The rain in Neo-Seoul always tasted like copper. It was that heavy, industrial drizzle that soaked through even the most expensive "waterproof" gear.
Alaric pulled his collar up and crouched on the sharp edge of the Aegis Corp skyscraper. High above the city, the wind was a different beast entirely. It whistled through the gaps in his mask, threatening to push him off the ledge. Eighty stories below, the city was a blurred ocean of neon blues and pinks, with mag-lev cars flowing like glowing blood through the streets.
He wasn't a hero; he was a thief. Specifically, a "Phantom Thief," though he thought the name was a bit dramatic. It was a title given to him by the media after he'd cleared out the national art gallery without tripping a single laser. To Alaric, it was just a job. He liked taking things that didn't belong to him, especially from the corporate giants who had far too much to begin with.
"I'm in position," he whispered into his throat-mic. "The air scrubbers on the north side are locked down."
"Copy that," a voice crackled in his ear. It was Jax, his navigator. "The guards are on a five-minute rotation. The thermal sensors are looping for the next sixty seconds. Don't mess up, Alaric. This payout is life-changing. We're talking retirement on a private island kind of money."
Alaric didn't respond. He didn't like talking during a "hot" drop. He checked his mag-gloves one last time, took a breath of filtered air, and dived.
He dropped through the laser-grid in the ventilation shaft like a ghost. His heart was thumping against his ribs, a steady thud-thud-thud that reminded him he was alive. His hands, however, were steady. He landed on the catwalk of the central vault with the silence of a falling leaf.
The vault was a masterpiece of security. Biometric scanners, weight-sensitive floors, and a pulse-locked gate. But Alaric had a pulse-cloner. He pressed the small device against the scanner. For three agonizing seconds, the light stayed red. Then, with a soft hiss, it turned green.
Inside, there was no mountain of gold or stacks of cash. There was just a single pedestal. On it sat a small, heavy box made of matte-black carbon fiber. No labels. No warnings. No explanation.
He grabbed it, stuffed it into his pressurized satchel, and turned to leave.
WEE-OOO! WEE-OOO!
The alarms started screaming three seconds later. Red lights began to spin, painting the white walls of the vault in the color of a crime scene.
"Alaric! They found the loop! Get out of there!" Jax yelled over the comms.
Alaric didn't bother with the vent. It was too slow. He sprinted toward the glass exterior of the building, pulled a heavy-duty glass-cutter from his belt, and slammed it against the reinforced pane. It shattered outward.
He jumped.
The wind caught him, spinning him around. He fired a grapple gun at a passing delivery drone. The cable snapped taut, nearly yanking his arm out of its socket, but it held. He swung through the neon-lit sky, his stomach turning circles as he plummeted and rose, plummeted and rose.
He unhooked three blocks away, falling into a pile of cardboard boxes in a trash-filled alleyway. He lay there for a moment, smelling the rot and the rain, and started to laugh.
Alaric's "safe house" was a tiny, cramped basement under a 24-hour laundromat in the slums of District 9. It was a miserable place. It smelled like bleach, old noodles, and damp concrete. But it was his. It was the only place in the world where his name wasn't on a "Wanted" poster.
He threw the satchel onto his scarred wooden desk and sat down, wiping a mix of rain and grease from his forehead. His lungs still burned from the run, but the excitement was winning. He reached into the bag and pulled out the black box.
"Ten million credits for this," he muttered. "What could be worth ten million?"
He expected gold bars. Maybe a prototype microchip that could hack the world bank. Or perhaps the private keys to a massive crypto-hoard.
The latches clicked open. He lifted the lid.
"Are you Fucking kidding me?" he groaned, his voice echoing in the empty room.
It was a phone. A brand new Aura-Link 12. It was sleek, with a screen that looked like a pool of black oil and a red flower logo on the back. It looked expensive, sure maybe a few thousand credits but he'd risked a life sentence for something he could buy at a suburban mall?
He felt like a complete idiot. He felt like the punchline of a very expensive joke.
"All that security for a phone? What, does it have the President's private photos on it? Is it made of solid diamond?"
He tossed it onto the table in disgust. The moment the phone hit the wood, he felt a sudden, cold chill in the room. The hum of the laundry machines upstairs seemed to stop. The air felt heavy, like it does right before a massive thunderstorm.
Alaric stood up to get a drink from the fridge. He needed to clear his head and call Jax to find out who the hell their "Client" really was.
But he never made it to the fridge.
A sharp, hot pain exploded in his back, just below the left shoulder blade. It felt like someone had pushed a soldering iron into his spine. He gasped, his knees hitting the cold floor with a dull thud.
He looked down. A silver blade, about three inches long, was sticking out of his own chest. It was dripping. His blood was staining his favorite gray hoodie.
"Sorry, Alaric," a voice said from the shadows near the door.
Alaric turned his head, his vision already starting to blur. Standing there was Jax. His friend for five years. Jax was holding a tactical combat knife, his face pale but determined.
"The client doesn't like loose ends," Jax said, his voice shaking just a little. "And they want the phone back. They offered me another ten million just to make sure you didn't talk."
Alaric tried to breathe, but his lungs were filling with something wet and thick. Every breath was a struggle. He fell onto his side, his fingers scratching against the floorboards. He managed to reach out, his hand trembling as he touched the cold glass of the Aura-Link 12.
"If I'm going ..." Alaric hissed, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "...Fuck You."
He didn't know what he was doing. He didn't have a plan. He just knew he didn't want Jax to have the prize. He slammed his bloody hand down on the screen and squeezed.
The phone didn't just turn on. It didn't show a logo.
It started to glow a violent, violent red. The air in the basement started to hum, a sound so loud it made Alaric's ears bleed. The light became blinding, swallowing the desk, the room, and Jax's terrified face.
"Wait, what are you doing—" Jax started to yell.
Then, the world turned white.
There was no fire, no heat. Instead, it felt like Alaric's entire body was being turned inside out and sucked through a straw. The basement, and the agonizing pain in his chest all vanished into a cold, silent vacuum of light.
Splash!
Alaric's eyes flew open. He wasn't in his basement. He wasn't dying on the floor.
He was underwater.
The shock was like a Mentally blow. He panicked, his arms flailing wildly.
The water was freezing so cold it felt like needles against his skin and it tasted like dirt and decaying leaves.
This wasn't the chemical-filled water of Neo-Seoul. This was raw, Pure natural.
He kicked hard, his lungs screaming for oxygen. His clothes felt different—heavy and rough, like they were made of wool.
He fought his way toward a pale, shimmering light above him until his head finally broke the surface.
He gasped, drawing in a lungful of air that felt strangely "clean." He swam toward the bank, his muscles aching with a weird, deep soreness. He scrambled onto a muddy shore, collapsing onto his face and coughing up gallons of river water.
"What... where... how..."
He rolled onto his back and looked up. There were no skyscrapers. There was no smog.
The sky was filled with stars—more stars than he had ever seen in his life. And hanging in the middle of them was a moon. But it wasn't the moon he knew. It was a pale, thin crescent, and it looked three times larger than it should have been.
He sat up, his heart racing, and looked at his hands.
He froze.
These weren't his hands. His hands were covered in small scars from years of working with wires and glass. These hands were smaller, the fingers longer and more slender. The skin was smooth, like he'd never done a day of hard work in his life.
He reached up and felt his face. The stubble he'd had this morning was gone. The small scar on his chin from a childhood fall was gone. He felt younger. Thinner.
"This isn't me," he whispered.
But it was his voice. Or a version of it. It sounded higher, clearer.
Suddenly, a pain sharper than the knife hit him. It felt like his head was being split open by a sledgehammer. Memories that didn't belong to him began to pour into his brain like a dam breaking.
Valerius
That was the name attached to the memories. Valerius was nineteen.
He was a student at the Arcane Academy of Oakhaven.
He was the son of a wealthy grain merchant who had spent a fortune to make his son a mage. But Valerius had no talent. None. He was a failure, a laughingstock.
"Great," Alaric muttered, his voice shaking as he clutched his damp hair. "I'm a thief who got murdered, and now I'm a loser in this Strange world."
He sat there in the mud, shivering, trying to figure out if he was in heaven, hell, or just a very vivid hallucination.
But then, his vision glitched.
It was like a TV screen flickering. A translucent, glowing box appeared in the air, floating exactly six inches in front of his eyes. It was sleek and minimalist. It looked exactly like the user interface of the Aura-Link 12 he had stolen.
[BATTERY: 7%]
Alaric stared at the floating icons. He reached out a trembling finger and tapped the air where a "Settings" icon was hovering.
His finger didn't pass through it. There was a soft haptic click that he felt in his very soul.
The "phone" wasn't in his hand anymore. It was hardwired into his brain.