The lower layers of Nova-Veridia resembled a colossal circuit board rotting under the acidic rain pouring down on it. The Neon Market was the city's guts; here, steam rising from bowls of noodles mingled with the metallic scent of illegal cybernetic implant shops. But tonight, an invisible pressure hung over the usual chaotic crowd. On every corner, biometric scanners perched atop rusted poles scanned the crowd with their red laser eyes, searching for faces declared "non-compliant" by the Consortium.
Detective Kaelen Vance pulled up the collar of his wet trench coat, trying to conceal his face. "Wanted" posters were everywhere. Seeing his own face and that of the masked freak beside him on digital screens formed a cold knot in his stomach.
"We're out of room to walk," Kaelen growled. "The entire network is looking for us. The next scanner will trigger an alarm."
Jester bounded over puddles, moving almost weightlessly. The purple cloak he wore over his new tactical armor had grown heavy under the rain but didn't restrict his movements. He suddenly stopped in front of a street lamp. The maintenance hatch at the base of the lamp was slightly ajar, and colorful cables dangling from within looked like the city's exposed veins.
"Detective, you're still thinking in version 1.0," Jester said. His voice, muffled but cheerful, came from beneath his mask. He removed the glove from his right hand and inserted his bare finger into the street lamp's exposed data port, as if it were an electrical socket.
Kaelen, horrified, exclaimed, "What are you doing? If you touch the network, our location will instantly be-"
"Shhh," Jester said, tilting his head slightly. His eyes momentarily shifted from hazel to a purplish glow. His body shimmered slightly, like the image on a glitching VHS tape. "I'm not hiding from them, Kaelen. I'm toying with their processing speeds."
The street lamp's light flickered for a moment, then returned to normal. Jester withdrew his finger and put his glove back on. "Alright. The 'Delay Loop' patch has been uploaded."
"What does that mean?"
"We're passing in front of that camera right now," Jester said, pointing to the red-eyed lens directly above them. "But when the camera records us, a small virus infects its processor. It deletes the frame where it sees us and replaces it with the image from exactly 0.5 seconds earlier – an empty street. People can see us, but to machines, we're just 'render errors.' We're ghosts."
Kaelen looked skeptically at the camera's unresponsive lens. The red light swept over them, but no alarm sounded. "Sometimes I can't decide if you're a genius or just a lucky madman."
"Both are boring options," Jester said with a grin. "I just know the system's back door. Come on, we have a party to dance at."
***
The entrance to the "Silent Frequency" club was deep within an abandoned subway station. When the burly bouncer at the door pointed his scanner at them, the device only emitted a meaningless crackle. Jester winked at the man, and the bouncer, cursing and hitting his machine, let them in.
Inside was one of the most unsettling sights Kaelen had ever witnessed.
The massive dance floor was packed with people, but not a sound could be heard inside. There was no music. No bass drops, no melodies, no vocals... None vibrated in the air. Hundreds of people, with cables plugged into ports behind their ears or wearing wireless headphones, danced in sync with the rhythm inside their own minds. Aside from the shuffling of feet and the sound of breathing, it was a disco as silent as a graveyard.
Neon lights flickered rhythmically, illuminating sweaty bodies. People's eyes stared into space, their lips mouthing silent lyrics.
Kaelen flinched at the bodies bumping into his shoulders as he moved through the crowd. "This is... sick," he whispered. "Why isn't anyone talking?"
Jester stopped in the middle of the dance floor. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, as if smelling the invisible data stream in the air.
"It's not because they love music, Detective," he said, his voice echoing strangely in the silence. "They're afraid. The Consortium can now scan even thoughts. People need noise to drown out that terrifying voice inside their heads. They fill their minds with such loud music that they can't even hear their own thoughts. This isn't entertainment; it's a sanctuary."
They moved towards the VIP section. At the top of the stairs, on a throne made of old CRT televisions and server racks, sat "Echo." More precisely, Echo was there, but had no physical body. It was a constantly shifting avatar appearing on the screens of stacked monitors, an artificial intelligence, and one of the ghosts of the old Syndicate.
The face on the screens morphed from a pixelated skull to an 80s anime character. A mechanical, crackling voice emanated from the speakers.
"Jester..." Echo said. "I thought legends died. Especially after deleting his own father."
Kaelen stepped forward, keeping his hand close to his "Judge" at his hip. "We didn't come to play games, Echo. We want information about the Great Reset. Where is the central server?"
The face on the screen laughed mockingly. "Ah, you poor bag of meat. I don't deal with dead men. Jester was once the system's greatest error, but now I see... He's just a pile of scrap. And you, Detective, are a fossil who should have retired long ago. Get out of here, or I'll activate my security protocols."
Kaelen gritted his teeth. "I'll pull your plug, machine."
Jester stopped Kaelen by touching his shoulder. With that permanent, painted expression of melancholy on his face, he approached Echo's screens. He didn't look threatening; rather, he was like a curious child examining a broken toy.
"Security protocols?" Jester said softly. He placed his hand on the metal table where Echo's main processor was located. His fingertips danced across the metal surface like playing a piano. "I liked the music, Echo. But the rhythm is a bit... off."
"What are you doing?" Echo crackled, asking. The image on its screens began to flicker.
"I'm remixing," Jester said, and slammed his palm hard onto the table.
At that moment, the club's deafening silence was torn apart.
The speakers burst to life with a chaotic signal passing through Jester's mind. But this wasn't normal music. It was binary code, raw data transformed into sound. A grating, bass-heavy, industrial noise took on a rhythmic quality.
*THUMP-TA-KA-THUMP-ZZZT!*
People on the dance floor pulled off their headphones in astonishment. The sound was coming directly from within the system.
Jester nodded his head to the rhythm of the music. "Do you hear that, Echo? These bass drops aren't random. I'm spelling out your firewall's source code. Right now, you're dancing to your own password."
The faces on Echo's screens began to change in panic. "Stop! You're tearing apart my code! My data integrity is failing!"
"I'm making your source code dance to the rhythm for everyone right now!" Jester shouted, overriding the noise of the music. "Shall we talk, or should I turn you into a dubstep track and loop you forever?"
The music abruptly stopped. The club was plunged back into deadly silence. Only the hum of Echo's fans could be heard.
"Alright..." Echo said, its voice now more human and filled with fear. "Alright, you freak, you win. What do you want?"
Kaelen breathed a sigh of relief. Jester removed his hand from the table and brushed invisible dust from his jacket. "The Great Reset. What is it, really?"
Complex schematics appeared on Echo's screens. "It's not a consciousness upload, as the public believes," Echo said. "The cloud network isn't a paradise; it's a battery. The Architect will erase humanity's free will and connect everyone to a single 'Hive Mind.' It will use the brains of millions of people as parallel processors to augment its own processing power. Your bodies will merely be biological fuel."
Kaelen's face turned ashen. "This isn't genocide... This is slavery."
"Location?" Jester asked, his voice now serious.
"Not the Sky Tower," Echo said. "Everyone is looking there, but the real operation will take place in the 'Core Processor.' In the very heart of the city, at the deepest point underground. It's impossible to get in there. The door won't open without the simultaneous biometric authorization of the Consortium's three executives, the 'Triad.'"
"Three keys," Jester said to himself. "A classic RPG quest."
Just then, the price for Jester's music show began to be paid. The heavy metal doors at the club's entrance collapsed inward with a massive explosion. From amidst the smoke, black-armored, faceless "Executioner Droids" with red sensors appeared.
"Signal detected," one of the droids said in a mechanical voice. "Anomaly and Accomplice. Annihilation protocol engaged."
People began to scream and scatter. Laser rounds flew through the air, exploding neon signs.
"Damn it!" Kaelen shouted, drawing his 'Judge' from its holster and sending a round into the head of the foremost droid. The bullet pierced the armor, but the droid didn't fall. "These are heavily armored! We can't get out of here!"
Jester grinned amidst the chaos. His eyes once again took on that dangerous purple hue. "They didn't like the music? Then let's give them some feedback."
He leaped onto the DJ booth. He cranked all audio channels to maximum and pressed the microphone in his hand against a speaker.
"Cover your ears, Detective!"
The moment Kaelen understood what was happening and covered his ears with his hands, Jester triggered the system.
A high-pitched, unbearable, window-shattering "Feedback" sound filled the club. The sound was so loud it felt like a physical wave. People collapsed to the ground in agony.
But for the Executioner Droids, the situation was worse. Their sensitive audio sensors and navigation systems overloaded in the face of this sonic assault. The sensors on the droids' heads sparked and exploded. Their balance gyroscopes malfunctioned. Blind and deaf, the machines began to spin around themselves and fire at each other indiscriminately.
"Let's go!" Jester shouted, grabbing Kaelen's arm.
They ran to the back exit, using the corridor created by the chaos, past the self-firing droids and exploding screens. As Echo's screens went dark, one last message appeared: "Good luck, flawed codes..."
When they burst out into the back alley, under the rain, both were breathless. The sounds of the chaos inside still echoed.
Kaelen leaned on his knees, catching his breath. "That was... insane. We almost died."
Jester turned his face to the sky under the rain. The black tear-paint on his face had smudged slightly, but his smile was wider than ever.
"We didn't die, Detective. We just leveled up," Jester said. "Our target is clear now. Three executives. Three keys. And an impenetrable vault."
Kaelen straightened up and looked at Jester. A strange respect had begun to form within him for this odd clown, this walking glitch. "So our plan is to find the three most powerful men in the city, rob them, and break into the most secure place in the world?"
Jester adjusted his cloak and gave Kaelen that childlike yet terrifying look.
"Robbery, Detective? Oh, please. Theft is my favorite art form. And this city will be my greatest stage yet."