“Ready?” she asked quietly.
I nodded, feeling nothing but perfect emptiness. “Let’s move.”
Behind us, Deacon conferred with Vex, both oblivious to our departure—too focused on their own hero complexes.
The rain intensified as we slipped outside, washing away everything but the mission ahead and the electromagnetic patterns that danced between everything in Neo Stellaris.
CHAPTER 59
EON
The Magenta data center’s maintenance level hummed with the discordant symphony of ancient hardware—cooling systems that wheezed instead of purred, drives that clicked audibly as they cycled through operations. POM never bothered upgrading infrastructure in the lower districts. Not cost-effective.
The abandoned maintenance shaft reeked of rust and stagnant water, nothing like the sterile corridors of POM Headquarters. Stellarium pipes hung exposed from the ceiling, their casings cracked to reveal the pulsing veins of power beneath—bright magenta rather than the pure white of POM’s central systems. The data center’s heart still beat, but the rhythm was irregular. Neglected.
Just like the district above it.
“Ready, E?” Taos’ voice crackled through my Vysor.
I flexed my fingers, watching violet electricity dance between them. “Full spectrum.”
The fresh hit of Vector coursing through my veins made everything crystalline—every sound, every sensation amplified to near-unbearable clarity.
The access door before me was a joke—its security systems long outdated, maintained just enough to keep out casual intruders but nothing more. My Flux slipped through the circuits like a ghost, the lock disengaging with barely a whisper of resistance. I didn’t even need cyberspace or code. I let my Flux do the talking now.
Where the Tech District’s servers stood like gleaming monoliths, perfectly aligned in a temple of digital efficiency, this place was chaos. Towers leaned precariously, jury-rigged connections spiderwebbing between them. The air hummed with an unsettling dissonance, the sound of a system on the verge of collapse.
“DITA, you reading me?” I whispered.
“Signal’s weak but present,” she replied. “Power fluctuations are affecting transmission stability.”
I moved deeper into the forest of neglected hardware, trailing my fingers over dusty casings. Beneath my touch, the systems flickered to life, responding to my Flux like sleeping creatures stirred by a familiar scent.
This felt wrong. The ease of access, the minimal security.
This felt right. The way the systems seemed almost eager for my intrusion.
“E, status?” Taos again, her voice tense.
“Working on it,” I replied, reaching the central hub.
The power distribution panel sprawled before me like an open wound, cables spilling out in tangled heaps. This hardware was ancient. I knelt before it, my Flux extending into the chaotic mess of circuitry.
“DITA, what am I looking at here?”
“System architecture suggests multiple critical failures are imminent. Power regulation is…unstable.”
I could feel it—the erratic pulse beneath my fingers, electricity running wild through pathways never designed tocontain it. This server wasn’t just neglected; it was practically sabotaged. Set up to fail.
“Taos, something’s wrong.” I began rerouting power, my Flux weaving through the system like threads through fabric. “This whole place is unstable.”
“Just do your part,” she replied, her voice suddenly flat. “We need that access.”
My fingers hovered over the circuits. “At what cost? If this goes down, it takes half the district with it.”
Silence.
“Taos?”
