Page 3

EON

T he steel ladder creaked underfoot, the rungs spaced at a distance that made the climb treacherous. My grip tightened, the cold of the metal soaking into my fingers as the surrounding air heated. Above me, the maintenance hatch shut with a hollow clang that echoed down the shaft.

“Don’t look down,” Taos said below me.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” I muttered, but I risked a glance anyway.

The light from above barely reached the bottom—just darkness yawning beneath us, faintly illuminated by the soft white glow of the Stellarium-infused panels that lined the walls.

The Vector that had been happy to bask in the saturated lights above cowered in the dark.

My breath started coming faster as every part of my body felt like it was vibrating.

My palms were slick with sweat and my grip on the ladder slipped.

I wrapped an arm over my current rung, trying to find a modicum of stillness.

Hot air rose up the shaft, like a great exhale from the server farm below. It was like descending into the belly of some sleeping beast.

“Almost there,” Taos called from below. She hurried, her boots clanging against the metal rungs in a steady rhythm. Right now, I envied her certainty, her enthusiasm. I may have been mildly suicidal, but I had some pride. I wasn’t about to let a ladder be the thing that did me in.

I finally found the will to move, carefully wiping one hand and then the other on my jacket before descending.

I dropped to the floor, the expanded sheet grating comfortingly solid beneath my feet.

The faint hum of servers filled the air, vibrating through the walls.

We were in a narrow maintenance corridor, barely wide enough for either of us.

“Should we expect security?”

She shook her head. “No, the other group made sure this way was clear. As long as we get through the security doors, we’re good to go.”

She led the way, her footsteps soft and measured. The corridor twisted and turned—the gut of the beast, ducts and wires snaking along the ceiling. The air smelled faintly of ozone, which I found a strange comfort in. The power inside me rose, like it knew it was coming home.

We stopped in front of a heavy metal door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY in bold red letters. Below it, a keypad blinked expectantly. Taos knelt in front of it, pulling a small device from her belt—the Chinese ICE breaker.

“This’ll just take a second,” she said, connecting it to the panel. She wasn’t wrong. Less than ten seconds later, with a quiet blip, the door before us popped open and Taos spun around with a grin. I didn’t return it. Her eyes crossed as something popped up on her Vysor.

“The boys are on their way.” Her grin faded into a frown. That wasn’t part of the plan.

We stepped into the server room. It had a low ceiling, but the space stretched out beyond imagination, no walls in sight.

Only towering racks of Stellarium-powered processors, storage, and servers were visible.

Each unit glowed faintly, their lights flickering in an endless dance of activity.

In here, the air was hot enough that sweat built on my neck, and everything thrummed with energy.

A few minutes later, I heard the hallway rattling with footsteps.

Four bodies rounded the corner, all dressed in mismatched jackets and pants, heavy with straps and pockets.

They wore the same anti-recognition masks but had painted them to look like skulls.

They looked like they’d stepped out of a virtual reality punk sim. Just kids playing rebels.

Lock stepped forward. I knew it was him from his cocky stance and the stray curls that lay over his forehead. A knife dangled casually from one hand before he flipped it in the air and caught it.

“Lock,” Taos said, her tone flat. “You’re supposed to be running interference topside.”

“Interference is boring,” Lock replied, twirling the knife lazily. “We took out all the guards—nothing to worry about. Figured we’d join you for the fun part.”

“This isn’t a group outing,” I snapped. “We don’t need you messing things up.”

His gaze flicked to me. His grin widened. “Maybe I just wanted to see the wiz in action.”

“Think you can handle me, easymode?”

The boys laughed, the sound bouncing off the server racks.

“Feisty,” one of them said, nudging Lock. “I like her.”

Taos stepped forward, her voice sharp. “We’re not here to play games. If you’re staying, you’re following my lead.”

Lock faltered for a moment, but he recovered quickly, sheathing his knife with a shrug. “Fine, fine. No need to get your circuits in a twist. Where do you want us?”

“Somewhere out of the way,” Taos muttered, turning her attention back to the sprawl of towers.

We moved deeper into the room, the glow of the servers painting the space in shifting patterns of blue and green.

Lock and his crew trailed behind, cracking jokes and making far too much noise.

I clenched my fists, resisting the urge to snap at them.

No one should be in here. The operation ran autonomously.

We’d deactivated security. We would be fine.

Taos stopped in front of a particularly dense cluster of servers, her fingers flying across her virtual keyboard as she scanned for a viable node. “This one should work,” she said finally.

Lock leaned against the server rack, crossing his arms, eyes locked on me. “What’s the plan, boss?”

“The plan,” I said, shoving past him, “is for you to shut up and let me do my job.”

Taos was already hardwiring into the port in front of us. She handed me one cable. I pulled my physical keyboard out of my jacket pocket and attached it.

“Whoa, retro,” one boy behind me murmured. I ignored him, but he wasn’t wrong. I’d dug this relic out of a trash heap and fixed it up. Something about the physicality of it kept me grounded when I was in cyberspace. The satisfying clack my nails made as I worked only made it better.

I placed my hand on the server, and with my Flux, I felt the activity inside. Electrons flowed like blood, and I was here to rip out its heart. The electricity inside me flared, and I heard a gasp behind me as sparks arced from my skin to the server.

“Bet you wish you had Flux like that, huh?” Lock teased Taos.

She crossed her arms and glared at him.

I shook out my hands. Focus. I pushed the raw power down and instead let the electricity within the server dominate.

I let it guide me, mold me, instead of fighting it.

My Flux made me malleable, adaptable like no other cyberrunner could be.

I felt the flow of electrons in each transistor—a language only I could speak.

All around us, the Stellarium lines glowed with their perfect, clean power. If Stellarium was the city’s blood, then the Net was its nervous system, carrying data everywhere at once. This data center was the brain—and right now, it was all mine.

I sat down on the floor, legs crossed, keyboard on my lap.

The warmth of the tower spread through my forehead as I leaned against it.

My body relaxed as my Vysor flashed in front of my eyes.

The faint pink glow clashed with the blue of the servers, but I was in a world beyond.

Cyberspace spread out before my eyes, its infinite void slowly populating with glowing lights that represented the maze of data before me.

Towers of shifting code in every color rendered, spread over an ocean of memory.

As technology boomed after the discovery of Stellarium, cyberspace had been created for more people to interface with the Net without technical knowledge.

For those with the skills, however, it was a world of limitless possibilities.

I’d always felt out of place in the physical, like I never belonged anywhere.

In here, I was everything. Spread before me was one of—if not the —most powerful networks in the world, and it was mine to command.

Nothing had ever felt better. Not drugs, not sex, nothing. I let out a sigh and let everything else fade away.

I heard Taos’ voice, and it felt like a dream, both real and not.

“Installing the ICE breaker now. You should see it in three, two, one…”

The programmer who had written this ICE breaker code was a pervert.

The program appeared beside me. The avatar was a six-foot-tall woman with enormous breasts and an outfit that was a horribly offensive bastardization of a qipao, covered in scales and snakes.

Around her, a giant serpent of pure light wove through the virtual space.

A few strokes on my keyboard, and we were moving. Terabytes of data flashed by in an instant, but nothing I wanted. I pulled up my program, much less flashy than the one beside me. Threads of purple light spread around me, searching for their quarry.

“Damn, she’s fast.”

Fucking idiots. I felt them now, trailing me in cyberspace. I wrapped a firewall around them with a few more keystrokes. I heard complaints but ignored them. They could watch, but no touching.

A tug on one of my threads. My program had found something.

We flew through beams of light and code to a directory labeled Experimental Tech , a glowing orb tethered by intricate pathways of firewalls and proxy nodes.

At the center, a rotating cube pulsed with ominous red light—ICE, Corp-grade, aggressive, and far too advanced for a standard breach.

I smirked. “Easymode.”

The light serpent materialized beside me, its body rippling with digital scales. The creature’s eyes glowed violet as it slithered toward the cube, coiling around it with predatory grace.

The ICE reacted instantly, its edges flaring like a star going nova. Spikes of red light shot out, but the serpent darted between them, its movements impossibly fluid. Bit by bit, the ICE cracked, its surface fracturing under the serpent’s relentless assault.

Damn, at least they got their money’s worth on this one.