MegaCity-9 never truly slept.
Even at 2:47 a.m., the sky glowed in shades of violet and electric blue, lit not by stars but by endless holographic advertisements floating between steel towers. Rain fell gently, not from clouds, but from the city's climate-control systems — thin, warm droplets designed to wash dust off the streets and keep the air breathable.
The roads below shone like mirrors.
Neon signs reflected off the wet concrete, flickering words like EAT,BUY, UPGRADE, OBEY in dozens of languages that no one really read anymore.
People moved through the streets like ghosts.
Some were fully human.
Some were more machine than flesh.
Most were something in between.
And then there was Ari Vex.
She walked alone through Sector 12, her long coat swaying behind her, boots splashing softly in shallow puddles. A faint red glow pulsed in her left eye — a cyber-optic implant constantly scanning the world around her.
Temperature: 23°C.
Threat Level: Low.
Facial Recognition: Active.
Names, criminal records, emotional states — everything passed through her vision in silent streams of data.
Ari ignored most of it.
She had a job to do.
Her neural implant vibrated — a private signal. Not a call. Not a message.
A ghost ping.
Only high-level clients used those.
Ari slowed her steps.
She opened the feed inside her mind.
A single line appeared:
PROJECT: NEON BLOOD
Objective: Find the truth.
Payment: Unlimited credits.
Ari stopped walking.
Unlimited credits didn't exist.
Credits always had limits. Even corporations had limits.
Unlimited meant one thing.
Danger.
Her heartbeat quickened slightly. Not from fear — from curiosity.
She smiled.
---
Ari turned into a narrow alley between two mega-buildings. Steam rose from vents along the walls, fogging the air with a metallic smell. Above her, a massive hologram played on repeat — a woman with perfect skin smiling and saying:
"Upgrade your body. Upgrade your life."
Ari scoffed softly.
She already had.
Too much, maybe.
She leaned against the wall and accessed her internal console.
"Client identity?" she whispered.
No response.
"Encrypted," her system replied inside her head. "Beyond legal tracing."
Of course it was.
Ari cracked her knuckles and initiated a deeper scan.
Firewalls appeared like glowing digital walls in her mind.
She stepped through them.
One by one.
Until suddenly—
Pain flashed behind her eyes.
She gasped and stumbled forward.
Something had pushed back.
Not a firewall.
A consciousness.
Something had noticed her.
A voice entered her neural feed. Calm. Male. Artificial.
"You're not supposed to be looking here."
Ari froze.
No one was supposed to be able to talk inside her private link.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
Silence.
Then a final message appeared on her internal display.
A single name.
SUBJECT 07 — LEO
And then everything went dark