Marcus ran through the dark alley, his lungs burning. The Debug Agents' metal footsteps echoed behind him like a countdown.
He ducked into an old maintenance tunnel. Green text kept flashing in his vision:
[SYSTEM ALERT: Unauthorized User Detected]
[Purge Protocol: Active]
[Master Admin ETA: 90 seconds]
"Damn it," Marcus whispered. He needed to think, not just run.
Then someone spoke from the shadows: "Left. Go left. Now."
Marcus darted left down another tunnel. The voice was helping him lose the Agents.
A girl stepped out under a flickering light. She
wore a black hood and her eyes glowed faintly green—like his Debug Vision.
"You're like me," she said. "Another error survivor."
"Error survivor?" Marcus panted.
"The System tried to delete you, but you're still here. That makes you one of us." She grabbed his wrist as the walls shook. "Come on. This way."
They reached what looked like a normal wall.
She touched it in a pattern and it slid open—a secret passage.
"Why should I trust you?" Marcus asked.
"You shouldn't," she said. "But if you stay out here, you'll be dead in thirty seconds."
They walked down a tunnel lit by blue LED strips into a cave filled with cables and old monitors. Generators hummed quietly.
"I'm Iris," she said, pulling down her hood. "I work with the Glitch Hunters."
"Glitch Hunters?"
"People like us. When the System gave everyone powers, most got clean ones. But some of us got broken powers.
Error messages. And the System decided we were bugs that needed fixing."
Marcus felt relieved. Finally, someone who understood.
Then new text appeared in his vision:
[HIDDEN SIGNAL DETECTED]
[Encrypted Message: We saw you escape. You are vital to our survival.]
"Did you see that?" Marcus asked.
Iris shook her head. "No. Your error is... different from ours."
A deep, mechanical roar shook the tunnel.
"They broke through," Iris said. "We have to move."
She pushed a device into his hand.
"Find the other Glitch Hunters. I'll slow them down."
"You'll die," Marcus said.
"Maybe. But if you're getting messages nobody else can see, then you're worth more alive."
Before Marcus could argue, she shoved him into a narrow chute. He fell into darkness.
Marcus hit the ground hard. Alone again.
His Debug Vision flickered, showing green code on the stone walls.
That's when he saw her. Iris, standing in a spotlight ahead.
But above her head, angry red text glowed:
[NETWORK_AGENT_05391]
[Status: Active Hunter]
[Mission: Capture Marcus Martinez]
Marcus's stomach dropped. Had Iris been hunting him the whole time?
But then he noticed something else. The walls around him showed structural information:
[TUNNEL_SECTION_7]
Collision Detection: ENABLED
Material Density: 67%
Structural Integrity: STABLE
An idea sparked in his mind. If he could see the code, maybe he could edit it.
The fake Iris started walking toward him, moving too smoothly.
Marcus quickly accessed his Debug Vision
interface and found the tunnel's properties.
He scrolled through lines of code until he found what he needed:
[WALL_COLLISION_SOUTH]
Solid: TRUE
Passable: FALSE
Marcus grinned and changed it:
[WALL_COLLISION_SOUTH] Solid: FALSEPassable: TRUE
The wall behind him shimmered and became translucent.
"What—" the fake Iris started to say.
Marcus dove backward through the wall that was no longer solid. He passed right through it like it was made of air.
On the other side, he quickly changed the settings back:
Solid: TRUE
Passable: FALSE
The wall became solid again, trapping the fake Iris on the other side. She slammed against it, but couldn't follow.
Marcus's phone buzzed:
[CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING DETECTED]
[New Skill Available: Reality Debug]
[Effect: Temporarily modify physical properties of objects]
[Accept? Y/N]
Marcus tapped "Y" without hesitation.
[SKILL ACQUIRED: Reality Debug] [Warning: Overuse may cause reality instability]
He heard pounding on the wall behind him, but it held. The fake Iris was trapped.
But if that was fake, where was the real Iris?
And who was making fake versions of people trying to help him?
Marcus accessed his Debug Vision again and saw new information floating in his peripheral vision:
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[Layer 2 deception detected]
[Warning: The Network has been monitoring you since initialization]
[Trust level: CRITICAL - Verify all contacts]
A chill ran down his spine. If there was a Network watching him, and they could make fake people, then how could he trust anyone?
His phone buzzed with another message:
[EMERGENCY QUEST UPDATE]
Objective: Find the real Glitch Hunters
Warning: Not everyone who claims to help you is real
Reward: Answers about the Network
Failure: Capture by unknown forces
Marcus looked at the solid wall behind him, then at the dark tunnel ahead. Somewhere out there were real allies.
But also fake ones.
And he was the only one who could tell the difference.
Using his newly acquired Reality Debug skill, Marcus modified the friction coefficient of the tunnel floor, making it frictionless.
He slid forward at high speed, like the tunnel was made of ice.
Behind him, the fake Iris let out a mechanical scream that didn't sound human at all.
[SYSTEM ALERT] [Network countermeasures activated] [Advanced deception protocols deployed] [Warning: Trust no one completely]
Marcus slid through the darkness, his mind racing. He wasn't just being hunted by the System anymore.
There was something else. Something that had been watching him from the very beginning.
And it was much better at lying than the System was.