The sterile quiet of the Network Operations Center, post-debugging, felt unnatural after the oppressive hum and visual static. My head throbbed in time with the frantic hammering of my heart – the lingering echo of the Emergency Mental Reserve kicking in. Running on fumes always had a kickback, like overclocking a CPU until it screamed uncle, and this felt less like a kickback and more like my entire mental OS had blue-screened and was barely rebooting. The metallic tang of blood was still thick in my throat, and the world had a slightly grey, washed-out quality.
"Ren? You okay in there?" Leo's voice, tight with anxiety, drifted through the doorway gap once more. "Sounded like the whole building was gonna crash!"
"Just… resetting the local network parameters," I called back, pushing myself upright with considerable effort, leaning heavily on the rack. Taking a shaky breath did little to clear the fog. The dizziness was intense. "Turns out the router just needed a stern talking-to." More like a near-fatal argument settled with psychic brute force.
I took a last look at the glowing green text on the switch: SOS. Quadrant 7G. A distress signal. A potential destination. A probable deathtrap. Fantastic. Decision fatigue was a pre-Glitch luxury I couldn't afford, especially when just thinking felt like wading through molasses.
Right now, my options felt limited and universally unappealing. Option A: Huddle in my server closet, hope my SP regenerated faster than my dwindling supply of radioactive peaches, and wait for reality to finally get bored and delete me. Option B: Chase a cryptic SOS into a designated hell-zone based on a single, unverifiable data point while barely able to stand. Option C…
Option C was the engine noise. That roar I'd heard earlier, before meeting Leo. Loud, powerful, cutting through the ambient chaos. Not the sputtering groan of dying pre-Glitch cars, but something… tuned. Something fast. Something that implied mobility far beyond my current scrounging-on-foot capabilities.
Maybe chasing the SOS wasn't the first step. Maybe the first step was finding whoever was making that beautiful, physics-defying noise. Mobility meant options. Options meant slightly better odds than 'certain doom'. And maybe, just maybe, they had coffee. Or at least functional pain relief.
"Okay, Leo," I announced, pushing myself away from the rack and shuffling slowly towards the warped doorway. Each step sent a jolt through my skull. Squeezing back through the gap into the comparatively stable reality of the main server farm aisle felt like surfacing too fast. The slight pressure difference popped my ears painfully. "Change of plans. We're not staying put."
He blinked, relief warring with fresh apprehension as he took in my pale face and unsteady stance. "We're leaving? Are you… okay to move? Where are we going? Quadrant 7G?"
"Negative. Chasing distress signals across hostile territory with minimal gear, zero backup, and my brain feeling like scrambled eggs falls under the 'Spectacularly Bad Ideas' category," I stated, retrieving my backpack from the closet entrance with slow, deliberate movements.
The relative cool and stability of the server room felt marginally better than the NOC, allowing a trickle of SP regeneration, but it was agonizingly slow. Maybe +1 SP every few minutes? Barely noticeable against the crushing fatigue. "Before we even think about investigating that SOS, we need transportation better than these worn-out boots. And I need… time."
"Transportation?" Leo looked around the server room as if expecting a working vehicle to suddenly materialize between the racks. "There's nothing here…"
"Not here," I corrected, securing my backpack carefully. "Out there. Earlier today, before our little ATM adventure, I heard an engine. Something… custom. Loud. Moving fast despite the local reality looking like crumpled paper. If someone's got a working vehicle that can handle the Glitch-zones, that's our immediate target." Finding them might be less taxing than a cross-city trek right now. Maybe.
Leo frowned. "Target? You mean… find them? Ask for a ride?"
"Something like that," I said vaguely, trying to conserve mental energy by keeping explanations simple. Subtlety wasn't my strong suit, but outright stating 'we might need to acquire transportation via morally ambiguous means' seemed likely to send Leo into another panic spiral I didn't have the reserves to manage. "First step, locate the source. Sounded like it was heading… west-ish? Maybe a few blocks over."
"So… we just wander around until we hear it again?"
"More or less," I admitted, leaning against the doorframe for a moment, fighting another wave of dizziness. "Unless you've got a better plan involving summoning a functional Uber out of the static?"
He sagged slightly. "No… Okay. Chasing noise it is. Better than waiting for those… polygon things the ATM was shooting." He glanced at me again, concern etched on his face. "Are you sure you're up for this, Ren?"
"Define 'up for it'," I muttered, pushing off the frame and started walking towards the service exit. "Some things have to be done when the universe is glitching. Let's go."
Leaving the relative sanctuary of the server room felt like stepping out of an airlock into vacuum, minus the instant death (usually). The chaotic background hum of the streets washed over us again. Glitches flickered at the edges of my vision, seeming sharper, more jarring to my frayed nerves. The sky remained a painter's nightmare after dropping too much acid. My SP bar, barely visible under the lingering [Cognitive Strain Debuff] notification, showed a paltry [8/80]. Recovery was glacial.
We headed west, back towards the area where I'd first heard the engine roar, my pace slower than usual, each step carefully placed. The streets here were wider, lined with the carcasses of collapsed department stores and shattered office towers. Debris littered the pavement – chunks of ferroconcrete, twisted metal girders, occasional bursts of brightly colored, unidentifiable glitch-matter that pulsed faintly before dissolving. Looked like the aftermath of a drunken intern playing Jenga with reality.
"Keep your ears open," I instructed, though my own hearing felt muffled, distant. I focused on scanning the rooftops and alleyways visually, conserving what little mental energy I had. "Listen for anything that doesn't sound like collapsing buildings or reality tearing itself a new one."
Leo nodded mutely, clutching his golf club like a security blanket. His architect's draftsman training probably hadn't covered navigating landscapes actively trying to defy Euclidean geometry while escorting someone who looked like they might keel over. A patch of road ahead seemed to be experiencing rapid pixelation, dissolving into blocky chunks then reforming, like a poorly compressed video file. We skirted around it carefully.
A high-pitched whine echoed from somewhere above. We both looked up instinctively. A chrome sphere, about the size of a basketball, zipped silently overhead, leaving a trail of distorted air. It didn't seem hostile, just… weird. [Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. Threat Level: Unknown. Possibly just looking?]. Thanks, URE.
"What was that?" Leo whispered.
"Probably just the universe beta-testing surveillance drones," I muttered, not having the energy for complex speculation. "Try not to look interesting."
We pushed deeper into the derelict urban sprawl. The sense of decay was heavier here. Less frantic glitching, more silent crumbling. Fewer low-level data constructs skittering about, but a heavier feeling in the air. Like something bigger, slower, and more dangerous might be lurking just out of sight. The slow pace and relative quiet, however, seemed to be helping slightly. The crushing pressure behind my eyes eased fractionally. My SP ticked up another few point. [15/80]. Still dangerously low, but trending upwards, however slowly.
Suddenly, Leo grabbed my arm, pointing. "Look! Tire tracks!"
I followed his finger. There, in a patch of relatively undisturbed dust near the entrance of a multi-story parking garage, were indeed tracks. Wide. Deep-treaded. Definitely not from a standard pre-Glitch vehicle. And they looked… fresh, relatively speaking. Hard to tell with reality playing silly buggers with entropy.
More importantly, the tracks led into the dark maw of the parking garage.
The entrance ramp descended into shadow. No lights were visible within. A faint smell drifted out – gasoline, hot metal, oil… and something else. That faint, sharp tang of ozone that often accompanied concentrated reality stress or powerful energy fields.
"Well," I said, peering into the gloom. My headache chose that moment to pulse sharply. "That smells promising. And potentially explosive."
Could this be it? Could the noise-maker be holed up in there? Seemed plausible. A parking garage offered shelter, multiple escape routes, and defensible choke points. The slow regeneration had brought me back from the absolute brink, but I was nowhere near fighting fit. Still, this was the best lead we had.
"We go in?" Leo asked, his voice barely audible. The darkness of the garage entrance seemed to swallow sound.
I hesitated. Charging into an unknown, enclosed space that might house someone with a vehicle capable of punching through reality felt like asking for trouble, especially in my current state. But the tracks were the first solid lead we'd had. And staying out here wasn't exactly safe either.
"Okay," I decided, taking a steadying breath. The rest had helped, marginally. Maybe I had enough juice for basic perception, if needed. [28/80]. Better than nothing. "New plan. We do not go charging in. We recon. Carefully. Quietly. See if we can spot the vehicle, maybe get eyes on whoever owns it. Information first, 'asking for a ride' later."
Pulling out my flashlight, I flicked it on. The beam cut a swathe into the oppressive darkness of the ramp. Dust motes danced in the light. The air inside felt cool, damp, still.
"Stay behind me," I instructed Leo. "Keep quiet. Touch nothing. And if things go sideways, Plan B is run like hell in opposite directions. Got it?"
He nodded, gripping his golf club so tight his knuckles were white.
Taking another steadying breath, trying to ignore the lingering throb behind my eyes, I stepped onto the ramp, the flashlight beam probing the shadows ahead. The scent of ozone and fuel intensified. Somewhere, deeper within the concrete structure, something heavy shifted with a faint metallic groan.
We weren't alone in here. And judging by the smell and the silence, whoever – or whatever – was inside probably didn't appreciate visitors. This noise complaint was about to get complicated, and I was facing it on less than half a tank.