"You want me to hit the wall?" Miller asked, tapping his sword against the concrete. "It looks solid, Jax."
"It looks solid," I corrected, adjusting my new glasses. "But the collision data is missing. The developers forgot to add the 'solid' property to this specific section. It's a texture with no substance."
To my eyes, the section of the subway wall was glowing with a faint, transparent blue grid.
[OBJECT: WALL_SEGMENT_04] [COLLISION: NULL] [STATUS: PHANTOM]
"Just walk through it," I said.
Miller hesitated. He took a deep breath, raised his shield, and charged.
He braced for impact. He expected a broken nose.
Instead, he vanished.
FOOMP.
One second he was there, the next he had passed straight through the concrete like it was mist.
"Whoa," Dave whispered. "Is he dead?"
"Miller?" Sarah called out.
"I'm... I'm okay!" Miller's voice echoed from the other side, sounding hollow. "But you guys need to see this. It's... weird."
We stepped through the fake wall.
The sensation was like walking through cold Jell-O. A shiver went down my spine, and then we were on the other side.
We weren't in a subway tunnel anymore.
We were in a white room.
Not a painted white room. A perfectly white room. There were no shadows. No dirt. No textures. The floor was a flat gray grid. Floating in the air were random objects: a teapot, a sword without a hilt, and a dragon head that was spinning slowly.
[ZONE: DEV_TEST_ROOM_07] [RESTRICTED AREA]
"What is this place?" Sarah whispered. Her voice didn't echo. "It feels... empty."
"It's a Graybox," I explained, walking over to the floating teapot. I poked it. It rippled like water. "Game developers build these rooms to test items before they put them in the real world. It's a sandbox."
"Look at that," Miller pointed to the center of the room.
There was a desk. A simple, wooden desk with a single computer terminal sitting on it. The screen was black, but a green cursor was blinking.
"A computer?" Dave laughed nervously. "In a dungeon? Does it have internet? Can I check my stocks?"
"It's not for internet," I said, sitting down in the chair. It was surprisingly comfortable. "It's a local terminal. It controls the parameters for this sector. Specifically, the Central Park Zone."
I cracked my knuckles. This was my turf. I didn't need a sword here. I needed a keyboard.
I placed my hands on the keys.
[SYSTEM ALERT: UNAUTHORIZED USER DETECTED.] [ENTER PASSCODE:]
"Passcode?" Miller asked. "Do we have a key?"
"I don't need a key," I grinned. "I have the Specs."
I looked at the terminal screen through my [Debugger's Specs].
The password wasn't written on a sticky note. But the heat signature of the last user's fingerprints was still faintly visible on the keys. And the memory cache of the terminal was leaking data.
[LAST LOGIN: ADMIN_05] [HINT: "SUDO_ACCESS"]
I typed rapidly.
> USER: ADMIN_GHOST > PASS: **********
[ACCESS GRANTED.]
The screen flared to life. Rows of data scrolled past faster than normal eyes could read. But I saw it all.
"Okay," I muttered. "Let's see what's happening in New York."
I opened the [Event Log].
"Miller, you said the Iron Vanguard locks all the good quests, right?"
"Yeah," Miller nodded. "They have a monopoly. Nobody else gets the S-Rank missions."
"That's because they aren't 'getting' them," I said, my eyes widening as I read the code. "They're generating them."
I pointed at the screen.
> [GUILD: IRON_VANGUARD] > [ACTION: EXPLOIT_LOOP] > [GENERATING QUEST: "Clear Subway" (REWARD: 1000 GOLD)] > [STATUS: REPEATABLE]
"They found a glitch," I explained. "A loop in the questgiver algorithm. They force the system to give them the same high-paying quest over and over again. They aren't earning that gold. They're printing it."
"That's cheating!" Dave yelled. "That's unfair! Why can't I do that?"
"Because you don't have an exploit tool," I said. "But someone in their guild does. Someone who knows the code."
I scrolled down.
> [FLAGGED ACCOUNT: "THE_WARDEN"] > [CLASS: ???] > [ACCESS LEVEL: MODERATOR]
"The Warden," I whispered. "That's their leader, right?"
"Yeah," Sarah nodded. "He's the strongest player in the city. Level 25. He wears black armor and carries a sword that eats souls."
"He's not just a player," I said grimly. "He has 'Moderator' access. That's one step below Admin. He can't rewrite the laws of physics like I can, but he can bend the rules. He can ban people from the Safe Zone. He can generate gold."
"So we're fighting a dirty cop," Miller growled. "Great."
"It gets worse," I clicked on another file. [PROJECT: TITAN].
"The Iron Vanguard isn't just farming gold. They're building something. In the basement of the Empire State Building."
I opened the file. A 3D blueprint rotated on the screen.
It looked like a massive, mechanical golem. But instead of a heart, it had a cage.
[OBJECT: THE SERVER GOLEM] [PURPOSE: PERMANENT CONTROL OF SECTOR 7] [FUEL SOURCE: PLAYER SOULS (REQUIRED: 1,000)]
The room went silent.
"Player souls?" Dave squeaked. "You mean... if we die...?"
"If you die normally, you respawn or lose XP," I said, reading the horrific text. "But if this thing kills you... it deletes your account. Permanently. And uses your energy to power the Golem."
"They're going to wipe the city," Miller realized. "They want to be the only ones left."
"We have to stop them," Sarah said, her voice shaking. "We have to report them!"
"Report them to who?" I asked. "The Admins? The Admins are gone. Or asleep. Or they don't care."
I looked at the terminal.
"There's only one way to stop a Moderator," I said. "You need an Admin."
I reached for the keyboard.
"I'm going to delete their gold," I said. "All of it. If I crash their economy, their army will quit. Mercenaries don't fight for free."
I typed the command.
> [TARGET: GUILD_BANK_IRON_VANGUARD] > [ACTION: SET_BALANCE = 0]
My finger hovered over the Enter key.
[WARNING: SECURITY ALERT.] [UNAUTHORIZED ACTION DETECTED.] [DEPLOYING SENTINEL.]
The white room suddenly turned red. A siren blared from nowhere.
"Run!" I shouted, jumping out of the chair.
Behind us, the air shimmered. A crack opened in the white void.
Something stepped out.
It wasn't a monster. It was a mannequin. A faceless, white, plastic mannequin. But it was holding a glowing red baton.
[ENTITY: ANTI-CHEAT SENTINEL] [LEVEL: 99] [MISSION: BAN_USER]
"Level 99?" Miller paled. He raised his shield, but his hands were shaking. "I can't tank that, Jax!"
"Don't tank it!" I screamed. "Run back to the wall!"
The Sentinel moved. It didn't run; it teleported. ZIP.
It appeared right in front of Dave. It raised the baton.
"BAN," the Sentinel spoke. Its voice was a synthesized robotic monotone.
Dave screamed.
I reacted on instinct. I couldn't fight it. I couldn't delete it. It was part of the core system.
But I had the [Debugger's Specs].
[EFFECT 2: AUTO-CORRECT (UNDO)] [COOLDOWN: 24 HOURS]
"UNDO!" I yelled, slamming my hand on the glasses.
The world rewound.
ZIP.
The Sentinel slid backward. The red light faded for a split second. Dave's scream was sucked back into his throat.
We were back to two seconds ago.
"MOVE!" I grabbed Dave's collar and threw him toward the fake wall.
Miller and Sarah scrambled through the phantom concrete. I dove after them, my heels skidding on the gray grid.
The Sentinel recovered. It raised its baton again. A beam of red light shot toward me.
I dove through the wall.
ZZZ-ZAP.
The red beam hit the concrete right where my head had been a second ago. The concrete didn't break; it simply ceased to exist, leaving a perfect, silent hole.
We tumbled out into the dark, damp subway tunnel.
"Go! Go! Go!" Miller pulled me up.
We ran down the tracks, splashing through puddles, not looking back.
Behind us, the wall hummed. But the Sentinel didn't follow. It was trapped in the Dev Room. It couldn't leave the testing area.
We ran until our lungs burned. Finally, we collapsed near an old subway platform.
"What..." Dave wheezed, lying on his back. "What was that?"
"That was the Anti-Cheat," I gasped, clutching my chest. "I triggered the alarm."
"Did you do it?" Sarah asked. "Did you delete their gold?"
I looked at my hands. I hadn't hit Enter. The Sentinel had appeared too fast.
"No," I said quietly. "They still have the money. And now... they know someone is onto them."
Miller slammed his fist into the ground. "So we failed? We almost died for nothing?"
"Not for nothing," I said. I tapped the side of my head. "I didn't delete their gold. But I downloaded something else."
I brought up my console. A new file was sitting in my inventory.
[ITEM: SECURITY_KEY_BACKDOOR.EXE] [DESCRIPTION: A backdoor access code to the Iron Vanguard's Guild Castle.]
I grinned, despite the fear still racing through my veins.
"I have the key to their front door," I said. "We don't need to delete their money from a computer. We're going to walk into their base and steal it."
"Steal from the Level 25 Moderator?" Miller looked at me like I was insane.
"He's a Moderator," I said, standing up. "He enforces the rules. But me?"
I adjusted my glasses.
"I'm the guy who breaks them. Let's go start a heist."