Kael’s fingers danced across the neural interface, slick with adrenaline as he ghosted past the third layer of Arcan Corp’s new Ghost Shell firewall, the digital security coils snapping shut a millisecond behind his intrusion vector.
The only sign of his real-world exertion was the faint, metallic tang of ozone that bled from the overheating air vents of his old console, a smell that always promised fast credits or a full body reboot.
Just as he was about to download the schematic for a new anti-gravity coil, a prioritised, deeply encrypted ping hijacked his system, routing all bandwidth to a single, untraceable message: “The package is adrift. Retrieval required. Docking bay 14, midnight. Do not be late.”
No sender ID, no subject line, just an urgent command and coordinates too expensive for a street-level contact to transmit, suggesting the kind of job that could set him up for a year, or get him erased permanently.
The warehouse was silent and chilled, lit only by the holographic shimmer of a dozen decommissioned cargo drones. Kael found the client in the deepest pocket of shadow—a figure known only as Ms. Fera.
She was striking, wearing a featureless, mirrored chrome mask that reflected Kael’s nervous silhouette, and her hands rested over an antique gold data spike, polishing its patina with slow, deliberate strokes. Her voice, filtered through a digital modulator, was smooth and low. “A researcher named Dr. Voss went dark three cycles ago. He had a data package—a ‘black box’—containing his life’s work. It’s currently sitting on the derelict Aether Drift station in low orbit,” she explained, the sound echoing slightly in the vast space.
She leaned forward just enough for Kael to see the third detail: a single, thin scar of bioluminescent ink that spiralled down her throat and disappeared beneath the collar of her synth-silk coat. “You are to retrieve the box, and only the box. Arcan and other interested parties are tracking the signal, so speed is non-negotiable.”
The reward was generous: fifty thousand credits, half upfront, transferred the moment Kael accepted. The rest would be credited upon verified delivery back to this specific dock. The unspoken threat was clear: fail, and the final payment wouldn’t matter, because he wouldn’t need it.
Kael’s personal shuttle docked silently with the skeletal framework of the Aether Drift. The interior of the station was a silent mausoleum of zero-gravity debris, and he pulsed his mag-boots to stick to the ceiling of the main corridor, using soft infrared sweeps to navigate the dark.
Two hundred meters in, the first complication arose: a series of magnetic pressure mines—obsolete tech but still lethal—lining the bulkheads. He used a tiny, precision EMP burst to defuse the closest three, creating a small, silent window of passage.
He reached the central lab only to find he wasn’t alone. Three sleek, obsidian security drones, clearly marked with the ‘Seraphim’ corporate logo—Arcan’s biggest competitor—were already spinning through the wreckage, their optical sensors sweeping the room.
Kael dropped his profile instantly, pressing flat against a piece of floating wreckage. He didn’t have the ordnance for a firefight; he was a runner. He overloaded a junction box near the central access panel, bathing the area in a blinding, strobing flash of white light, momentarily stunning the drones’ sensors.
In that split second of chaotic light, he darted across the open space. He located Voss’s terminal—a cracked screen still displaying a glitching biometric lock—and bypassed it with a direct cable injection and a furious, five-second code sprint.
He snatched the reinforced data drive, barely the size of his palm, and retracted his cabling just as the drones regained their orientation and their plasma cannons began to track his position.
The extraction was a chaotic scramble back through the corridor, using the floating debris as cover while the drones’ warning blasts singed the air around him. He made it back to the shuttle, slammed the door, and engaged the rapid-burn sequence, leaving the defunct station and the furious Seraphim bots tumbling behind him.
Hours later, Kael was back in the cramped, humid confines of his Kowloon apartment, the smell of ozone replaced by the acrid, stale scent of reheated nutrient paste. He placed the heavy black box on his desk, its cool composite casing a stark contrast to the cheap, glowing plastic of his workstation. The initial transfer of 25,000 credits had already cleared—a pristine, untraceable deposit from a ghost account.
He ran a low-level diagnostic on the retrieved drive, not trying to access the data, but just to get a sense of its density and complexity.
The moment the scan registered, his system threw up a warning: Unprecedented Density. Subject: Project Chimera Protocol—Full Spectrum Viral Payload.
Kael stared at the words, realising this wasn’t just research—it was a corporate weapon. He’d just delivered something that would start a cold war, or worse. The remaining payment flashed into his account, right on time, a final, expensive confirmation that he was now irrevocably involved in a conflict way above his pay grade.