The rain in St. Lazarus didn't wash away sins; it just made the crime scenes slippery.
Blue and red lights strobed against the rusted canyon of shipping containers. The silence of Sector 4 had been replaced by the chaotic symphony of first responders—sirens wailing, radios crackling, and the heavy boots of the Tactical Response Unit splashing through puddles.
Caleb sat on the back bumper of an ambulance, a foil blanket draped over his shoulders. He was shivering, but not from the cold.
His Overlay was trying to process the carnage, and it was failing.
[ERROR: MODEL LOAD FAILED]
[OBJECT: VICTIM 1]
[STATUS: FRAGMENTED]
Ten feet away, the coroner—the same irritable man from the penthouse, whose name Caleb now saw was Dr. Aris—was standing over the remains of the squatters. He looked pale. He wasn't using a body bag; he was using a broom.
"It's like glass," Dr. Aris was shouting into his phone. "I'm telling you, the tissue didn't just freeze. It crystallized. When the container tipped, they... they shattered."
Caleb looked away. He focused on his own health bar to ground himself.
[HEALTH: 58%]
[DEBUFF: FRACTURED RIB (L)]
[STATUS: SHOCKED]
"Deep breaths," a paramedic said, shining a penlight into Caleb's eyes. "Pupils are unequal. You might have a concussion."
"My pupils are always unequal," Caleb mumbled. "It's a hardware issue."
"Vane!"
The shout cut through the noise. Captain Vance was marching toward the ambulance, ducking under the police tape. He looked less like a police captain and more like a tank that had learned to wear a raincoat. Maya was walking beside him. She looked battered—mud on her face, jacket torn—but she was moving with a new kind of intensity.
Vance stopped in front of Caleb. He looked at the destroyed shipping container. He looked at the massive, smoking wreck of the crane that was lying face-down in the asphalt. And finally, he looked at the pile of grey sludge that used to be a cloud of lethal gas.
"Corwin tells me you blew up a crane," Vance said. His voice was dangerously quiet.
"The crane started it," Caleb said, clutching his side.
"She says you realized the gas was a suspended magnetic lattice," Vance continued, "and you instructed her to use a taser to create an electrostatic discharge, effectively EMP-ing the hostile machinery."
Caleb looked at Maya. She met his gaze steadily. She hadn't thrown him under the bus. She had doubled down on his lie.
"That's the simplified version, sure," Caleb nodded. "The technical term is 'kinetic energetic disassembly.'"
Vance stared at him for a long, agonizing moment. The rain drummed on the Captain's shoulders.
"The crane's logs are wiped," Vance said. "Cyber Crimes is trying to trace the signal, but it's gone. However, the port authority says that crane shouldn't have had power. The grid in this sector was cut three years ago."
"Someone jumped the battery," Caleb said. "Or they brought their own power source."
"We found a transmitter," Maya interjected. She held up an evidence bag. Inside was a small, charred black box. "Wired into the crane's cabin. It's the same tech as the canister in the penthouse. Same manufacturer."
Vance took the bag. "This is escalation. First a banker, now squatters. And they turned heavy machinery into a weapon against officers."
He leaned in close to Caleb.
"I don't know who you are, Vane. I don't know where you learned physics like that. But you're the only one who seems to see this coming before it hits. So I'm upgrading your clearance."
[QUEST COMPLETE: SURVIVE THE BOSS]
[REWARD: LEVEL UP (CONSULTANT CLEARANCE LEVEL 2)]
"I want you on this 24/7," Vance ordered. "You and Corwin. Find out who is manufacturing these devices. And Vane?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time you decide to create an EMP in my city... fill out the paperwork first."
Vance turned and stomped away toward the command truck.
Caleb let out a groan and leaned back against the ambulance. Maya stayed behind. She waited until Vance was out of earshot.
"Kinetic energetic disassembly?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"I panicked," Caleb admitted. "Thanks for the save."
"I didn't save you," Maya said, looking at the shattered remains of the victims. Her voice trembled slightly. "You were right. About the gas. About the crane. You saw the attack coming three seconds before the sensors picked it up."
She looked at him, her eyes searching his face, looking past the sunglasses.
"You're not just a con man, Caleb. You reacted to that crane like you had a radar. And you knew exactly how to break the physics of that gas."
"Maya—"
"I don't want to know," she interrupted, holding up a hand. "Not yet. Because if I know, I have to put it in a report. And I need you out here, not in a lab."
She tossed him a set of keys.
"My cruiser is buried under the crane wreckage," she said grimly, gesturing to the mangled steel blocking the alley exit. "Take the paramedic's backup vehicle. I have to stay and oversee the cleanup. Go home. Sleep. We start again at 0600."
Caleb caught the keys. "Where are we starting?"
"The manufacturer," Maya said. "Simmons found a serial number on the charred transmitter. It traces back to a shell company called 'Aether Dynamics.' Address is in the Tech District."
"Aether Dynamics," Caleb repeated. The name triggered a ping in his Overlay.
[KNOWLEDGE CHECK: PASSED]
[ENTITY: AETHER DYNAMICS]
[STATUS: DEFUNCT / LIQUIDATED 2024]
"Get some rest, Caleb," Maya said, turning back to the crime scene.
Caleb watched her walk away. She was limping slightly.
He slid off the bumper, his ribs screaming in protest. He made his way to the backup sedan parked near the exit of the yard. He climbed into the driver's seat and closed the door, shutting out the rain and the sirens.
Silence.
He took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. The Overlay was dim, running in power-save mode.
Aether Dynamics. He knew that name. It was a startup that promised "Immersive Reality Solutions" before going bankrupt two years ago.
He reached for the ignition.
Suddenly, the car's dashboard screen flickered.
It wasn't just the dashboard. His phone, lying on the passenger seat, lit up. The streetlamp outside the window buzzed and flared.
And then, the Overlay turned red.
[WARNING: INTRUSION DETECTED]
[SOURCE: EXTERNAL ADMIN]
Caleb froze. A text box appeared in the center of his vision—bold, black letters on a blood-red background. It wasn't a system notification. It was a direct message.
[FROM: THE_ADMIN]
[TO: USER_NULL]
[MESSAGE: You are exploiting game mechanics, Caleb. Using an EMP to bypass a Boss Fight is considered cheating.]
Caleb stared at the air, his breath catching in his throat.
He knows my name.
A second message typed itself out, letter by letter.
[MESSAGE: This is a warning. If you continue to disrupt the Beta Test, I will not ban your account.]
[MESSAGE: I will delete your character.]
The red box vanished. The dashboard screen returned to normal. The streetlamp dimmed.
Caleb sat alone in the dark car, his hand hovering over the ignition key. His heart rate monitor was blinking in the corner of his eye.
[HEART RATE: 140 BPM]
[STATUS: TERRIFIED]
"It's not a game," Caleb whispered to the empty air.
But as he looked at his trembling hands, he wasn't so sure anymore. Because for the first time, the Game Master had spoken back.