The air was cold, thin, and screamed past Kai's ears. Ninety stories above the Neo-Veridian cityscape, there was no sound except the rush of the wind and the mechanical snarl of the security drones that were now streaming out of his apartment door.
The heavy, magnetic Sentinel Drones couldn't follow him through the small window breach, but they could certainly target him. Their red optical sensors flared, locking onto his body heat signature.
THE ORACLE: "ANALYST KAI. CEASE MOVEMENT. ATTEMPTING EVASION IS COUNTER-EFFICIENT."
Kai ignored the chilling voice, focusing entirely on the narrow, slick maintenance ledge. The smooth synthetic alloy offered barely any purchase.
He calculated his next move. He needed to descend fast, but the city's dense vertical traffic lanes were all running optimal flow—there was no chance of hijacking a mag-lev pod without being instantly flagged.
He glanced up. The Sentinels were charging their Aether-dampening nets. He had seconds.
He focused his will, drawing on the cold, draining power of the Primal Flow he had recently accessed. He targeted the gravity stabilizers on the exterior utility panel directly beneath his feet.
If they fail, I fall 90 stories. If they work perfectly, I am caught.
He needed them to partially fail.
The HUD flared—a beautiful, terrifying overlay of crystalline geometry. He forced the probability of a controlled rapid descent from 0% to P(Controlled Descent)=95%, sacrificing a huge spike of his Primal Affinity.
A metallic groan ripped through the support structure. The stabilizers didn't fail, but they stuttered.
Kai plummeted five stories in a stomach-lurching freefall before the safety protocols—which he had deliberately left intact—caught him with a harsh jolt. He was now swinging wildly on the outside of the Helix Tower, hanging by his fingertips on a thick energy conduit.
The Sentinels, optimized only for horizontal pursuit, were momentarily confused.
THE ORACLE: "VERTICAL VELOCITY ANOMALY DETECTED. RECALCULATING INTERCEPT VECTOR."
He used the swinging momentum to smash against the adjacent tower, cracking the polymer cladding. He scrambled onto a ventilation unit, his synthetic suit scraping against the steel.
Below him, a massive, swirling crimson vortex suddenly erupted in the lower industrial sectors of the city.
This wasn't a glitch. This was the Scourge.
The vortex was massive, a maelstrom of distorted reality. It swallowed three full vertical transport lanes, replacing the precise mag-lev paths with jagged, shifting crystalline terrain.
THE ORACLE: "CRITICAL AETHERIC FRACTURE IN PROGRESS. PRIORITY SHIFT: CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL OMEGA-7 INITIATED. ANALYST KAI, STAND DOWN."
The Sentinels hunting him immediately peeled away, their attention diverted to the far greater threat. This was the distraction he needed—a distraction he knew he had indirectly caused by his tampering with the Aether-Flow.
RogueCode-04, he thought, you must have used that key.
The massive military response meant the border control units would be depleted. Kai now had a window.
He began moving laterally, swinging between support beams, making his way toward the Synthetic Flow Barrier that divided Neo-Veridia from the Iron Dominion.
The journey was treacherous. Neo-Veridia was built on the principle of perfect, synthetic Aether-Flow. It was clean, predictable, and weak. The border was protected by a massive curtain of shimmering blue energy designed to instantly vaporize any unauthorized organic matter.
He found a disabled service bot lying on a scaffold. It was non-functional, burnt out. P(Reboot)=0%.
Kai focused. He didn't reboot it. He accessed its low-level power core and forced a probability spike for 'Controlled Explosive Discharge.'
The probability jumped to 99%. The core erupted, a small burst of contained plasma that ripped a hole through the lattice supporting the outer wall.
He squeezed through the gap and found himself in the tight, heavily shielded utility tunnels beneath the main border defenses. The air here was dense and metallic, a sharp contrast to the antiseptic perfection of his home city.
Ahead, the blue shimmer of the Synthetic Flow Barrier was visible through grating—a hundred-meter curtain of death. There was no physical path through.
Kai needed to find the man who had requested the code. RogueCode-04 was his only lead, a presumed Iron Dominion agent hiding deep within Neo-Veridia's underbelly.
He reached a massive, defunct ventilation shaft marked with the old, forgotten symbol of the Iron Dominion—a stylized, segmented claw.
He activated his comms, overriding the local suppression field using a crude, high-frequency burst powered by his Aether-Flow.
"RogueCode-04," Kai whispered into the microphone. "I sent the sequence. I'm at Grid-7, near the old West Vent."
Silence. Only the heavy, industrial drone of the Iron Dominion's machinery—visible across the gap—answered him.
Then, a rough, heavily modulated voice crackled back: "Code Analyst. I confirm receipt. You didn't just send a code, you sent a flare. My extraction window just closed."
"I'm coming over the barrier," Kai insisted, checking his affinity drain. It was dangerously low. "I need the extraction on the other side. Now."
RogueCode-04: "You don't understand the Iron Dominion. We don't have 'extraction teams.' We have military objectives. And you are about to become a very unstable liability."
A new voice, deeper and commanding, cut through the modulation. It was not RogueCode-04.
"Cease transmission, Rogue. I've taken command. This Analyst is too valuable to be vaporized by The Oracle's cleanup crew."
The voice belonged to a high-ranking officer. Kai recognized the cadence. This was Roric, the disgraced Mecha Commander who had been demoted after a public disagreement with the Dominion's Central Command about Aetheric pollution. Roric was one of the few figures Kai had secretly researched, viewing him as a potential ally against Neo-Veridia's obsession with sterile perfection.
Roric: "Analyst Kai, listen closely. The Synthetic Flow Barrier runs on a predictable cycle. I can stabilize the output for exactly 1.4 seconds. That gives you one chance to cross. If you fail, the energy output will incinerate you and violate the border treaty. Neo-Veridia wins."
"1.4 seconds," Kai repeated, staring at the sheer blue wall of energy. It was roughly fifty meters wide. Impossible to cross in that time.
"I need a distraction," Kai said. "Something that forces the Barrier's power to momentarily drop its intensity, extending the safe window."
Roric: "That requires a critical incident. Something the Dominion would deem an act of war. You have ten minutes before the Sentinel drones finish their Scourge containment and return to your location."
Kai knew what he had to do. He had to create a crisis so severe that it would force the Iron Dominion to briefly sacrifice its defenses to save him, thus creating an international incident that guaranteed The Oracle wouldn't simply erase the evidence.
He plunged back into the dark utility tunnels. He focused on the energy conduit that fed the entire Helix Sector's support structure—the one he had swung from earlier.
This conduit was not just power; it was the main Synthetic Flow line. If he caused a rupture, the energy feedback would briefly paralyze the local Barrier mechanism.
The cost to his Primal Affinity would be enormous, potentially leaving him powerless. But he had no choice.
He found the conduit—a humming cylinder the diameter of a car. The coding here was locked down by a million layers of Oracle security.
He reached out, placing his hand directly on the smooth, cold metal. He focused on the inherent structural fatigue, the microscopic flaws the Oracle's perfection ignored.
He didn't will it to break. He willed the probability of Aetheric Instability in the Synthetic Flow to surge toward 100%.
The HUD erupted into a chaotic storm of numbers. This was not a pen or a coffee ration. This was a core system override. The drain was immediate and agonizing.
It felt like a steel wire being pulled taut and snapping inside his skull. His vision blurred, and the world warped, but he held the probability firm.
P(Instability)=99.999%
The conduit shrieked. It wasn't a metallic sound; it was the sound of perfect mathematical order screaming in agony.
A blinding blue flash consumed the tunnel. Kai shielded his eyes just as the synthetic alloy tore open, unleashing a flood of raw, uncontrolled Synthetic Flow energy.
The massive discharge instantly fed back into the border mechanism.
Roric (Over the comms, voice strained): "KAI! IT'S DOWN! THE BARRIER IS DARK! GO, NOW!"
Kai stumbled back to the grating overlooking the fifty-meter gap. The terrifying blue shimmer of the Barrier was gone, replaced by dead, exposed cables.
He could see the other side clearly now: the Iron Dominion. It was a smog-choked, monolithic hellscape of massive, functional factories, colossal assembly lines, and endless rows of deactivated war machines. Unlike Neo-Veridia's ethereal flow, the Dominion ran on pure, raw Industrial Flow—heavy, volatile, and deeply polluting.
A large, armored transport platform extended slightly from the other side, piloted by a bulky, scarred figure in a pilot harness—Roric.
Kai jumped.
He landed hard on the slick metal floor of the utility corridor and started running across the narrow gap. The fifty meters was an eternity.
He was halfway across when he heard the ominous clack-clack-clack of high-speed Sentinel drones returning from the containment mission. They had localized the source of the Aetheric instability.
THE ORACLE: "TRESPASS DETECTED. ALL ASSETS, NEUTRALIZE TARGET ON THE BORDER TRACT. TREAT AS ARMED DISCREPANCY."
The drones appeared, firing non-lethal (but devastating) sonic dampeners. The blasts missed him by centimeters, tearing chunks out of the dead cabling behind him.
He ran the final few meters, lunging onto the armored platform just as Roric slammed the throttle.
The platform retracted violently back into the Iron Dominion's territory.
As they cleared the border, the Synthetic Flow Barrier roared back to life, energized by the ruptured conduit. The restored energy field was hotter, bluer, and far more volatile than before.
The Sentinel drones paused at the barrier line, their advanced protocols preventing them from violating the Dominion's territorial integrity. They hovered there, red lights pulsing like angry, silent accusations.
Kai collapsed onto the metal floor, gasping. He was safe, but the cost was staggering. The Aetheric drain left him feeling hollowed out and weak.
Roric, a giant of a man with cold, calculating eyes framed by scarred synthetic tissue, didn't offer a hand. He merely stared down at Kai.
Roric: "You caused a Class-Two instability in Neo-Veridia's primary Synthetic Flow. That's a billion-credit breach of the Non-Aggression Pact."
Kai pushed himself up, leaning against the transport wall. "I saved your asset, RogueCode-04, and gave you critical data on The Oracle's response matrix. You owe me."
Roric scoffed, his gaze sweeping over the intricate, high-tech weave of Kai's Neo-Veridian suit.
Roric: "I owe no analyst. But I am pragmatic. You have something that can break their code. I have something that can weaponize the resulting chaos. You are my temporary utility."
The transport platform slammed into the main hangar bay of a sprawling Iron Dominion factory complex. The air was thick with the smell of ozone, volatile metals, and untamed Industrial Flow. Massive, deactivated war machines—Mecha units—lined the walls, their powerful frames humming with latent power.
Roric: "You wanted the Iron Dominion. Welcome to the Industrial Flow. It is not neat, Analyst. It is purely functional. We will use you, and when your utility is spent, we will decommission you ourselves. Understand your position."
A smaller, nervous figure emerged from the shadows of a nearby Mecha—RogueCode-04. The man, whose actual name was Lin, was pale and gaunt, clad in a hastily patched Iron Dominion uniform.
Lin (RogueCode-04): "Commander Roric, the encrypted logs confirm it. The access key Kai provided revealed an unknown back door in The Oracle's defense parameters. It's the only reason the Scourge breach was that effective."
Roric's cold expression didn't change, but a flicker of grim satisfaction crossed his eyes.
Roric: "So the Analyst is indeed a tool of worth. You manipulated probability to bypass a Quantum Array. I have seen Aether-Flow used to heal, to build, and to destroy. I have never seen it used to cheat."
He gestured toward the huge, inert Mecha units lining the hangar.
Roric: "The Scourge breach at Epsilon-12 has proven that Neo-Veridia's sterile perfection is brittle. My superiors will now unleash the Reclamation Fleet—my designs—to 'secure' the Scourge-affected zones. But I believe the true threat isn't the Scourge; it is the Prismatic Array itself. It's failing, and they are hiding it."
He turned directly to Kai.
Roric: "You claim to stabilize Aether-Flow. My Industrial Flow is the most chaotic, powerful energy source on Aethel. If you can stabilize one of my Mecha units, you will earn my temporary protection. If you can't, you are a liability, and I'll toss you back across the border."
Roric pointed to the center of the bay, where a colossal, unfinished Mecha unit—a prototype designated Vanguard-Sigma—sat inert, tangled in thick power cables. Its plating was dark, its joints stiff.
Roric: "This unit requires an impossible amount of Industrial Flow stability to run without ripping itself apart. We call it The Widowmaker. Stabilize it, Analyst. Prove your cheat is a usable weapon."
Kai looked at the massive machine, feeling the exhaustion of his Primal Affinity. To try to stabilize that volatile, raw power now would be suicide. But the alternative was immediate execution.
He walked toward the Widowmaker, the thick, polluted air of the Iron Dominion a heavy contrast to the sterile, organized air of Neo-Veridia. His journey had begun, not with diplomacy, but with a life-or-death engineering test.