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The cube shattered with a soundless explosion, and we surged forward, diving through the open pathway. Behind us, fragments of the broken ICE reassembled—too late.

“We’re in,” Taos’ voice said.

We landed in the data repository, a vast chamber of shifting walls and floating archives.

Each one was a glowing shard containing terabytes of classified information.

Purple streams of light pulsed through it all.

The noise of the server room hummed in my ears.

This wasn’t going fast enough. The longer we lingered, the greater the risk of detection.

The soft beams of light hardened, jerking and fracturing as my Flux melded with them, speeding them up, looking for any echo of the data we needed.

There—a cluster of files marked with POM’s classified tag, their headers glowing ominously. One strike of lightning, and a cascade of images and diagrams burst into life around me.

Blueprints for wearable tech. A prototype for a portable field generator that could absorb and redirect massive kinetic impacts.

I heard whooping from the gang of boys, then I felt it.

A presence—a shadow that moved just beyond my reach.

I tried to follow it, but it was like trying to catch smoke in your hands.

It wasn’t like any other signal I’d ever seen before.

My Flux drew me toward it, like I was magnetized, being pulled out of orbit.

A warning flared in my program, and I let the shadow go. I checked my firewall, where I had trapped the group. The boys’ digital avatars still sat happily inside, but Taos…

“What the hell are you doing?”

She’d gotten out while I’d been searching and was messing around in the directory, pulling file after file manually, absorbed completely.

My screen lit up with angry red warnings: Unauthorized Access Detected and Security Measures Activated.

A counterattack program was already launching, fast and aggressive, its algorithms clawing at my code. The purple lightning shredded, dissipating into the virtual space. Now we were all insects in a spider’s web, and I had to hope I was fast enough to escape before its fangs sank in.

Corporate-level, all right.

My fingers flew. I fired off a decoy algorithm, letting it mimic my signal and draw the program’s attention while I got us out of here.

The program adapted, and the decoy burned out. A firewall snapped shut behind me, locking me into a corner of the system. A trap.

Not bad.

I launched a spike program to crack the encryption holding me in place. The firewall shattered, but the system retaliated—a worm program bore down, seeking to trace my location.

In cyberspace, it was massive, like something from an old storybook. I heard swearing from the boys. We weren’t in any physical danger, but if the worm locked our location down, no doubt POM would send security before we could leave this room. Security—or worse.

I threw up a firewall, but the worm broke through instantly. Fuck .

That’s when I felt the Flux in my blood thrumming, and I didn’t hold it back.

A surge shot through me, and I twisted the electrical field, shrinking it down into a controlled pulse.

I compressed it smaller and smaller until it swept through the transistors of the server—a micro-EMP.

The worm program fragmented. My program swept the remnants, ensuring every trace was gone. No echoes, no backups. Nothing.

My fingers flew across the keys, severing connections, rerouting our location through proxies. The system fought back, trying to chase me, an immune response to a toxic invader.

With a few keystrokes and a surge from my Flux, we found ourselves outside the ICE again, leaving the barrier intact as if it had never been broken.

I scraped the Vysor off my face, coming back to full reality with a hard jolt. Hands caught me as I fell backward—Lock’s hands.

“Damn, that was pretty fucking cool.” He helped me stand up.

“What the fuck were you—” I started, but Taos waved her hand at me.

“Annnnnd, the file is uploaded. We got it, E! We fucking got it!”

She pulled me into an embrace, and I was still reeling from adrenaline, so I didn’t fight it. She pulled back, and Lock grabbed my shoulder to steady me.

“That was some damn good work, Eon,” he said, and I saw the corners of his eyes crinkle up in a smile.

“We’re gonna be unstoppable with you! It’s going to be a whole new world.

” His eyes lit up, and something in me cracked.

More whoops and cheers from the rest of the group, and the corner of my mouth twitched up.

A shot rang over the white noise of the servers, and something wet hit my face. Gore oozed from Lock’s forehead as he fell to his knees and hit the ground with a sickening thud .

No. Not again.

“Security!” Arms wrapped around me and threw me to the ground as more shots rang out, sparks flying from the servers. The acrid smell of ozone and scorched metal filled the air, mixing with the copper tang of blood. I hit the ground hard.

Above me, chaos erupted. Shouts of panic were barely audible over the barrage of gunfire. Shadows darted between the server stacks, the flickering neon lights casting jagged silhouettes that only made the confusion worse.

I scrambled to my feet, my head spinning. A hand grabbed my arm—Taos, her face pale, eyes wide with fear.

“We have to move!” she yelled.

I nodded, but before we could run, a deafening crash made me freeze. One of the server stacks toppled, cables snapping like whips as it smashed to the ground. Standing where it had been was a horde of POM Security forces.

POM Enterprises, whose business was data and data security.

They’d leaned into the security aspect. Each of them was massive, encased in sleek black tactical armor that gleamed with an unnatural, liquid sheen.

Helmets with tactical Vysors and vented face coverings obscured them completely.

Twin stripes of green ran down their chests and over their shoulders.

Vector, directly injected in a steady stream.

How had they found us? I’d made sure there was no trace in the system. That didn’t matter now.

Their movements were fluid, perfectly trained. The joints of their armor hissed softly as they scanned the room.

I ducked behind a stack of servers, pulling Taos with me. My heart was pounding, the Vector and Flux in my system screaming. Electricity jumped from my hand to the server near me, and then shots rang out, the impact hitting the metal just beside me.

Footsteps—dozens of them—echoed through the space as more soldiers filed in. We didn’t stand a chance.

I pressed myself tighter against the server stack, my breath coming in shallow gasps. Across the room, I saw one of Taos’ guys—a skinny kid whose name I didn’t know—huddling on the floor, shaking so violently I could see it from my position.

Kids, they were just fucking kids. Scared shitless and in way over their heads.

The kid raised his gun up over his head and fired indiscriminately.

To his credit, the bullets shot right at the nearest security asset, but they all froze in midair as a deep yellow light flashed around the soldier.

Kinetic Shield, doing what it did best. The bullets fell with a clatter that sounded more like a death knell.

The asset didn’t hesitate. He raised his rifle and fired a single, precise shot. The kid crumpled, his body twitching once before going still.

Taos stifled a sob beside me, her hand clamped over her mouth. I grabbed her arm and pulled her further into the maze of servers, weaving through the narrow aisles as quietly as I could.

We found the other two in a small alcove between two stacks and ducked inside. The space was barely big enough for us, but it was dark and out of sight—for now. I could hear them coming.

I raised a finger to my lips, and they all nodded.

All of their eyes were on me, shining.

“When I say run, you scatter, got it?”

From our hiding spot, I could hear security methodically sweeping the room. They moved like predators, their movements deliberate and unhurried. One of them paused near our alcove, and I heard the soft click of his weapon.

I held my breath, my pulse hammering in my ears.

But deep down, my Flux sang. My whole life I’d controlled it, kept it quiet.

I fumbled for my VaPurr and took a long hit until the fear subsided and there was only the surge—and dumb fucking bravado.

No point in being quiet now. Heroes always died in Neo Stellaris. Guess I was finally getting my wish.

“Now!” I yelled.

I slammed my hands into the server between us and the oncoming army. I poured all the voltage I could muster. It exploded in a shower of sparks and flames as the circuits overloaded.

Gunshots and footsteps rang out as Taos’ gang scattered. I ran in the opposite direction, hitting every server tower as I ran.

The chain reaction lit up the room like a fireworks display, each server I struck erupting into a burst of sparks and flame. The air grew thick with smoke and the acrid stench of melting circuitry.

Behind me was the rhythmic thud of boots, the hiss of armor joints. Security wasn’t scrambling like we were. They weren’t panicking. They were hunting. I just hoped they were hunting me.

A shot whizzed past my head, slamming into a server and sending shards of metal and glass spraying in every direction. I ducked instinctively, my breath coming in ragged gasps as I rounded a corner.

Ahead of me, a narrow gap between two server stacks beckoned. Without thinking, I dove into it, squeezing into the cramped space. The edges of the metal scraped my arms, and the heat from the nearby electrical fires made the air stifling.

I could hear them closing in now, their footsteps slower but deliberate. The soft whir of their helmets scanning the area sent a chill down my spine.

Let the others have made it out. Let them keep following me.

Then: “Unit six, report.”

The asset straightened, his head tilting slightly.