Before the gold flickered in his eyes, Zhou Min was a man who lived in the "Digital Gray."
In the high-density honeycomb of Sector 9, life is measured in the flicker of fluorescent tubes and the calories of synthetic protein bars. Zhou Min was a "Data-Scrub." His entire existence consisted of sitting in a cubicle four sizes too small, manually cleaning the "garbage data" that the Lin-Gong Group's automated systems couldn't be bothered to process.
He was the kind of person you would walk past a thousand times and never remember. He had a slight slouch from years of peering at low-res monitors, and his "Contribution Points" were so low that he could only afford the "Basic Oxygen" tier—the air that always smelled faintly of ozone and recycled sweat.
He had no family. His "parents" were merely names on a state-run fostering contract. He spent his nights in a room no larger than a shipping container, watching old 2D movies and eating lukewarm noodles. He was a man with no history, a placeholder in a world that had perfected the art of the mundane.
Then, the "Friction" started.
It began as a headache—a localized pressure behind his left temple. He thought it was eye-strain. But then he noticed that whenever he got frustrated with a stubborn piece of code, the coffee in his mug would start to swirl in a perfect, clockwise vortex.
He didn't feel like a hero. He felt like he was breaking. He felt like a piece of software that was being overwritten by an older, much more violent operating system.
While Zhou was staring at his shaking hands in a Sector 9 slum, I was back in my dorm room, staring at a very different kind of screen.
"Okay, System. Let's look at the board," I whispered.
[DAO INTERFACE: TACTICAL OVERLAY ACTIVE]
[THREAT A: THE ELDER COUNCIL (SOPHISTICATED DATA-MINING)]
[THREAT B: THE LIN YUE FACTOR (OBSERVER STATUS / UNPREDICTABLE CURIOSITY)]
[THREAT C: THE JAGGED TREMOR (UNKNOWN RESURGENT ENERGY)]
"The Elder Council is the most immediate problem," I said, tapping my stylus against my chin. "If I dodge the gala, they'll send investigators to my parents. If I go, I'm walking into a bio-rhythmic trap."
[DAO MESSAGE: HOST, I HAVE A PROPOSAL. WE CANNOT DODGE THE GALA, BUT WE CAN 'OVERLOAD' IT. IF WE CAUSE A CONTROLLED REALITY-GLITCH AT THE GALA, THE COUNCIL WILL BE TOO BUSY STABILIZING THE GRID TO WORRY ABOUT YOUR HEART RATE.]
"A distraction," I mused. "But it has to be subtle. Something that looks like a manufacturer's defect in the building's own 'Aetheric' stabilizers."
I looked at my hand. The "Earth-Heart Pulse" was still humming. I could feel the city's foundations—thousands of tons of concrete and steel, all held together by the anchors I had placed.
"I need to find out what that tremor in Sector 9 was first," I decided. "If it's who I think it is, the 'distraction' at the gala might not be something I have to fake. It might be something I have to stop."
The plan was set. By day, I would be the "recovering" student, feeding Lin Yue just enough technical jargon to keep her "Vibrationist" theory alive. By night, I would use the subway tunnels—the veins of the city—to reach Sector 9.
I checked my bank account. 140 Credits. Not even enough for a good pair of sneakers, let alone a watch.
"System, if I catch this 'Glitch' in Sector 9, is there a financial reward?"
[DAO MESSAGE: WE CAN PROBABLY ARRANGE A 'DISCOVERY BOUNTY' FROM THE BUREAU. BUT FIRST, YOU NEED TO SURVIVE. THE TREMOR WE DETECTED WASN'T JUST ENERGY, REN. IT WAS MALICE. SOMEONE ELSE REMEMBERS THE TASTE OF GOLDEN DEW.]
I grabbed my jacket. The "Normalcy Filter" was on, but for the first time in this life, I felt the phantom weight of a sword at my hip. The peace was over. The maintenance phase had ended. The combat phase was beginning.