the phone down carefully, then moved to the apartment's main room.
Blinds drawn against the Warsaw night.
Rain still drumming against the windows.
The Shimmerskin hung on its rack, its surface rippling occasionally as self-repair continued.
He approached it cautiously, studying the suit with new suspicion.
The HUD in his vision responded immediately:
[SHIMMERSKIN STATUS: MAINTENANCE MODE]
[REPAIR PROGRESS: 73%]
[NEURAL INTERFACE: STANDBY]
Elias reached out, touching the material lightly with his fingertips.
The surface felt warmer than it should, almost alive beneath his touch.
Had it always been this way?
Had he simply failed to notice?
Or was this something new—a change in the technology itself?
[ARTIFACT ANALYSIS COMPLETE]
[SOURCE: UNKNOWN]
[CLASSIFICATION: ANOMALOUS TECHNOLOGY]
[INTEGRATION POTENTIAL: HIGH]
The text appeared as he maintained contact with the suit, as if the system were analyzing the Shimmerskin through his touch.
"What are you?" he whispered.
No response came, only the steady stream of data in his field of vision.
Elias stepped back, dropping his hand.
The information display minimized but didn't disappear.
He moved to the safehouse's small kitchen, opening the refrigerator more out of habit than hunger.
His reflection in the chrome surface of the refrigerator door showed the same haggard face.
But now, additional information hovered around it:
[PHYSICAL STATUS: COMPROMISED]
[NEURAL INTEGRATION: ADVANCING]
[STABILIZER EFFICACY: DECREASING]
The last line sent a chill through him.
The stabilizers were becoming less effective.
He'd suspected as much, had needed increasingly higher doses to achieve the same results.
But seeing it quantified, displayed in cold data, made it impossible to ignore.
He was burning out, just like the others before him.
How much time did he have left?
Months?
Weeks?
[ESTIMATED FUNCTIONALITY WITHOUT INTERVENTION: 47 DAYS]
The answer appeared as if in response to his unspoken question.
Forty-seven days.
Just over six weeks before...what?
Before he joined the other broken operators?
Before his mind fractured under the strain of technologies never meant for human integration?
Elias closed the refrigerator, leaving the food untouched.
He moved to the safehouse's communications terminal, considering his options.
He could report this development to Marshall.
To Dr. Chen.
To the medical team.
But he knew the protocol for operators who exhibited signs of critical neural deterioration.
Immediate extraction.
Evaluation.
Retirement.
And then the slow descent into monitored care as his mind unraveled.
The alternative was to keep this to himself.
To continue operating until he couldn't anymore.
To use whatever time he had left to complete his missions.
To find answers before it was too late.
[NEW QUEST AVAILABLE: SEEK THE SOURCE]
[DIFFICULTY: EXTREME]
[REWARD: SYSTEM STABILIZATION, SKILL POINT]
The notification pulsed gently in his vision, demanding acknowledgment.
Elias stared at it, torn between disbelief and desperate hope.
Was this just another hallucination, his deteriorating mind constructing fantasies of salvation?
Or was it something more—a genuine interface with whatever system had integrated with his perception?
Either way, what choice did he have?
Forty-seven days.
The more immediate problem was the constant presence of the interface in his field of vision.
It was becoming maddening, like trying to read with someone continually holding a sign in front of his face.
"Dammit, get out of the way," he muttered, instinctively trying to wave the display aside.
To his surprise, the interface responded.
Not to his hand gesture or spoken command, but to the intention behind them.
The HUD shrank, collapsing into a small, unobtrusive icon at the far edge of his peripheral vision.
Elias blinked, momentarily startled by the sudden change.
He focused on the icon, wondering if—
The interface expanded again, returning to its previous configuration.
He concentrated once more, imagining pushing the display away.
It minimized again, responding to his mental command.
"Well, that's something," he whispered.
Neural interface. Of course. Not responding to external inputs, but to his thoughts directly.
He experimented further, discovering that he could summon or dismiss different elements of the interface by focusing his intention.
Stats. Minimize.
Quest log. Minimize.
System status. View. Minimize.
With each successful interaction, he felt a small thrill of accomplishment.
Not control, not yet—but at least a measure of accommodation.
Back to business.
He activated the terminal's secure browser, bypassing the standard EIDOLON restrictions.
If answers existed, they wouldn't be found in officially sanctioned channels.
Five years of operating in the shadows, encountering phenomena that defied conventional understanding, had taught him where to look.
The darknet forums where anomaly researchers shared findings too strange for peer review.
The message boards frequented by others who had glimpsed behind reality's curtain.
The encrypted databases compiled by those who tracked patterns in the inexplicable.
[INFORMATION GATHERING: INITIATED]
[ACCESS LEVEL: RESTRICTED]
[RECOMMEND CAUTION]
The HUD continued offering guidance, seemed almost to be assisting his search.
Rain pelted the windows of the safehouse as dawn approached.
Elias Vale hunted for answers in the digital wilderness, racing against his own mortality.
The Shimmerskin pulsed on its rack, repair cycle nearly complete.
And somewhere in the spaces between conventional reality and whatever lay beyond, a system waited.
A system that knew his name.
A system that had claimed him as its player.
