The air hung heavy with ozone and static.
Xander stood amidst the wreckage, Lyra's breath loud and sharp beside him. The bodies still smoked, the echo-glyphs on their armor flickering and fading. The sigils in her workshop dimmed as if the room itself was trying to forget what had happened.
"Sector Zero," Xander repeated, voice low. "You're sure?"
Lyra didn't answer immediately. She moved to a back alcove, keyed in a pattern on the wall panel—one he'd never seen before. A hidden cache slid open. Inside were thin crystalline plates etched with impossible data, a rolled chart drawn in hand-inked lines, and a cylindrical black container that pulsed like it had a heartbeat.
"I'm not sure of anything anymore," she said finally, pulling the chart free. "But I've chased enough ghosts in this city to know where the trail leads when you get too close to the source."
She unfurled the chart onto the table. Xander leaned in, eyes narrowing.
It wasn't just a map. It was a veinprint.
A diagram of the city's underground ley-line grid, mapped not by roads or sectors, but by the flow of echo-signals and circuit memory. Veinprint tech was outlawed. Suppressed. The Corp called it superstition. But the Corp didn't like things it couldn't control.
"This… is the original infrastructure," Lyra explained. "Before the Upper Levels. Before D13 even existed. Before control towers. The builders called it the Vein Root. A lattice of ancient tech and pre-digital code. Spiritual, in a way. Alive."
Xander ran his finger along one spiraling glyph line. It pulsed faintly under his touch. "Where's Sector Zero?"
Lyra tapped a point near the center—deep below the Nexus convergence. "Here. Beneath five levels of collapsed sectors. Most Corp records don't even acknowledge it. They call it the Null Core. But if you ask the right people… they say it was sealed."
"Sealed?" Xander asked.
"After something got out."
He stared at the map a moment longer, then finally leaned back. "Then we break the seal."
Lyra gave a grim smile. "You always did jump first."
"I don't have time to wait. If Thorne sent agents, he knows I'm Echo-Carrying forbidden code. That means he's either hunting me… or waiting for me to unlock something."
Lyra turned serious. "You don't know what you'll find down there."
"I don't care."
She reached into the crate, pulled out the pulsing black cylinder. "Then take this."
Xander took it carefully. "What is it?"
"A Null Flare. Last-resort tech. Activates if something inside you—or around you—goes rogue. It'll burn everything in a fifteen-meter radius, including spellcode and echo traces. Meant for extraction, not survival."
Xander stared at it. "You're giving me a self-destruct?"
"No," she said quietly. "I'm giving you a way out."
He nodded, slipped the device into a back strap pouch. "How do I reach Sector Zero?"
"There's only one known access point. Forgotten rail tunnel below Nexus 4C. You'll have to ghost through three restricted Corp zones and breach the under-barrier. They shut it off years ago. You'll need someone who knows the sub-circuits."
Xander paused. "I might know someone."
Lyra raised an eyebrow. "You mean Nuel?"
"No," Xander replied, eyes distant. "Someone worse."
---
Later That Night — The Crawlspace
Xander crept through rusted crawlducts, neon light bleeding through slats above him. The underflow buzzed louder than usual—Corp drones hummed above like mechanical flies, tracing old circuits with surveillance glyphs.
He was close to Breaker's Hollow now. A no-man's zone beneath the junction towers, home to gangs, shadow hackers, and one particularly unhinged techwitch.
Her name was Vexa Coil.
She had once worked as a Corp engineer, developing advanced breach scripts and interface ports. Rumors claimed she rewired her own brain to decode spirit-code language. Eventually, she cracked something she shouldn't have and vanished into the underground.
Now she sold gate access, null drives, and soul jacks—if you could afford the price.
Xander approached her den with careful steps. The entrance was guarded by a shimmering wall of code—visible only if you knew how to look.
He raised a hand, echoed a phrase Lyra had taught him:
"By broken thread, I call the coil."
The barrier flickered.
A voice answered. "Name the cost."
"My memory. Ten seconds."
A pause. Then the veil vanished.
Xander stepped into Vexa's hollow. Every surface dripped with screens, cables, and analog tech stitched together with bone and rusted steel. Sparks danced across the walls like fireflies made of madness.
And in the center, reclined on a throne of warped server nodes, sat Vexa.
She looked almost human.
Almost.
Her eyes rotated with a clockwork click. Her mouth didn't move when she spoke.
"Xander Croft. The Vault Boy." Her tone was singsong. "I heard your echoes days ago. Why come now?"
"I need access to the rail below Nexus 4C."
Vexa grinned, teeth too sharp. "And what do you offer?"
"I'll let you scan my echo signature."
That made her still.
Her hands twitched. "You carry an ancient mark, don't you?"
"Lyra said I was layered."
Vexa leaned forward, circuitry in her spine glowing faintly. "You're more than that. You're a ghost hive. Forbidden code wrapped in breath. You know how dangerous that makes you?"
"I don't care. I need the entrance."
Vexa moved lightning fast, suddenly inches from him, her face unreadable.
Then, gently, she touched his temple with a needlelike wire.
Xander didn't flinch.
For a moment, her eyes flickered rapidly. "Interesting… There's a sigil within you that predates the Veinprint. Memory-tech fused with soulcode. Not possible—unless someone rewrote your birth."
Xander's jaw clenched. "Just open the gate."
She smiled.
"As you wish."
---
Hours Later — Rail Access Port Under Nexus 4C
The hatch hissed open.
Xander stood at the edge of a long-forgotten rail corridor. Dust swirled through the stale air. Ancient tracks, half-eaten by corrosion, stretched into darkness. Scattered power pylons pulsed dimly, flickering with residual current. Echo-barriers flickered at intervals ahead, some broken, others still humming.
The entry point to Sector Zero lay somewhere beyond.
He adjusted his pack, pulled his hood lower, and stepped forward.
His comm implant buzzed.
Lyra's voice filtered through. "Still alive?"
"Barely."
"Good. I synced a pulse glyph to your route. It'll light up if something's watching."
Xander grinned faintly. "Isn't something always watching?"
"This time, it's worse."
He passed the first glyph gate. A shiver ran down his spine. The walls were humming now—whispers in a language he couldn't fully translate.
He walked deeper.
Each step echoed like it disturbed memory.
Suddenly—movement.
Not Corp. Not human.
Figures made of light and static stepped from the walls—flickering between code and form. Wraiths of the system's oldest functions, corrupted by time. Data-echoes warped into predators.
They saw him.
Xander didn't run.
He let instinct take over.
One hand sparked with stolen code—a defensive shell he'd once seen a Cipher Knight use. The other formed a glyph from the fight with Thorne's agents.
He cast both.
The wraiths screamed without sound.
Light bent. Code cracked.
He surged forward through them—tearing paths between half-real bodies, memories burning as he passed. One tried to latch onto him, clawing at his temple. His Null Flare pulsed softly in response—but he didn't use it.
He broke the echo with a single thought: Become silence.
The glyph inverted.
The world blinked.
And they vanished.
He kept walking.
---
At Last — Gate to Sector Zero
Xander stood before a massive vault door, built not of metal—but of memory.
Runes danced across it. Names he didn't remember but felt. Echoes of himself that never lived, whispers of choices never made. It was the most forbidden thing he'd ever seen.
He reached for it—and the door opened itself.
Inside was only dark.
But something breathed.
Something waited.
And Xander stepped in.