The world around him dissolved, the buzzing lines of the dungeon giving way to something warmer, more solid. He was in the private back room of an underground bar, the air thick with the scent of expensive liquor and spilled secrets. Across the booth, the woman with black hair studied him, her head tilted to one side.

  Echo.

  A charismatic voice cut through the memory's haze. "Ah, you're both here."

  Lucien looked to the man sliding into the booth with them. The Handyman. Maroon suit, black shoes, too much gold glinting on his fingers. A fixer with a reputation for good work and reliable payouts.

  Lucien said nothing, letting the blue line of his mask's visor serve as his only expression.

  "What's the job?" Echo asked. “Your message said it was time sensitive.” Her voice was professional, but carried a soft, lilting tone that was surprisingly disarming.

  "Straight to the point! Smart girl," The Handyman said with a wicked smile. He placed a tablet on the table, and a holographic image of a skyscraper bloomed in the air between them.

  "A blackmail ring inside Xelara Dynamic," he began. "They've been using smart implants to collect biometric data from high-profile clients and selling it on an encrypted darknet platform simply called, The Chain. Someone leaked a client list, and now everyone wants it offline. The core server isn't in a cloud, it’s in that data tower. Physical breach is required."

  He leaned back, taking a sip of his drink. "That's where you two come in. The data is valuable. You need to infiltrate the Xelara tower before the sweep hits in... just under four hours. Reach the archive vault on Sub-Level 12 and retrieve a data shard marked 'Cicada-Lock'. Should be simple enough, considering your complementary skillsets."

  Echo held out her hand for the data drive. "And the pay?"

  "Fifty thousand credits, split however you two see fit." The Handyman said the number like it wasn't a small fortune.

  Lucien finally spoke, his voice filtered into a semi-mechanical rasp by the full-face mask. "Pay like that means significant danger."

  “Nothing you can’t handle,” The Handyman answered, almost as if the statement were prepared.

  Echo considered the offer for a moment, then gave a single nod. "Fine." Her electric pink eyes settled on Lucien. "Just so we're clear, Pulse, the mission comes first. I can't afford to babysit. I need to know you can handle yourself. Can you?"

  He turned his visor toward her. "Cute."

  The barest hint of a smile touched her lips before she stood from the booth, turning to walk away. She tapped an earpiece and said, "Dorian, recon: Xelara data tower. Give us the most direct route to Sub-Level 12..."

  A system message popped up on Lucien’s HUD:

  

  [NEW MISSION: RECOVER MEMORY FRAGMENT - CICADA-LOCK]

  He gave a curt nod to The Handyman and followed the girl, his HUD already analyzing her gait and gear. Minimal combat capability. Relies on tech. And someone named Dorian. As they stepped out of the bar into the neon-soaked streets of Mindra, he fell into step beside her. "You're a hacker?"

  "Correct," she answered, not breaking stride. She glanced at him, her eyes flicking to the blue line on his visor. He didn’t see fear, but maybe curiosity. He could almost feel her trying to run a passive scan on his mask's firmware. "Pulse, right? My support says you took out three targets in the dark on your last job without firing a shot."

  "Dorian seems useful," Lucien said, deflecting the compliment.

  "He has his perks. Tends to mess up my coffee orders, but fast with information. He says we can enter through the scaffolding on an adjacent construction site. The roof is a no-go." She theatrically inspected her nails. "What do you think?"

  "Scaffolding will do. Where do you plan to post up while I go in?"

  She scoffed. "I'm not posting up anywhere. I don't sit back and watch, I'll be right there with you." She glanced at him over her shoulder. "You lead the charge. I'll stay out of your way."

  He let out a small laugh, more a puff of air than a sound. Then he repeated her own words back to her. “Fine, but just so we're clear—the mission comes first. I can't afford to babysit. I need to know you can handle yourself."

  A genuine smile broke across her face, and a giggle even broke through before her hand shot up to hide it. She regained her composure and simply stated, "Very well."

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  A sleek, black sedan idled at the curb, waiting for them.

  But as Lucien reached for the door, the world stuttered. The neon signs across the street flickered and died. The sound of the city's rain vanished, replaced by the same deafening digital shriek he'd heard before. The car in front of him dissolved into a wireframe model, then back again.

  The girl next to him had completely frozen. An instant later, she vanished.

  Echo’s voice screamed in his mind, sharp with panic.

  What's happening? he thought, his hand freezing on the door handle.

  

  His HUD flashed, red system text glitching and bleeding across his vision before being overwritten by a line of bold blue.

  

  [ECHO'S DIRECTIVE OVERRIDE: Get in the car. Drive to the waypoint. I’m building us a road out of here. Don't you dare die on me, Lucien.]

  A glowing waypoint erupted in the distance, a beacon of hope miles away across the glitching cityscape.

  He leapt to the driver’s door and threw himself behind the wheel, the interior flickering between plush leather and green wireframe grid. He slammed the accelerator to the floor, and the tires shrieked against pavement that was already starting to dissolve.

  The world behind them fell into deletion.

  Buildings crumbled into waterfalls of sound and binary code. Glass towers warped, bent, then disintegrated in a rattling shriek that was equal parts static and screaming wind—like the city itself was being vacuumed into nothing. Neon billboards imploded into stuttering bursts of color that lingered for a heartbeat before vanishing.

  It felt like he was outrunning the end of the universe.

   Echo yelled in his mind.

  The road unraveled behind them in wide, jagged gulfs, the car only ever a few meters ahead of total erasure. From the dissolving walls, shapes began to crawl out—more corrupted security programs. They weren’t just mites anymore, but swollen parodies of spiders, each the size of a van. Their limbs were jagged bars of red code, the bodies clusters of tangled script, and they didn’t walk so much as lurch forward in bursts, each movement glitching the digital reality itself.

  One dropped straight into his path, its limbs gouging the road into raw static. Lucien swerved hard, the car clipping its leg with a spray of corrosive sparks that made his HUD violently flicker.

  

  [INTEGRITY: 12%]

   Echo screamed.

  He cranked the wheel, and the sedan fishtailed onto a bridge that hadn’t been there a second ago—a ribbon of luminous blue code stretched over nothingness. The whole thing groaned as if straining to exist, its surface rippling under the car’s weight.

  The swarm poured after him, claws clanging against the brittle light. One of the larger ones lunged, its hooked limb slamming down onto the trunk with a shuddering crash. The rear window cracked, and the car threatened to spin out of control, throwing them into oblivion.

  

  [INTEGRITY: 7%]

  Instinct took over, and Lucien reached out a hand, the familiar spark igniting in the back of his mind.

  

  [PULSE ACTIVATED]

  The blast erupted point-blank like a concussive thunderclap of light and sound. The creature’s claw exploded into shards of code, the rest of its body tumbling off the bridge and screaming as it dissolved into the abyss. The car whipped sideways, skidding along the thin strip of rendered light. Lucien fought the wheel, dragging it back under control just as the bridge stabilized again.

   Echo shouted.

  He exited the bridge close to the gateway, but another chasm separated him from it. The final stretch was impossible. A kilometer-wide gulf of pure static yawned ahead, the exit node pulsing faintly on the far side.

  Behind, the swarm howled—a sound like demonic, corrupted data scraping across metal, layered with the endless, shrill roar of the collapsing world. He slammed the brakes, tires squealing at the edge of nothingness. The chasm waited, black and endless.

  Uh. Echo?!

   Her voice was frayed with strain.

  The swarm was almost on them, claws reaching, the deletion roar deafening now, like the universe tearing apart one byte at a time. Lucien gripped the steering wheel, his [INTEGRITY] bar flashing red.

  A new line of code appeared from the other side of the chasm. It was clean, elegant, and fast as light. It shot across the void like a spear, weaving a stable bridge of data in its wake.

  Who—

  

  His foot slammed down on the pedal. The digital car screamed, wheels of code spinning as they took off, tires spitting blue sparks. They thundered across the miraculous bridge, the swarm of monstrous data-mites gnashing and clawing inches from the bumper.

  Where did this bridge come from? Lucien thought as they flew towards the gate.

  

  Her voice cut off as they caught sight of a figure on the other end of the bridge. It was a digital avatar, not as solid as his own memory-constructs, but clear enough. A girl in her mid-twenties. Long blonde hair with subtle pink highlights underneath. Electric blue eyes. White antennae where her ears should have been.

  It's her! The girl from the chair.

  Those electric blue eyes locked directly onto them, a fierce, confident smirk on her face. With a single nod, she dissolved into light as they passed through the gateway.

  His vision went white.

  

  [DIRECTIVE COMPLETE: ESCAPE AND EVADE]

  [NEW MAIN QUEST: LIBERATE ALLIED ASSETS]