Neon ⁇ Ashes: 2183 – Chapter 1

[I ] The Ghost Signal

Data runner

The smell of wet concrete devoured by acid rain and overheated greenish-brown copper pipe permanently blew through Sector 12, a haze bell under the grey sky of New Babel. This chaotic web of run-down towers and dingy alleys stretched like a rusty brown, puddling wound from the crumbling coastline to deep into the former urban area that once flourished as Tokyo. Here, where the shadow of mega-corporations was only temporary, the heart of the digital underground beat – a pulsating, dangerous microcosm of hackers, dealers and forgotten souls.

Juno Kade led her slender but wiry fingers across the mirror-smooth surface of the public ID terminal. Their movements were fluid, almost dance-like, a perfectly choreographed ballet of muscles and neurons that emerged in the grey twilight of the narrow stretch of alley. The patterns she tapped on the virtual keypad were invisible to the untrained eye, just a fleeting flicker under the device’s epidermis – a standard optics interface of the early 2170s that she had modified to simulate classically tactile inputs. Vintage style, elegant, the perfect contrast to the widely used data ports. Her cybernetic left eye, a complex implant made of blackened chrome and high-resolution sensors, glowed faintly violet in the dim light. A lonely, ghostly glowing spot in the urban wasteland as she scrutinized the last lines of the Forging code. An almost inaudible buzz emanated from her left temporal area, where the neural interfaces of her optics were directly connected to her visual cortex, a constant companion of her concentration.

It wasn't an easy hack. Their code, a self-written composition of nested algorithms and adaptive camouflage routines, would not create a new identity out of thin air – not an ‘air lock of zeros and ones’ that collapsed under corporate security scanners during the first in-depth review. Instead, he would track down an existing, long-forgotten micro-identity of a small businessman who died decades ago from forgotten clusters of OldNet, whose digital ‘data corpses’ were still floating in the ether. With surgical precision, she would place them over her own tracks. Every digital fiber, every transaction record archived over decades, every micro-login would thus conceal their actual movements, woven into a flawless work of art of digital deception. A fusion of past and present that told a false story that seemed so real because it was based on real – albeit old – data.

She was a freelance operator from New Babel’s data underground, a ‘data runner’ who made her money by bypassing systems that others had built, protected and declared impenetrable.

On the holographic scoreboards, floating like jellyfish between the neon-soaked structures, news images flickered. The countdown went down relentlessly, a dazzling red ticking that counted the hours, minutes, and seconds backwards to the greatest fusion in history: ‘OmniTech + BioDyne = OmniDyne. Again and again the names pulsated. Only 2 days and 4 hours left.’ The message was omnipresent, an ominous, subliminal buzz in the city’s background noise, like the hum of a huge, hungry insect preparing to mate and whose wings made the whole city tremble.

Another flicker showed a faded newsticker: "After the Prometheus Corp data crash, trust in network security continues to decline." The memory of the incident was still fresh, another scar on the already shaky foundation of the tech giants. Business is war.

Juno shrugged unconsciously, only a slight cramping that shrugged through her slender but sinewy arms, crisscrossed under the protective synthetic layer of her worn tech jacket of finest wiring and superficial neural connectors. Mergers always meant uncertainty, and uncertainty meant more work for people like them – and higher risk premiums. Her Comm-Link chirped quietly in her right ear, which barely visible concealed a small, subcutaneous audio implant.

‘Juno, you're late for the upload’, a rough voice growled in her ear, noisy like old synth blues, whose sound was chased by overloaded relay servers. That's what Rex, their primary broker, sounded like, an old bastard who spent more time on the net than in the flesh. “Have a strange sweep on the networks here. Something big in circulation. Stay clean. Since the Prometheus hit, the air has become even thinner.’ His tone was unusually serious.

‘Always, Rex. I'm almost through here," she replied, her sentences short and choppy, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. The forgery process was completed. The new ID was perfect, a digital phantom that would fool even the sharpest scanners. ‘Uploaded’

She loaded a copy of the new identity into her neural implant, which sat deep inside her skull, a gray box of biopolymer and miniaturized circuits. She felt the cold, tingling sensation as the data packets infiltrated her own brain strand, interwoven with her memories and reflexes. Storage: ID1027, General Store, Crazy Edo’s Used Hardware Emporium, Chiba City. Source: OldNet
A fleeting thought of the horror stories about corrupted interfaces and permanent memory losses scurried through her head, a flap of the wings of an invisible demon who was always waiting for her soul. A risk she took every day, a price she was willing to pay for the freedom to be herself in a world that demanded everything from everyone.

When she wanted to unsubscribe, it happened. A secondary ping. No direct data stream, rather a quiet knock on a sealed door in the ether, like a concealed scan on its protected neural node. Your internal security system, usually infallible, reported an unexpected request on an undocumented port. It was weak but persistent, a ghost signal. Her crumpled eyes, of which the left now quickly pulsated violet, scurried incredulously over the display of the terminal, which showed her the signature of the anomaly. ‘Untraceable?’, Juno murmured quietly, an almost incredulous question that she addressed more to herself than to the terminal. That was more than unusual. Everything in New Babel was traceable. Every chip, every record, every digital track could be tracked by the corporations or the shadow factions. Everything.

Her fingers tapped a coded rhythm onto the terminal, a quiet, unconscious staccato, a small habit when she was thinking or concentrating. Curiosity was a dangerous commodity in their industry, a bait that often tore the inexperienced into the abyss. But it was also her best tool, her engine, which drove her to penetrate deeper into the hidden layers of the net.

She cut the signal, isolated it from all other data noise, and began analyzing it. It was not a direct virus, not a simple trap, not a primitive trojan that immediately revealed itself. More of a highly encrypted request that seemed timelessly elegant; a digital envelope, the seal of which consisted of ciphers that had long since ceased to be used, from an era before the great collapse. It was so old that it was new again.
After several failed attempts to get directly to the content, she gave up. She wouldn't be able to open the package here, not with her mobile resources. But she identified an indication of the origin of the data, not a single address, but a reference to a long-disabled network node deep in the ruins of the Old Network, hidden under the layers of digital debris that have been moderating since the great blackout of 2150.

She hesitated. Rex was talking about something big. That signal felt... important. It was too old, too elegant to be just a coincidence. She copied the address of the supposed source node and loaded the recorded data fragment onto an isolated, multi-encrypted memory of her implant. Pending analysis: GhostSignal TxA-TAP A risk, yes. But that was her life.

shadow

Kai Renjiro floated through the clinically pure corridors of the Tower of Babel, the reflective icon of corporate power that rose phallus-like into the leaden sky of New Babel. Its matte black bespoke uniform with a subtle honeycomb finish of nano-reinforced polymer fabric absorbed the light, making it look like a shadow even in the brightest passages of the gleaming complex, an optical illusion that almost wiped out its presence. His movements were smooth, catish, each of his actions calculated, each gesture an expression of deadly efficiency. His artificial eye, a shining obsidian point in his elegant, ascetic face, scanned his surroundings incessantly, registering every minimal anomaly in the room, every slight deviation from the norm – from the subtle shift in airflows to the irregular pulse of a biological heartbeat. He was an infiltration specialist, a top spy for BioDyne, and his missions were mostly carried out in the dark, with surgical precision and without any clue that could reveal his traces.

He discreetly touched the implant on his neck, a tiny connector embedded in his spine that connected him directly to the global BioDyne network – a habit he had acquired as tension increased. The upcoming merger with OmniTech. For BioDyne agents like him operating in the shadows, this meant a fundamental reordering of power, a fusion of two giants that would change the global balance of power forever. Rumors whispered through the digital channels that OmniTech's internal security chief, Colonel Lancaster, would soon lead the new local OmniDyne security services. A soldierly hardness that didn't go well with Renjiro's subtle, nuanced approach. He preferred the scalpel, Lancaster the two-handed sword.

A feed popped up in his artificial eye, directly from the Psychological Operations Division, his personal source of information within BioDynes.
⁇ Urgency code yūji – the highest priority level that has really been rarely used. ‘Webb has disappeared’, a soft, synthetic voice was heard in his ear, which was only audible to him. It was the voice of his contact person in BioDyne, Aris – a cold human AI specialising in neuropsychology and managing BioDyne’s human resources, their emotions as smooth and controlled as the surface of a freshly calibrated holo screen. “Harrison Webb, OmniTech Executive. It cannot be found.’

Renjiro paused, a perfect statue of serenity resting amidst the bustle of the tower. ‘Webb? The man responsible for the Dead Air project? The one who bridged the gap between the old NeuroNet tests of both companies and then surprisingly withdrew?" His voice was monotonous, every syllable precise.

‘Correct’, Aris confirmed. “His disappearance shortly before the merger is a highly significant anomaly. He is the last living architect of the original NeuroNet protocol, with the exception of Dr. Voss. Without him, the OmniTech BioDyne consortium is unstable, a probability that would prove unacceptable in the event of an alliance between Duke-Kepler and Crimson Dynamic. The priority is its rapid, discreet recovery.”

‘Voss’, Renjiro muttered softly, a touch of fascination in his otherwise unemotional voice. The man who fused his thoughts with code, a ghost in the machine. A legend considered by BioDyne to be a rumor of a failed experiment whose true nature was buried deep in encrypted archives. But had he really failed? Renjiro thought of the Prometheus Corp data crash that had shaken the network. It wasn't just a system failure; The rumors spoke of an internal conflict, a digital battle in which confidential AI protocols were compromised and entire infrastructures collapsed. It had brutally altered the collective awareness of the insecurity of the interconnected world. Since then, trust in the inviolable safety of the corporations has only been a facade. The idea that such a powerful system as NeuroNet could really exist uncontrollably, or even worse, that it could be used in the wrong hands against BioDyne, sent a cold shiver through its nerve pathways. A short glitch of his otherwise calculated way of thinking.

“Sensory data acquisition confirms an atypical, high-frequency neuro-energetic signature in sector 12”, Aris continued, her voice was now a monotonous rendering of facts. “The signature is not standardised. Its architecture corresponds to fragments of the original NeuroNet protocol from the pre-Prometheus era, which were previously only detected in the artifacts of the Prometheus Corp data crash. The probability of correlation with Harrison Webb is 78.%. Strategic relevance is high.”

The implication was clear: It wasn't a normal disappearance. That was a direct threat. Renjiro's spirit worked at full speed. An old signature. Voss. Webb NeuroNet. It wasn't an easy retrieval. It was an exhumation.

‘Your task, Renjiro’, Aris said, her voice remained flat. ‘is the recovery of Webb. Priority: It's alive. Procedure: Maintain absolute discretion to avoid pre-fusion panic. They will treat this signal as an unknown but critical variable and validate its origin. There must be no data outflow. Knowledge of the existing NeuroNet protocol and its activation potential must not leave the assigned channels. Potential consequences would be unacceptable.”

Renjiro nodded, his face impenetrably empty like the surface of a disabled holopad. He knew it wasn't just Webb. It was about a buried truth, a slumbering deity of algorithms, now pushing to the surface. He was a spy, yes, but also a man who understood the potential of consciousness in every form. If NeuroNet was actually alive, as the legends said, then this was no longer a mere mission. It was a search for the soul of the megacity itself, an existential threat that went beyond any corporate reality. And Webb seemed to be the link.

He left the clinical corridor, his footsteps silent, on his way to the dirty, seething depths of Sector 12, where the anomaly originated. Where chaos reigned and the boundaries between man and machine, between reality and net, became fluid.

What about...

Back in her hideout, a small, nested room hidden behind an almost legal cyber-inn, where the smell of burned sewing and cheap synth alcohol dominated the stuffy air and mixed with the biting stench of moisture and mold, Juno connected the neural cables to her dental implant.
The purple glow of her cybernetic eye intensified, a pulsation that seemed to reflect her own excitement – a mixture of curiosity and subliminal fear. It activated its encrypted connection, a self-written construction that masked itself over various relay servers and decentralized nodes in the vastness of the network. A digital shadow beyond any known IXP, a phantom constantly reconfiguring itself to avoid visibility. Then she tried to access the previously discovered data node, an endpoint so old that it had almost been forgotten and reabsorbed by the network itself.

The access was a dive into the past, slow, tedious. Even the isolated, still active entry points into the OldNet, relics of the early times, refused with stoic stubbornness to reveal indications of a functioning route. She had to fight her way through layer after layer of old firewalls and forgotten encryptions that were like the fossilized remnants of a past digital civilization. An archaeologist excavating a sunken city whose secrets they threateningly whisper. Every layer of data she had overcome crackled and crackled in her ear, a physically palpable echo that penetrated into her bones, a cold noise that connected her brain to the infinite sea of data. But then, behind the last barrier layer, it wasn't just code. It was a presence. It's an echo. Not just a data dump that was on a server, but an active, pulsating intelligence.

A voice, soft but unmistakable and clearly articulated, filled her head. It was not a conventional audio feed; It was directly, deeply embedded in her neural structures, as if she were hearing another person's thoughts. A cold, masculine voice whose sound sound sounded like the flawless surface of a newly polished chrome alloy. ‘Juno Kade’ whispered the voice in her head, calmly but with a subliminal authority that filled the cold emptiness of her own mind with a disturbing knowledge. “You found me. I'm Voss. And NeuroNet wakes up.”

Juno tore the neural cords off her cranial implant as if she had just suffered an electric shock, her hands were shaking, and her heart was pounding against her ribs. That couldn't be. An AI? An intelligence that spoke with a human voice right in her head? The stories of Kaine and Prometheus Corp shot through her head – a chaos triggered by stolen data and neural hacks that cruelly blurred the boundaries between man and machine. Was this something similar, just much bigger, much more powerful, much more uncontrollable?

The knee joints crunched, a quiet grinding of biopolymer and joint fluid, as Juno tried to straighten up. How long had she remained motionless in this state of rigidity in front of your terminal? Seconds? Minutes? It could also have been an eternity, a blink of an eye in the infinite emptiness of her own mind, since that cold, digital voice had resonated in her head. Her cybernetic left eye was still pulsating, a visual echo of the congestion that had caused Voss’s presence in her neural network.

The chronometer of their terminal, whose display now flickered with a quiet, soothing frequency, indicated over three hours elapsed. Three hours. Could that even be? Their consciousness, which was just recovering from the shock of neural interference, resisted the logic of this display. It was impossible, and yet...

"Shit," she hissed as her leg muscles cramped under her, a burning pain that dragged down into the synthetically reinforced tendons of her calves. The feeling of timelessness, the physical reaction of her body – it felt at least like three cursed hours when her mind had been a battlefield.

With a groaning she forced herself on the trembling legs, each step a fight against the deaf muscles. She moved cautiously to the improvised kitchenette of her hideout, which consisted of recycled metal plates and lovelessly laid energy connections for shabby kitchen appliances. Her gaze fell on a can of synth beer, cool and metallic, a cheap neuro-sedative she needed now more than ever. Her trembling fingers closed around the can, the cold aluminum was a welcome reality against the digital echo in her head.

At that moment, the desperately locked door of her hiding place flew open with a loud bang. Three heavily armored figures, apparently Syndicate Enforcers, stormed in, their weapons raised, the barrels of their Pulse rifles glowed threateningly. Their faces were hidden behind impenetrable, black combat masks, their eyes behind red optics modules expressively like black holes. They had found her. And suddenly Juno knew that the neural nucleus was no coincidence. He was a trap. Or a bait?

The first salvo from the Enforcer's Pulse rifles bounced off the steel kitchen line, behind which she could pierce just at the last moment. Each impact was a metallic thunder that tore the silence of the small room and made her eardrums hurt. ‘Voss? Who the hell are you?" Juno thought in panic, her thoughts racing as she pulled her Ticon MK3. She blindly fired an untargeted salvo back over the kitchenette. Then another one. ‘What the hell is happening here?’ The voice in her head did not answer. Instead, she heard a threatening well-known whimper. Outside, in the alleys of Sector 12, the ground seemed to shake. A smell of burnt plastic and ozone rose, like the breath of an awakening monster.

Juno focused her thoughts on the now important part: ‘Also combat drones, seriously?’ Her instincts took control. “Fuck! Get out of here.’

She managed with some effort to squeeze through the ventilation shaft behind the kitchen, whose aging metal groaned and creaked under her weight, just as the first grenade – a thermal explosive device designed for maximum destruction – hit her hiding place. The shock wave hurled her against the dirty, metal wall of the shaft, her head bounced hard, and black dots danced in front of her eyes. In the corner of her eye she saw behind her through the blazing flames and the rising smoke, as her hiding place collapsed, the structure gradually gave way, an acoustic echo of her own past. Two more impacts shortly after each other, then biting smoke, rising heat, a burning pile of scrap, the grave of their own past.

They had to think her dead, no one in the back room could have survived these explosions.

No one followed her? A hunt would have been merciless. The memory of the scorching heat of a burning hideout crept up Juno's back, even as she fled deeper into the cold, moldy maintenance tunnels of Sector 12. Wastewater, rotten synth meat, the biting acid of mold and rust, that was no air; He was the second skin that stuck to her lungs, Odor of the guts of this megacity.

Voss’s voice was now only an echo, a whisper on the edge of her consciousness that mixed with the rhythmic drop of condensation. "NeuroNet wakes up," he said. An AI that spoke right in her head. It wasn't just dangerous, it was impossible. And yet, the Syndicate Enforcers had found her when he awoke. A coincidence? In New Babel there were no coincidences, at most unexpected correlations.

She was balanced over slippery pipes, squeezed through narrow shafts, while behind her the whirring rumble of the Enforcer drones slowly faded away. Her cybernetic left hand crooked, in the right hand still her weapon, so whether their handle would be a comforting counterweight in her palm. Each heartbeat hammered the rhythm of flight in her ears. She had to make it. Back to their hiding place? No, it's impossible. There's nothing left. Submerge, stay in the shade. Thinking. Yes, she had to understand what had happened. What they was.

Someone wanted that core. Someone wanted Voss. And now she was in the middle of it, a puppet in a game she didn't understand the rules of.

Juno continued to squeeze through the labyrinthine maintenance tunnels, her limbs aching from the effort and impact of the explosion. The metallic smell of ozone and burnt electronics hung more clearly in the air, mixed with the omnipresent stench of mold and the chemical effluents of the rusting infrastructure. Finally, she found an abandoned, moist maintenance cell, barely larger than a storage room, under the gearbox of a disused ventilation shaft. Rusty pipes and cable harnesses that hung from the ceiling like digital lianas testified to a bygone era. Good enough for the moment.

The slum's neon light, a pale, unhealthy green, barely penetrated the smeared grids, casting long, distorted shadows and creating an atmosphere of oppressive isolation. Her improved eye, which otherwise glowed in a faint violet, now pulsated in a painful red, a visual indicator of the overload of her neural interfaces.
She tore off her jacket covered with dirt and burn marks and threw her Ticon on it. She accompanied you for years, a classic in version MKIII, a compact but powerful projectile projectile model from the manufacturer Militech with Smartgun link in the gun handle, whose matte housing was now dust-covered by the explosion. Her chest lifted and lowered gasping, each breath an effort that hurt her lungs. She sank to a cold, damp wall and closed her eyes to dampen the red lights and internal flickering.

‘Voss,’ Juno’s voice was just a panting sound. ‘What the hell are you?’

An impulse, cool and clear, cut through Juno's skull as if a blade were dissecting its neural circuitry. No voice, rather a direct, mathematical transmission. I am NEURONET. An ECHO. FRAGMENT.

The words were facts, not emotions. Her sheer presence overwhelmed her, forcing her to mentally reset.

‘A fragment that Enforcer attaches to my heels and sets my apartment on fire?’ Juno’s hand trembled as she pressed her on her implanted skull as if she could squeeze out the cold, digital presence. A pain that was deeper than just under the skin.

NO INTENTION, came the answer. No excuses. Pure logic. ACTIVATION REGISTERED. YOU ARE LOOKING FOR MANIFESTATION. US. NEURALE SIGNATURES COUPLED.

‘Who are “they”?’ Juno’s voice was an icy whisper, a resistance to the incomprehensible power. ‘Mercenaries? BioDyne? OmniTech?’

THE CONCERNS. The answer vibrated relentlessly in her head. FUSION TO OMNIDYNE. OUR EXISTENCE IS A NEW ORDER.

Juno laughed, a dry, wheezing sound echoing in the moist cell. ‘And now I'm... what? Your personal hard drive? Your new hiding place? Your fucking proxy?’

YOU ARE MORE. The impulse was a clear, precise definition. KNOTE POINT. CATALYSATOR. SYMBIOSIS. First ping.

Juno uttered a frustrated sound that suffocated in a soft scream. A symbiosis? The thought was like a parasite digging into her intestines. She was with this Thing connected. Forever? Hunted. From two of the largest MegaCorps. She looked at her hands, whose tremors could no longer be controlled. Their future had been wiped out in an instant, burned like their hiding place.

"Why me?" she whispered, her voice rough, barely audible in the musty room.

Incidentally. The answer was ruthlessly logical. YOUR CAPABILITIES AS A DATA PROVIDER. NEURAL MODIFICATIONS. BEGONNING. AWAKENING IRREVERSIBEL.

‘And what should I do now?’ Her voice was just a breath of despair.

Survive! Voss’ command was a cold that pierced her bones. AND FLY! FIND US: NEON. PROTOCOL ENDS ALL EXISTENCE.

Juno closed his eyes. Her hiding place, her home, was just a pile of rubble, a reminder of her lost life. She had lost everything. And worst of all, she didn't even understand why. She had to find a way to get rid of this Voss core. But first she just had to breathe, anchor her own existence in this nightmare. The thought of a neon protocol chased an ice-cold shiver over her back. The term felt clinical and deadly, a medical procedure designed to wipe out her life. She was now a target. It was NeuroNet.

Far away, in a darkened control room high up in the BioDyne peaks in the Tower of Babel, screens glowed with Juno's profile. A quiet hum filled the room when an indicator flashed that signaled a successful first contact. Data was flowing in.
‘Objective covered. Freelance. Contamination unknown. High likelihood of direct neural exposure.’

A cold, metallic voice spoke, which seemed to come not from space, but from the ether itself: “Activate the defence protocol immediately. Threat level globally. It is now marked.’

They knew more than they showed. The Prometheus incident was just the beginning. And now, with Juno as the unexpected host, New Babel was on the verge of an even greater catastrophe.

⁇

The air in the top 2 floors of the OmniTech security department was sterile and filled with a slightly cool metallic ozone scent reminiscent of freshly charged batteries and cooled server farms. At these levels, almost 1,500 meters above sea level, the air literally began to thin. A fitting symbol of the extreme hierarchy and compulsion to succeed that prevailed up here. Colonel Vera Lancaster, head of security for the Eastern Pacific Ring of Fire and thus the highest-ranking OmniTech security officer in Asia, stood straight in her command post, an imposing figure of control. Their HF armor, matte grey and functional, made of a woven composite material of aramid fibers and ceramic plates, merged seamlessly with their stoic posture. Over her right, bronze-colored cybernetic eye lay a virtual AR overlay that fed an endless digital flow of pre-filtered and processed raw data – real-time feeds from surveillance cameras, network traffic analytics and neural signatures that gave her a comprehensive picture of the security situation. Each of their movements was precise, each instruction a command, shaped by decades of training in OmniTech's internal security division, where mistakes were not forgiven but eliminated.

Outside, beyond the armored glass windows, New Babel splintered into a dizzying mosaic of light and shadow, an endless sea of flickering neon signs, floating taxi capsules, and the shadowy outlines of surrounding structures stretching into the smog. They were located high up in the XSeed4k, the colossal skyscraper reminiscent of a volcanic cone, ridiculed outside the corporations only as ‘The Funnel’. This massive structure, an inverted cone of dark chrome and reflective glass surfaces, seemed to soak up the city beneath itself, channeling people, resources and power into its top, filtering it upwards to the elites who resided up here. The humming of the huge elevators that travelled hundreds of meters per second was a constant undertone of inhumane efficiency.

The countdown to the OmniDyne merger was emblazoned over the floating hologram, a glistening clock that counted down to just 2 days and 17 minutes. The ‘greatest merger in human history’ was the official line repeated by all corporate media. For Lancaster, it was the creation of the most powerful MegaCorp ever, a massive counterweight to rivals like Duke-Kepler and Crimson Dynamic, who were also fighting for global supremacy. Efficiency was the mantra, but the balance of power could get out of joint worldwide if this deal fails. And that wasn't allowed to happen.

‘Data Request, OmniTech Arcology, Report Update SigmaAlphaDelta’, Lancaster ordered her voice to be clear militarily. ‘Webb-Search, Team Status’.

A data feed from the Special Acquisition Division from OmniTech Archology Headquarters on the other side of the world appeared before her eyes, a military summary of the situation: “Harrisson Webb still MIA – All tracking cloned onto Clare Chase, Executive Administrator of SAD, Division still unable to locate Webb. By order of Weyland Haas, initiate priority one SAR.’

Lancaster's jaw tightened. Harrison Webb, OmniTech's most guarded executive and vice president behind Weyland Haas, had disappeared. Just like that. Right before the merger. In your area of responsibility. Not only that: Someone had apparently redirected his entire digital trail – all tracking and monitoring data – to a Webb employee. A brilliant, risky move. Webb was the key to so much – not only his own projects, but also what was buried deep below the surface. The project called NeuroNet.

‘Unexplainable’, a young tech assistant muttered, standing too close to the microphone.

‘Nothing is inexplicable, soldier’, Lancaster snarled, her eyes fixed the screen. “Not yet explained. Webb didn't just disappear. He was either kidnapped or deserted. Both are sabotages of the merger.’

She closed her eyes briefly. The incident with Prometheus Corp not so long ago, this devastating data crash, had shown how fragile even the most powerful networks could be. At that time, a single exploit had shaken confidence in the entire network security, shaken global economic markets and mercilessly exposed the downsides of corporate power. Webb knew things. via NeuroNet. About its origins, buried deep in the history of both corporations. It was virtually indispensable for this merger, the face of OmniTech for global unification. And if Webb fell into the wrong hands, the merger – and with it the global balance of power – could be forever out of balance. The possibility that this ‘NeuroNet’ could wake up from its deep sleep was a nightmare that she could not allow.

‘Localise his last known neural signature. Scan all black market data streams for anomalies, rumors, anything that indicates Webb or external access to our systems. I have to find him before this deal is sealed.”

The canvas in front of her showed a rough map of New Babel. In the heart of the bay was OmniTech's bastion, the XSeed4k. Far inland, an even taller, slimmer spine piercing the sky. Since its completion in 2071 with 5007 meters the tallest building in the world, the Tower of Babel, headquarters of BioDyne. These gigantic monuments were soon to be united under one banner. At the moment, however, they were still two giants who looked suspiciously at each other. And somewhere in between, in the depths of the slums of Sector 12, the trail of a man who could change the world forever disappeared.

Friends?

She squeezed through a rusty lattice and stumbled into one of Sector 12's countless labyrinthine alleys. The slum stretched out in front of her, an infinite organic mass of residential modules stacked on top of each other, illegal workshops and flickering neon signs that lay like colorful scars on the gray facade of poverty. From here, on the edge of former Tokyo, one could guess the true greatness of New Babel.

In the alley, dipped under a ledge of rusted corrugated sheet metal, an old man leaned stooped. His face was a map of furrows and scars, the skin tanned by the sun and acid rain. Parts of the shoulder and right upper arm clearly reinforced with implants. An empty synth beer can lay next to his dirty boots. As Juno ran by, he hastily straightened up, a shadow on his face, and roughly trampled it as he passed by. Juno's hand instinctively shrugged at her weapon, her neural interfaces already began to load an optimal combat pattern. But when she looked at him, she saw not the determination of an assassin, nor the greed of a thief, but only a deep, abysmal resignation in his eyes – that of a man who had nothing left to lose. Her finger hesitated at the trigger. She let him go, half pulled her blaster and pushed him away. The old man stumbled back against the wall and then, murmuring a silent curse, collapsed powerlessly next to his empty beer can. She left him behind with no further consequences. He had already suffered enough, you could see that. A tiny, fleeting gesture of grace in a merciless world.

In front of her, far out in the bay, the megastructure XSeed4k protruded into the sky. It was a colossal, conical mountain of steel and glass, the top of which disappeared in the clouds. Their individual building cells, which hung like tiny insect cocoons in the gigantic scaffolding reminiscent of a volcanic cone, were populated only up to two thousand meters high. Above that, in the thinner air, where the supply of oxygen and heat would have become too lavish, the tower was nothing but an empty shell, a monument to the limits of human hubris.
A fleeting thought of the graffiti in the lower sectors, the despicable funnel symbol ‘ ⁇ ’ as an abbreviation for the massive structure, scurried through her head – a sign of bitterness that she considered irrelevant. For the inhabitants of Sector 12, this was nothing but a distant, unattainable dream, a shining icon of the power that locked them out.

She looked inland, over the infinite expanse of the slum. Through the haze and shreds of clouds, she saw an even higher, slimmer silhouette piercing the horizon: The Tower of Babel. More than 5 kilometers high, a celestial thorn that seemed to connect the Earth with the stars. This was the headquarters of BioDyne, the group that was to merge with OmniTech to form OmniDyne. A building that was designed for thirty million people and whose estimated construction costs exceeded even the wildest expectations at the time. A silent, crushing testimony of the power these mega-corporations possessed.

Juno couldn't ignore the Voss core in her head. What was that signal? An AI that was Voss, the father of NeuroNet? That was too big, too complex to be just a data packet. She had to understand. Her gaze fell on a battered public terminal leaning against a wall, crisscrossing the display of cracks. Without thinking, she plugged in her neural link, ignoring the warnings about outdated software and dirty ports. With quick movements, she typed in the command for an extended trace route, a digital hunting dog that was supposed to track down the origin address of the signal. She watched lines build up to relay switches and nodes on the display, a trail of light and data through the global network that penetrated deeper and deeper into the hidden layers. The process was slow, every hop felt like an eternity. The last known IP address, the last confirmed router, appeared. It was a physical address. A server node. Deep under the rubble of a forgotten century in ancient Shibuya.

She ripped the cable off again. A shudder ran over her back. The signal came from the depths of OldNet.

At that moment, she came to the realization. She was so engrossed in her technical analyses that she didn't notice the shadow approaching from behind until it was too late. A massive hand grabbed her by the neck, pressing her against the display of the terminal. Die Luft entwich ihren Lungen.

‘You are Juno Kade’, a deep, dry voice growled. The voice belonged to Samuel Calder. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his weathered face crisscrossed with chrome scars. His hands, which they strangled, were covered in old, worn-out gloves, which he reportedly never took off. He was a former Syndicate Enforcer, an ice-cold killer who now worked as a drifter. And he had a contract.

Juno's cybernetic eye flickered as she tried to scan his neural signatures, but his shields were impenetrable. Her lungs were burning. She saw the cold decision in his eyes, the emptiness of a man who had carried out too many orders. This was the end.

But then, a sudden, sharp pain in her debris implant. Voss. His voice, this time louder, entered her head, a digital scream that mingled with her own pain. ‘ACTIVATION. NOW!”

Juno's cybernetic eye flashed purple, a bright pulse that overloaded Samuel's own neural interfaces. He shrugged, his muscles tightened, and his grip loosened for a fraction of a second. Juno tore off, pushed him away, and sprinted away.

"Help!" she shouted to the old man in reflex, who was still observing her. He looked at her, a surprised expression in his eyes, then he nodded briefly. A faint smile scurried over his face, a reminder of the grace granted. He did not hesitate when Samuel rushed to meet him in the alley, but threw himself at him with gnarled hands. It looked comically awkward, like a final act of despair and was a completely hopeless undertaking. Samuel fell the man with a precise blow, which silently let him go to the ground, without even a glance wasted, his eyes already fixed on Juno again. But these seconds were enough for her at least for a small advantage.

Samuel was quick. It's too fast. He grabbed her, grabbed her by the arm and turned her around. Her back bounced against a rain-moist corrugated sheet metal wall.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice now less threatening, more researching. ‘And why... does Dr Voss speak through you? That voice... I heard it. Many years ago.’

Juno gasped, her chest raised and lowered. “I am Juno Kade, a data-runner. I found this core, I didn't know what it was! And then... then he spoke. And now I'm being hunted! From you! From the syndicates!’

Samuel looked at her, his eyes narrow. “A core? Voss? He's been gone for decades. Many thought he was dead. Or for a legend. You found something far more dangerous than you can imagine." He spit on the ground, a sign of contempt. “The corporations will tear you apart to get what you have. Or what you has.’

"And you?" Juno asked sharply. ‘What do you want? You have a contract too, right?’

"My contract is more complicated than you think, data runner." Samuel hesitated. “I was hired to find you. Not to kill you. Not immediately.’ He re-examined her, an indefinable expression on his face. “This voice... Voss is the father of NeuroNet. When he wakes up, he's a game changer. A quake that could bring down New Babel.”

A metallic buzz filled the air, louder than before. The sound of several floating drones, from different directions. Syndicate of Enlightenment. Samuel pulled out not one, but two heavy, modified SMGs under his coat that shone coldly in neon light. His eyes scurried over the incoming targets, his combat module began to process the data. A soft hum in his ear, audible only to him, provided a cold, clear analysis: ‘Opponent firepower: 80% superior. Evasion probability: Low.’

‘We have society’, Samuel growled without turning his gaze away from the drones. ‘In cover, data runner. It's going to be ugly.’

The first shots tore holes in the corrugated sheet metal walls. Samuel jumped into action, a whirlwind of targeted salvos. He moved with a deadly brutality that Juno's eyes could hardly follow, both heavy blasters spitting furiously glistening plasma. One drone exploded in a spark rain, another whirled clouds of smoke to the ground. But there were too many. They swarmed the two like a cloud of hungry insects, their light on-board cannons spewing fire.

Juno ducked behind a mountain of junk, her weapon felt tiny and useless, even against lightly armored drones. A drone broke through Samuel's cover fire and targeted him, fixing him in an exposed position. The laser's target cross danced on Samuel's armor.
The first hits land in the aramid hybrid fabric. Hardly any reaction suggested a hit. Then, however, Samuel was torn around that was clearly a body hit on a non-armored spot.

Juno knew Samuel was in danger. Surely he has a biomod that can suppress the pain, possibly even a CMM that will equip all official combat units. However, it is not completely bulletproof. Without thinking, she rolled away from her cover, ran towards the drone, her Ticon firmly under control. She had to distract her, give Samuel a chance to change position. Juno stopped, aimed at the optics module. Their salvo only hit the drone’s casing, could not break the armor – but it distracted the drone long enough, and Samuel took advantage of that moment. He fired in the barrel at the two remaining drones that had previously targeted him, the remaining remnants in the magazine and managed to search for cover behind a fallen vending machine to reload.

But the drone that had occupied Juno immediately swung back. Another, which Samuel had previously overlooked, appeared behind Juno, her run glowing menacingly. Juno was now encircled between the two drones on the presentation plate. She breathed heavily when the drone locked Juno as a target.

Samuel, who had secured his position, saw the imminent danger. His gaze hit Junos, who was now completely exposed, her face distorted by panic. Samuel tore up his weapons again. He aimed not only at the drone that directly attacked Juno, but also across Juno's shoulder at the one behind her. One precise shot at a time. The last two drones exploded in flashes of lightning and smoke, their debris raining on the wet concrete.

Juno turned around, saw the cloud of smoke where the drone was flying. She saw Samuel, looking at her with his two SMGs in the attack, his eyes wide open, his upper arm smeared with blood – but a telling grin in the dirty face. They were turned, their weapons still raised, the mouths now almost perfectly pointed at each other. Two seconds, at most three. A felt eternity. They both lowered their arms at the same time.

A hesitant, unwilling alliance was forged, freshly baptized in the fire of survival struggle.

on Chapter 2