I collapsed onto my bed the moment I reached my apartment, every fiber of my being aching and my mind utterly drained. What a truly bizarre day it had been.

  The mystery of the missing Soul refused to leave me. I ran a quick diagnostic on my Receptacle, only to receive the same disheartening result: completely empty. Perplexed, I ran the procedure three more times, each yielding identical findings—an empty vessel, primed and ready to receive a new Soul.

  I tried an advanced diagnostic next, hoping for more detailed results. The last time I'd run this deeper scan, it had shown a small percentage of space occupied and that strange Soul ID: N1110VVH11. But this time, the advanced diagnostic confirmed what the basic one had shown—completely empty, as if the Soul had never been there at all.

  But I distinctly remembered that strange ID filling my Receptacle, a memory that now stood in stark contrast to the empty status report. The contradiction unsettled me in ways I couldn't articulate.

  Too disoriented to make sense of it, I decided to put these mysteries aside until morning. Tomorrow, I'd visit Boz, my NeuroDoc, to fix my damaged cybernetic legs and hopefully solve the enigma surrounding this bizarre Soul transfer.

  Another headache lanced through my mind, a final reminder of the day's tumultuous events. Despite the pain, exhaustion claimed me, pulling me into the dark embrace of sleep.

  Time was running out. I pivoted, fingers expertly unplugging the memory stick from the terminal. It was a primitive method of data transfer, but desperate circumstances demanded it. Storing this information internally would have painted a target on my back.

  With the monitor now dark, I headed for the exit. Just as I reached the door, an unexpected figure appeared. Liam—my lab partner, my trusted colleague, my friend.

  "You can't do this, Noah. It's reckless and will mean trouble for both of us," he insisted.

  "Liam, I have no choice anymore. What MainFrame is doing—it's unforgivable. The moral implications alone—"

  "But your evidence is far from conclusive. It's built on fragments, at best," Liam countered.

  He had a point—a thread of undeniable truth. But what MainFrame was perpetrating against the very essence of human existence had to be exposed. The world deserved to know.

  I gently but firmly moved past him, continuing toward the exit. His voice called after me, pleading for me to stop. I glanced back; worry lines creased his forehead, mirroring my own concerns. Nevertheless, I continued.

  Liam Foster, my dear friend, forgive me.

  As I stepped into the elevator, I pressed the button for the lobby. My gaze lingered on the MainFrame logo etched into the metal above the floor indicator—symbol of an organization that had unknowingly entrapped me for eighteen years.

  Eighteen years. A lifetime commitment to a cause I believed righteous. Unwittingly, for eighteen years, I had been complicit in MainFrame's covert operations.

  The elevator arrived at the lobby, doors sliding open to reveal four security guards, weapons trained on me. The situation had escalated faster than I'd anticipated.

  "Wait..." I implored, the word hanging heavy in the tense silence.

  "What the hell was that?"

  I bolted upright in bed, hand instinctively reaching for my throbbing head. Was it a dream? Or a glimpse into Noah's memories?

  Through my window, the sun struggled to pierce the perpetual haze enshrouding ToxCity. I checked the time: 9:49. I'd slept nearly six hours.

  That dream—or memory—continued to gnaw at me. It seemed too detailed, too precise to be a simple fabrication of my exhausted mind. Names, faces, emotions—all rendered with unsettling clarity. Had Noah actually worked for MainFrame? I tried to dismiss it as just stress-induced imagination after everything that had happened, but some part of me knew better. I felt my grasp on reality slipping.

  Seeking normalcy, I rose from the bed, muscles protesting. I made my way to the refrigerator, its soft hum a welcome distraction from my racing thoughts. I retrieved a cold bottle of water and drained it in several long swallows.

  As the refreshing chill spread through my system, I examined my legs. They still bore the scars of yesterday's ordeal—scorched and damaged beyond simple repair.

  There was only one person to call: Boz, my NeuroDoc.

  NeuroDocs represented the evolution of medicine in our age. In an era where humanity had fused with machinery, these practitioners were more engineers than doctors. They had relinquished much of their humanity for mechanical appendages that enabled them to perform repairs ranging from simple prosthetics to complex brain enhancements and software modifications. While most NeuroDocs were licensed professionals, ToxCity harbored its share of underground practitioners who patched together individuals for meager credits. These renegade NeuroDocs also trafficked in human body parts, operating in both legal and black-market transactions, often finding clients in the shadowy realm of Neon Underground.

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  My heads-up display activated as I placed the call. The connection established, projecting Boz's image onto my field of vision. He was an older man, likely in his fifties, bearing the distinctive hallmark of his profession—a cybernetic implant replacing the entire upper portion of his face. His metallic skull featured five optical sensors: two small ones on each side and a larger central unit that constantly shifted as he spoke.

  "Boz, I need repairs," I began. "My legs sustained extensive damage during a job yesterday. Are you at your shop?"

  "Alright, sure. Come by now, and I'll see you immediately," he responded, his cybernetic optics shifting continuously as he spoke.

  "On my way," I acknowledged, ending the call.

  Boz also resided in Red Fusion and had been my primary NeuroDoc since I became a Courier. Nearly every augmentation I'd made to my body had passed through his expert hands. He had even reprogrammed my original leg overdrive, pushing it beyond factory specifications. Fortunately, his shop was only minutes from my apartment.

  Less than ten minutes later, I arrived at Bozanza, as the enormous sign on its fa?ade loudly proclaimed to anyone nearby. I pushed open the creaking door and stepped inside.

  Boz's shop was a chaotic amalgamation of mechanical and technological components—a labyrinthine realm only he could navigate effectively. The dimly lit space spanned roughly ten meters square, crammed from floor to ceiling with metallic limbs, artificial spines, and an assortment of other mechanical wonders. Cables and wires snaked across the floor and dangled ominously from above. At the back of the room sat his counter, the only well-lit area in the shop. I made my way toward it.

  "Hey Bozman, thanks for seeing me so quickly," I greeted him.

  "Of course, always there for my favorite paying customer," he replied with an oversized grin.

  I harbored no illusions about our relationship. Boz and I weren't friends. Despite knowing him for over two years, it was evident that greed outweighed camaraderie in his character. However, since becoming a Courier, he had been my go-to NeuroDoc, and he was exceptionally skilled at his trade.

  I showed him my damaged legs and arms, each still bearing the marks of last night's harrowing escapade.

  "Well, well, well, this ain't pretty. The legs' motors are fried, beyond repair too," he observed, taking a long drag from his cigarette. The ember glowed bright orange in the dim shop, casting eerie shadows across his metallic face as smoke swirled around his optical sensors.

  Moving closer, his optics zoomed in and out, scanning the extent of the damage. "I need to hook you up to be absolutely sure, but it doesn't look good, my friend," he added.

  I nodded and followed him behind the counter. At the back of the room stood a NeuroDoc chair, reminiscent of a dentist's contraption but far more sinister. Cables hung above it, adorned with an assortment of intimidating apparatus. Mechanical arms extended from both sides like some grotesque, oversized metal insect lying on its back.

  I reclined in the chair.

  "Gonna run a quick diag', alright? Let's see what we're dealing with," Boz explained.

  He connected the chair to my neural interface at the base of my skull. An intricate holographic keyboard materialized before him, following his gestures as he typed.

  "Hmmm," he muttered, gaze darting between the keyboard and my body. "Yeah, we're going to have to replace most of the motors, and the radiators are completely fried. You went over the limit, huh?"

  I nodded in confirmation.

  "Okay, this is going to take a good two hours or so to fix, mate, and it ain't cheap," he said, a mischievous grin stretching across his face.

  "I figured," I responded. "How much are we talking here, Boz?"

  He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, taking another long drag from his cigarette until the ember nearly touched his fingers. A brief silence hung in the air before he finally responded, smoke escaping his lips with each word, "With the minor arm repairs and your chest fix included, I'll do it for 8,000 credits, just for you, my friend."

  The sum seemed substantial, but I was aware of my legs' dire condition. Boz, though profit-driven, was both competent and relatively honest—at least by ToxCity standards.

  "Do it," I agreed, authorizing the wireless transfer. "But before you get to work, could you help me inspect my Receptacle?"

  "Receptacle?" he inquired, appearing perplexed. "There's not much I can do about that. It's MainFrame proprietary, and if anything's gone wrong, you'll need to contact those greedy folks."

  Boz's disdain for MainFrame's avarice was not lost on me, but he spoke the truth. Any repairs to a Courier's Receptacle had to be performed by MainFrame engineers, at a cost that bordered on astronomical.

  "I just want you to run a quick diagnostic—nothing more," I clarified.

  He nodded and began tapping on the keyboard.

  "Oh, damn," he suddenly exclaimed. "Your Receptacle is fried. Deep-fried."

  "What do you mean?" I asked, anxiety growing.

  "Well, it's in a bizarre state. It registers as empty, yet the RAM is full, and its storage is locked," Boz explained, furrowing his brow.

  He extracted a fresh cigarette from his pocket and brought it to his lips. Leaning forward, he touched its tip to the glowing ember of his nearly-finished one, inhaling deeply until the new cigarette caught. Only then did he flick the old butt away, the entire ritual performed with practiced efficiency without breaking his concentration. He paused for a moment and began typing feverishly, a constant stream of smoke rising above his head.

  "It's as if something else has taken control. It's not allowing any data to be written to it. The system is locked, and it even seems to have booted out MainFrame's OS!"

  I was shocked. The Receptacle relied on MainFrame OS for everything—from downloads and maintenance to uploads. It operated on an independent system, separate from the Courier's own neural interface.

  "What do you mean the OS has been booted out?" I questioned.

  "Something's gone seriously wrong," Boz replied, shaking his head. "None of the commands are working, except for basic diagnostics. I've been pinging the OS, but there's been no response. Even the diagnostic results are suspect—they're like text instead of actual data."

  Boz swiveled his head toward me, his optics zooming in until they were just centimeters from my face.

  "Did you get your head smashed in or something?" he inquired.

  "No," I replied. "Not that I'm aware of."

  He scratched his chin, moving behind me to inspect my scalp.

  "It's likely that you got hit pretty bad," he began. "I think you'll need to replace it."

  "Replace it?" I exclaimed.

  "Yeah, your Receptacle is dead—beyond repair. It's offline."

  Receptacles were on loan to Couriers, similar to a Deciton for factory workers. The installation cost was exorbitant, and damaging one beyond repair would incur a colossal expense. Couriers had to purchase the damaged unit at full price and then enter into a new loan agreement for a replacement.

  "Are you sure?" I asked, clinging to a glimmer of hope.

  "Yep," he confirmed.

  "Thanks, Boz. Let's proceed with the other repairs, and I'll address the Receptacle later," I decided.

  He nodded, and I reclined in the chair, my vision fading as Boz began the process of shutting down my internal systems for the repairs. It always felt like dying—a gradual darkening at the edges of consciousness, the world slipping away until there was nothing but blackness. The last thing I saw was Boz's face, illuminated by the cherry-red glow of his cigarette, before consciousness abandoned me completely.