My lungs were on fire. Every breath was a ragged, desperate gasp, the air of the pristine city streets feeling too thin, too sterile. Nara was a terrifyingly light weight in my arms, her small body trembling, her face buried in my shoulder, her arms locked around my neck in a grip of pure, silent terror.
Behind me, I heard the crash. The sound of a heavy, stone table being splintered into kindling, followed by the deep, resonant roar of Valerius's fury. Then, the sound of pursuit. The thundering, impossibly heavy footsteps of a golem-like man and the lighter, more agile, four-limbed lope of a wolf-man. They were coming.
I had 4.7 seconds. It was a gift from a machine that had learned to betray its own logic, and I wasn't going to waste it.
I didn't run toward the main plaza. That was a trap, an open killing field. I was a scout. I was a glitch. I had to think like one. I ducked into the first narrow maintenance alley I saw, a gap between two towering Administrator buildings.
A high, piercing wail, like a siren, suddenly echoed across the entire city. An alert. A city-wide alert. My blood ran cold. Krauss wasn't just sending his summons after me. He had declared me a fugitive. He had unleashed the system.
I could hear the metallic clang-clang-clang of new pursuers. Administrator Sentinels. The city's cold, logical, and brutally efficient police force. They would be at every major intersection. They would be locking down the gates.
"Hold on," I whispered to Nara, my voice a strained grunt.
I was trapped in the alley. It was a dead end, a sheer, twenty-foot wall of white stone. The clanging was getting closer.
I put Nara down for a second. "Turn your face. Cover your ears."
She did, not questioning, just obeying. I slammed my hand against the wall. The white binds inside me, the cage the Founders had built, screamed in protest. I felt the echo of Helias Rogue, the caged beast, slam against its bars.
It was no good. I couldn't break the wall. But I didn't need to.
I focused. I remembered Elara's words. Data-flow. Frayed code. Instability. I wasn't in the Builder's Core anymore. This was a different sector. I closed my eyes and felt the wall, just as I had on my first day of training. I searched for the weak point, the place where the data was thin, where the structural integrity was a lie.
I found it. A single, loose "pixel" in the code of the world.
I didn't punch it. I kicked it. My boot struck a non-descript stone near the base. It crumbled, not like rock, but like a corrupted file disintegrating. A hole appeared. I kicked again, and the wall gave way, a cascade of stone and dust. I had just glitched my way through the city's architecture.
I grabbed Nara, dove through the hole, and didn't look back.
We were in another, darker alley. The sounds of the Sentinels faded behind us, confused. But I wasn't safe. I was a walking beacon. This black-and-gold cloak... Silas's cloak... it was a Faction uniform. It was a target on my back.
I slid to a halt. With Nara still in one arm, I tore the clasp at my neck. The heavy, beautiful cloak, the symbol of my new purpose, slid from my shoulders and fell to the grimy street. It was the last piece of my old life, my old identity. I left it there, a shed skin, a ghost in the alley.
Now I was just a man in a plain tunic, carrying a child. I was just another piece of the city's debris.
I ran, my legs burning, my lungs aching. I used the back-alleys, the maintenance tunnels, the places where the city's pristine mask slipped, and its inner workings were exposed. I was no longer an inspector. I was a rat in the walls, and I was heading for the only part of the city that welcomed rats.
The grand archway of the Neutral Sector was not a gateway; it was a wound. A line in the data where the city's lifeblood, its light, its very order, just stopped. I crossed the threshold, and the difference was immediate. The ambient, blue-light hum of the city died, replaced by a cold, oppressive silence. The air was heavier, tinged with the smell of rust, damp, and despair.
It was dark. The sun was still high, but the buildings were so tall and pressed so closely together that only a thin, grey sliver of sky was visible. The only light came from flickering chemical lamps and the orange, hungry glow of burn-barrels.
The people in the shadows watched me pass. Their faces were gaunt, their eyes hollow, their expressions a cold, hard mix of suspicion and apathy. I was new. I was running. I was carrying a prize. I was prey.
I was no longer being hunted by gods and their perfect, logical machines. I was now being stalked by desperate, hungry men.
I pushed deeper, moving away from the "border," where Faction patrols, as rare as they were, might still venture. I needed shelter. I needed a place to think.
I found it. A collapsing hovel, its front door kicked in, its metal roof half-eaten by rust. It was one of the dozens of structurally-unsound buildings I had been meant to log for repair. The irony was a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth. My new home was a place I had previously condemned.
I slipped inside, kicking the door half-shut behind me. It was dark, a single, grime-caked window offering almost no light. But it was private. It was, for now, safe.
I slid to the floor, my back against the crumbling plaster wall, and finally, finally, set Nara down. She didn't move away. She immediately scrambled into my lap, huddling against my chest, her small body still trembling.
The full, crushing weight of my new reality slammed into me.
I was a fugitive. My faction, my home, the only place I had felt a sense of belonging, was now hunting me. Krauss, the man who had saved my life, now wanted me "subdued." Lyra, Valerius, Fen... they were my enemies. Erina and Miyuri were Faction members; they would be ordered to hunt me, too. I was completely, utterly alone.
I checked my weapon. The standard-issue magun was heavy, its energy pack full. It was a pathetic defense against a Founder, but against the thugs in this sector, it was a king's weapon.
I reached inside myself, feeling for the echo. It was there, a caged, silent monster, bound by the Founders' white chains. I was declawed, my ultimate weapon sealed away.
And I was protecting the city's public enemy number one. The plague. The blight. The sentient virus wearing a child's face.
I looked down at Nara. She had fallen into an exhausted, fitful sleep in my lap, her small hand clutching a piece of my tunic. I felt her breath, warm and even. I saw the biscuit crumbs still clinging to the corner of her mouth.
A mimic.A Trojan horse.A key screaming for its lock.
Krauss's words were logical. They were sound. They were a perfect, unassailable fortress of reason.
But as I looked at her sleeping, defenseless face, as I felt the warmth of her small body, I knew, with an illogical, defiant, and deeply human certainty, that he was wrong. Or, if he was right... I didn't care.
The system is wrong.
Silas had died for this. Lyra had betrayed her master for this. They hadn't made a logical choice. They had made a human one. They had chosen a person over a protocol. And I would honor that. I would not let their sacrifices be for nothing.
This was my new faction. It was a faction of two. A glitched player and an impossible child.
My resolve hardened. I was no longer a Builder. I was no longer a scout. I was just a shield.
Nara's breathing evened out, and she slipped into a deeper sleep. I gently shifted her so I could reach my pocket. I pulled out the small, torn fragment of parchment. The piece of the archive I had stolen.
The Core Foundation.
This was the key. This was the prison. This was the why. If I could understand this, maybe I could... I didn't even know. Prove she wasn't a monster? Free the blight? Destroy it? I was in over my head, a man with a single, cryptic clue in a world of secrets.
A floorboard creaked outside the door.
My hand snapped to my magun, my body going rigid. I held my breath. The hovel, which had felt like a sanctuary, suddenly felt like a trap.
More footsteps. A small group. They weren't trying to be quiet.
The rotted door was pushed open with a loud, scraping groan. I raised my magun, my arm steady, my finger on the trigger, my body shielding Nara.
Three, no, four gaunt figures stood silhouetted against the dim, grey light of the street. They were residents of the Neutral Sector, their clothes in tatters, their faces thin and hard. Scavengers. Thugs. Come to pick clean the new arrivals.
"Just... walk away," I warned, my voice a low growl. "I'm not in the mood."
The figures stepped forward, into the dim light. It wasn't a gang of thugs. It was an old woman, her face a road map of wrinkles, and three younger, wary-looking men, armed with pipes and rebar. They looked like a neighborhood watch. A desperate, starving, and very dangerous neighborhood watch.
The old woman's eyes scanned the room, landing on my magun, then on me. Her gaze was sharp, suspicious. Then... her eyes dropped to the sleeping child in my lap.
Her face, which had been a mask of hard-won survival, collapsed. Her eyes went wide, not with fear, but with a sudden, impossible, dawning recognition.
"It's..." she whispered, her voice a dry, disbelieving rasp. She took a half-step forward, her hand, thin and shaking, reaching out. "By the Founders... it's her."
The men behind her tensed, their knuckles white on their makeshift weapons.
"It's the child," the old woman breathed, her eyes now locked on Nara's sleeping face. "The child from the wall. She's back. She's finally back."