The door clicked shut in the real world.
In the mirrored node, the digital outline of the door faded to a thin seam of light, then dissolved into the wall. The room felt larger without Maya's presence—emptier in a way that had nothing to do with space and everything to do with sound. The faint hum of the node's stabilizers filled the silence, a constant reminder that this place was an imitation of something solid.
Leo drifted to the center of the room and tried not to think about how alone he was.
On the other side of the digital window, Neon Spire City glowed in simplified layers—no noise, no smell, no weight. Somewhere beyond those shapes, Maya was descending into the city's forgotten veins.
He focused inward instead.
The memory of the relay hub pulsed behind his eyes. The ghost engine. The many eyes opening in the dark. The sense of being noticed.
"I won't let you use us," he whispered, unsure who he was speaking to—the engine, Forever Cloud, or his own fear.
A soft pulse rippled through the node.
Leo froze.
The digital room's light dimmed by a fraction, the edges of objects blurring slightly. The node's stabilizers hummed louder, compensating for a sudden spike in network activity nearby.
"They're getting closer," Leo muttered.
He drifted to Maya's desk and hovered over the glowing outline of her terminal. The system interface flickered at his touch, a translucent layer of diagnostics blooming in front of him.
"System," he said quietly. "Can I… see what Maya sees?"
There was a brief pause, then the voice replied. "Your access permissions are limited. Real-world sensor feeds are restricted."
"Not full access," Leo said. "Just… a window. A reflection."
The interface hesitated, then reshaped itself. A small viewport opened in the air, grainy and dim. For a heartbeat, the image was nothing but darkness and motion.
Then it resolved.
Maya's point of view.
She was moving through a narrow maintenance tunnel beneath the city. The camera feed from her wearable flickered as she climbed down rusted ladders, her boots splashing in shallow puddles that reflected the faint glow of emergency lights. The tunnel walls were streaked with grime and old hazard markings, half-erased by time.
Leo's chest tightened at the sight of it.
"Maya," he whispered, though she couldn't hear him. "You're really doing this."
The feed cut briefly as she ducked through a low hatch, emerging into a wider chamber lined with massive pipes and dormant machinery. The air here was thick with dust and the metallic tang of decay.
She moved with practiced ease, checking corners, scanning for motion. Her device glowed faintly in her hand as she synced with dormant terminals along the wall.
Leo watched, heart pounding with a helpless urgency he wasn't used to feeling. In the digital world, he could run, jump, slip through seams. Here, in Meat Space, he could only watch.
A flicker of movement caught his eye in the viewport.
A shadow shifted at the far end of the chamber.
Maya stilled.
Her breathing slowed, controlled. She edged toward a rusted console, using it as cover. The shadow resolved into the outline of a security drone—old model, inactive at first glance, its lenses dark.
Leo leaned closer to the feed. "Don't move," he whispered.
The drone's lenses flickered to life.
Maya swore under her breath and rolled to the side as the drone's targeting light swept the space where she'd been standing. The machine whirred, its ancient servos grinding as it pivoted toward her.
Leo's panic surged.
Without thinking, he reached for the viewport, his glowing fingers brushing against the edge of the real-world feed.
The node pulsed.
For a split second, the image of the drone glitched—its targeting light stuttering, the servo motion lagging by a fraction of a second.
Maya noticed.
She didn't hesitate. She lunged forward, slamming her device into the drone's exposed port. Sparks flew as the old machine shuddered, then went limp, its lenses dimming into inert glass.
Maya exhaled shakily, bracing herself against the wall.
Leo's form flickered violently in the mirrored node, the effort of bridging the digital–physical gap sending ripples through his core.
"I did that," he breathed. "I actually did that."
The system's voice chimed faintly in his mind. "Warning. Cross-layer interference detected. Repeated actions of this type may accelerate data decay."
"So I can help," Leo said. "It just… costs me."
The viewport steadied as Maya pushed deeper into the chamber, moving toward a sealed bulkhead marked with faded maintenance codes. She pried it open with a grunt, slipping into a narrow corridor that sloped downward into darkness.
Leo followed every step through the grainy feed, his awareness tethered to her movements. The sense of helplessness receded, replaced by a fragile thread of connection.
The corridor opened into a cavernous space dominated by a massive cylindrical structure embedded in the bedrock—the physical relay hub.
Maya froze at the threshold, staring at it.
"Found you," she whispered to herself.
The hub's surface was etched with ancient corporate insignia, half-hidden beneath layers of grime. Thick cables ran from it into the surrounding rock, disappearing into the city's foundations.
Maya approached cautiously, placing her hand against the cold metal.
Leo felt the moment resonate through the node, a faint echo of contact rippling through his form.
The relay hub powered up.
Lights flickered along its surface, old systems awakening in response to Maya's presence. The viewport flared as interference spiked across the feed.
Leo's timer pulsed in the corner of his vision, the numbers ticking down with relentless precision.
"Be careful," he whispered.
In the distance, beyond the relay hub, something moved.
A second drone slid silently out of the shadows, its lenses already glowing.
Current Status:Location: Leo anchored in semi-secure mirrored node; Maya physically inside an underground relay hub chamber in Meat Space.Timer: ~29 Days, 19 Hours, 55 Minutes.