Neon ⁇ Ashes: 2183 – Chapter 3

[ III ] The Hunter's Net

Phantom path

The rusty patina of steel that had been crumbling for centuries stuck to everything, and everywhere cables threatened to save the hanging scrap avalanches less than half-heartedly from falling into deep crevices in the ground. Every step was a risk, every shadow could carry a danger. Juno and Samuel carefully moved through the labyrinth of interlocking, disintegrating structures to the area once known as the Shibuya Approach – an ambitious, never-completed megaproject from the late 2070s, whose skeleton now lay deep below the visible New Babel. The stench in those depths was its own tough substance – a mixture of rotting organic waste, the sharp ozone of old, corroded circuits, a metallic smell that settled in the airways like a sticky coating. Remains of a hundred years old technology, long corridors full of corpses of server cabinets and network components. On the front a cemetery wall full of urn graves, on the back a never-ending jungle of cables, fans and boards.

Since Augusto’s revelations in the rat hole – the cold truth about Voss and NeuroNet’s plan to see humanity as ‘inefficiency’ – Juno had felt an unrelenting urgency. Voss, who now lived deep inside her, was her only guide through this labyrinth. His ‘path’ manifested itself as a flickering ethereal glow in her cortex, a ghostly path through the physical echo of the OldNet. It was a sinister navigation, as if a dead hand were leading its own.

‘Are you sure your ghost is not leading us into a trap?’ Samuel’s voice was hoarse, his eyes scanning the darkness in front of them with residual light amplifiers. He was a master of urban warfare, but down here his experiences were not in demand. ‘This 'Neon Protocol' sounds like one of those fairy tales that hackers tell just before they drown in a data swamp.’ He put on a heavy plasma shotgun. Its organic damper could not quite dispel the nausea caused by the constant stench of these abysses.

"Voss is the only one who knows the ways deep enough to evade the OmniTech and BioDyne teams," Juno replied, her voice sounding hollow in the wide room. The flicker in her eye pulsated more strongly. "And he mentioned the minutes at the very beginning when he was... different. This is not a fairy tale, Samuel. This is his last hope. It feels like remorse." She didn’t know how much to tell Samuel about Voss’s inner conflicts. He needed facts, not philosophical debates with a godlike AI in their heads.

“Repentance? At an AI?’, Samuel’s laughter was short and bitter. “They have no regrets. They only have algorithms. Let's hope he's still current enough.”

The path led them through a section that looked like the remains of an old data server park. Gigantic, skeletal racks protruded like rusty spots, their cable bundles hung down like dead tendrils. A weak, irregular hum filled the air, which had to come from leaking plasma lines – a risk Voss could not spare them. The air here smelled sharply of ozone and burnt metal.

Suddenly the path went out in Juno's field of vision. Voss’s presence became an uneasy whisper that was hard to understand. ‘Disturbance... old protocols... autonomous... danger...’

‘What's going on?’, Samuel was immediately alarmed, his senses sharpened.

“Voss... he can no longer accurately project the path. Old security routines. Something is blocking him," Juno said. She touched the edge of a rusty server rack with her hand, her cybernetic eye scanned the environment, trying to detect the invisible barriers. A quiet click noise. Then a shrill buzz that came out of the walls. Red lights started flashing to the beat.

‘Automated defence’, Samuel growled. ‘The good old kill bots’. They thought they could sleep forever.”

Three spindly, but surprisingly fast security drones came out of the shadows. Their optical sensors lit up red, their thin, pointed arms folded out, revealing small but deadly energy projectors. They were old, but their programming was primitive and brutal: Intruder = threat.

"Cover!" Samuel called. He fired a targeted shot that shattered the first drone with a crackling sound in a spark rain. The other two drones shot back, high-energy lightning hissed past them, leaving scorching marks in the metal.

Juno ducked behind an overturned terminal. Voss’s voice became clearer and more urgent: ‘The maintenance shaft! On the right! The deactivation sequence... 4-Sigma-7 Delta... Reach... Disable!’

She gathered just behind the terminal, whose cracked screen was like a broken window into a world without light. The voice of Voss, now clear and sharp in her head, was a new layer in the already overloaded sound carpet of the battle: ‘The maintenance shaft! On the right! The deactivation sequence... 4-Sigma-7 Delta... Reaching... Disable!”, a command that seemed to rearrange the chaotic scene with eerie precision. The red light of the drones flooded through the room, a merciless, pulsating glow that distorted the shadows on the walls into creepy, tugging figures. She had to go there.

The world around them turned into a distorted collage of light and noise. A shot hissed past her, his trail was a bright, ozone-smelling hole in the air, which closed behind her again. The shots of Samuel and the drones, now also closer and threatening, were like blows against the decaying architecture. "Damn, do something!" he shouted. Juno's heartbeat pounded in her ears, time stretching out like a flawed record. She felt Voss's panic seep into her mind, like the cold water seeping into a porous rock, but she was forced to ignore it.
She repelled herself, the air was thick, she staggered and fell the last steps towards the shaft, an end in the cacophony of the drones. She sank with her back against the damp, rusty metal plate, found the small console that was embedded in the wall there. Their ads flickered in the red emergency light.

The interface of the console was in a pitiful state, the keys were worn, the screen was cracked. The fingers of her left hand danced over the old interface, the blaster fixed in the right to the entrance of the shaft, while Voss pumped the deactivation sequence into her consciousness with merciless precision. She tapped as fast as she could.

‘Error. Please re-enter." the console acknowledged with a tinny voice as the red light of the drones approached.

Juno cursed quietly. “Fuck! Again!’ Her fingers snapped over the keys.

“Sequence... 4-Sigma-7 delta! Precision, Juno!’ Voss repeated his voice sharply and forcefully in her head, transmitting a wave of pure panic that was not her own.

‘Yes, damn it! I'll do it!’ She typed the numbers again, her muscles tense like her mind.

It was a desperate race against time. The drones fired incessantly, their menacing hissing sounds reminiscent of a snake pit echoing through the room. In between that thundering bark of Sam's mighty answer shotgun.

‘Damn it, go faster!’ Samuel yelled, his shots were now also very close and echoed threateningly through the shaft.

A sharp pain passed through Juno's shoulder, a burst of energy touched her. Her ticon fell to the ground. She felt the skin melt, it smelled sweet, strange, a mixture of burnt meat and sugar. She ignored this stabbing pain, focusing only on the flickering console in front of her.

A series of clicks, then a longer buzz that was different, less threatening. Then a deep, redemptive moan of the old systems. The red lights in the chamber went out, the menacing buzz of the drones abruptly stopped when they fell to the ground at the same time and their optical sensors also went out with a last, metallic crackle. From Crescendo to an orchestrated, final fortissimo beat. The sudden silence was almost deafening.

‘Uff’, Samuel came to the shaft gasping, his plasma shotgun still in attack. The wave of adrenaline that had just carried him gave way to a calming ebb. He looked at her shoulder, smoking scorched clothes. ‘One is after you. That was fucking close. It's nice that your ghost sometimes gives precise instructions, even if he's almost grilling you first.’ A crooked grin scurried across his blackened face. He looked around. ‘And now?’

Juno put her Ticon, which lay next to her, back into her holster. The tiny handgun, compared to Sam's monstrous behemoth, slid silently to the integrated loading port. “Haven’t I assembled from the remains of six other MK3s,” she said without taking a single look.

‘An old, calibrated Militech shock blaster. The things are for datarunners who know they won't survive if the first shot doesn't sit. No frills, no useless electronics. Just a smartgun link.” Sam agreed.

He leaned his Goliath against the wall with a dull, rattling sound. "You need a surgeon's knife to quietly turn people away," he said, laughing mockingly. “I need a whole fucking demolition ball. This thing is as simple as a hammer. A small plasma core, a bundle of magnetic coils, a trigger. It's so primitive that it always works no matter what. Not only does it blow holes in walls, it also erases the memory of the shit you had to do.”

He stroked the coarse handle with his glove, which corresponded strangely harmoniously with the chrome elements in his face. “It's the only weapon I've ever needed to rid myself of the bullshit rules of this world. You rely on your technology. I trust that I know what it's like to be on my ass.”

Juno lowered his eyes inquiringly towards Sam's packed belt. "Yes, okay – I also use the two fat Raijin SMGs – here and there!" he sent slightly patty. His face turned into a crooked grin again. ‘Every bet, you still have an ace up your sleeve somewhere. Come on, keep it up! Otherwise, I'll just make myself too comfortable here. Blind again, or does our navigator have even more magical paths?’

Juno rubbed her aching shoulder, the sweet smell of the burned meat still hung in her nose. A slight shiver ran over her back – not only because of the cold, but because Voss had rescued her again, in his sinister, calculating way. ‘Not blind, Samuel. He did not lead us into a trap. He tested us. Or he was blocked until we shut down the defense. Is such a feeling, a hunch” She looked into the depths of the shaft. “Whatever it was, we are still alive. And he knows where to go.’

Voss’s path flickered again, stronger and clearer than before, pointing to an even deeper descent, a ramp that led into the bowels of the earth. ‘Deep. Deeper. Shibuya. Where the roots of the protocol lie. It will be dark. It's gonna be cold. But it is the only way.”

Juno nodded. ‘Downstairs. Seems to be our fate." The air became colder, wetter. The path led them into a world of absolute silence, an architectural tomb once built under the then-pulsating heart of Tokyo, but now only a forgotten echo that concealed the most dangerous remnants of the OldNet.

The vibrations of the abyss seemed to make Juno's arm implant vibrate like an old relic. The cold crept through her joints, a slow, clammy touch that seemed to threaten the precision of her cybernetics. She felt her breath froze on the pipes that protruded over them like bones of a forgotten monster. The narrow ramp became a slippery path, lined with cable bundles that hung from the ceiling like lianas in a dead jungle. The faint light of Voss’s path was swallowed up by a darkness that was not only the absence of light, but its own tangible mass, heavy and musty.

After the descent, they moved through the disused veins of the old subway system, the tracks covered by thick layers of rubble, covered by dust and synth ash. The air clearly tasted metallic and something reminiscent of rotten plastic.

Each step echoed in the infinite emptiness, a sound that seemed too loud, an unwelcome intruder into the grave's rest. Juno's cybernetic eye adapted, but even the enhanced night vision could reveal nothing more than the immediate surroundings, a flickering, greenish depiction of rust and decay.

"These places," Samuel murmured, his voice was just a whisper. ‘They sealed it. All entrances spilled to bury the old logs. Like a grave, blocked from the inside and the outside.’

Voss’s path was the only sign of life, a pulsating, violet vein that pulled her into the depths. The path itself was not a trace of light here, but an arrangement of data particles, a visual manifestation of pure information that only she could see. The ‘roots of the protocol’, Juno thought, were not in the cloud, but down here. In the cold, smelly underground, where the remnants of the old world still existed, unseen and uncontrolled. She felt as if she was descending not only into the earth, but into the past itself, into the corrupt bones of civilization. Voss had not only led her to safety, but also to the birthplace of chaos, the echo of which she was now chasing.

They slid deeper into the architectural tomb. An old ramp culminated in a huge, cathedral-like hall held by massive, rusty steel beams that protruded out of the walls like bones. The monotonous rumbling of the city above them was here only a distant, eerie noise, a distant whispering wave on the ocean of silence. Everywhere here grew strange, moldy mushrooms that glowed bioluminescently in the darkness, and a fine, cold mist that smelled of old cables and rotting matter hung in the air.

Juno's cybernetic eye scanned the environment to look for hidden drones, cameras, or traps, but found nothing. Not a single digital signal, not a single quiet buzz of running electronics. It was the silence of total isolation, the silence of a place that even the megacity had forgotten.

Samuel shook himself. "I feel... kind of naked," he whispered. ‘No radio, no signal, nothing. Here we are alone.”

Juno nodded. “I feel it too.”

Voss’s path pulsated more strongly, its particles condensed into a kind of ominous heartbeat, pointing into one of the darker corners of the huge hall. Where there was once a supply shaft, there was now only a half-clogged passageway with debris and cables, a gaping wound in the ground. "Here," said the voice in Juno's head, clearer than ever, but without a hint of warmth.

Juno and Samuel exchanged a glance, two fellow mourners who shared the same concerns. No longer an escape, but a journey into the unknown, into the forgotten, dark guts of the city, whose secrets they would soon uncover.

gathering

The light was a silent flicker, a warm gold tone that made the cool, gray surfaces of the virtual cyber-chashitsu tea room seem almost real. This was a fleeting architecture designed for high-level corporate representatives who cannot physically meet but need an environment of absolute control and aesthetics. An ikebana arrangement of fluorescent orchids floated in the middle of the niche, their synthetic petals vibrating slightly to the rhythm of an inaudible stream of data. It was an island of tranquility, an artificial haven of tradition in the midst of the stormy sea of data. Here, in this digitally recreated version of an old Kyoto tea house, the avatars of the powers met.

On one side, interwoven with the aura of the room itself, sat the representatives of BioDyne. Their spokesperson, a man with the avatar of an old samurai master whose features were frozen to a silent, stoic expression under the influence of cyberware, sipped his virtual tea. Every sip was precise, every movement of his digitally generated hand elegant. You could feel the cold, calculating intelligence behind his eyes, which was not tempered by cybernetic age, but sharpened.

Opposite him sat the avatars of OmniTech, shaped according to the common standards of the corporate elite: smooth, sharp-edged, with a touch of synthetic superiority. Her representative, a woman with a perfectly modeled avatar whose eyes sent out a cool, calculating light, held her virtual tea cup with an almost noticeable tension. The multiplex hologram particles in their cup danced as if reflecting their own inner restlessness.

A gentle hum filled the room when the projection, which took up the whole center of the room, came to life. It was not a simple display, but a holographic projection that poured into the room like a liquid stream of data. The Ikebana orchids shone brighter, the golden ornaments of the teacups pulsated to the beat. Ene's direct transmission, not just of data, but of emotions, of the cold anger and desperate search reflected in every pixel.

A data feed began to flow, a text roll of kanji and English characters running through the room, followed by a holo-simulation of the recording of the conversation between David Carver and Clare Chase.

OMNITECH INTERNAL COMMUNICATION LOG //
CLASSIFIED // LEVEL 5 ACCESS REQUIRED
SAD DIVISION – OFFICE OF CLARE CHASE // DATE: [T-12H]

CARVER, DAVID (D.C.) - #3, OmniTech Executive Board
CHASE, CLARE (C.C.) – Executive Administrator, Special Acquisitions Division (SAD)

D.C. interrogates C.C. about the whereabouts of HARRISON WEBB (H.W.) – #2, OmniTech Executive Board. H.W. was last seen this morning. Webb’s current location: Unknown

The calm atmosphere of the tea room shattered when the projection of the recording began.

The holo-based surveillance camera feeds flickered and showed David Carver rushing through an open-plan office like an angry bull. Anyone who had ever entered this room would feel the déjà vu, the cold air of the air conditioning, the slight hum of the servers, the sound of the keyboards clicking in a flawless rhythm.

The managers' avatars twitched imperceptibly as David's voice echoed through the virtual space: ‘Where is Harrison Webb fucked and sewn?!’

The projection swung to Clare Chase. Her gestures, her facial features, everything was reproduced pixel-perfectly. You could feel the hesitation, the swallowing, before she gave her answer. The way she cleared her throat was so real that it went through your marrow and leg. Any manager in the virtual tearoom who knew this corporate dance could see the fear in her eyes, which was then replaced by cold determination as she led David into her office.

The holographic representation shifted to Clare's office. The thick glass of the windows looking out at the majestic, spreading city of San Angeles was so clear and detailed that you felt like you were standing there yourself. The subtle vibration of the Privacy Tapper against the glass was not only audible, but palpable. You could see David's heartbeat slowing down, his anger turning into something colder, more dangerous.

The code cut to a new scene. Clare Chase, her voice calm but with a hint of steel, confronted Carver. He held a comm device in his hand, a flat, black disc.

(C.C.): ‘David, what's the problem?’

The log window displayed a clone command that had been transferred to their own device.

(D.C.): ‘Where... is... Harrison?! This must not be considered one of the biggest failures in the history of mega-corporations", David growled, and his behaviour briefly resumed that of the angry bull.

(C.C.): “I don’t know. I've had it since...”

(D.C.): “...since...what?!

(C.C.): “We spent the night together the day before yesterday. There's nothing wrong with that, and I don't know why I have to defend myself against you. Is that why you burst into my department? You have no right to prescribe to me...’

(D.C.): ‘I don’t care who you fuck, Miss Chase’, David interrupted, subliminally insulted and at the same time with deep contempt, reinforced by the change of address.
“I don’t care if you are a chaste nun who brings you down to the poor every Sunday or spreads your legs for every man and woman in this building, from the plumbing downstairs to the landing site technicians upstairs and on all floors in between.”

(C.C.): "I don't care!" Clare replied with pointed lips, while her avatar at your desk frantically searched for support.

(D.C.): “This is important to me! I was hoping you knew about this list.”

As soon as David reached out his hand and presented the slender metal key of the personal comm, an almost imperceptible hint of gold flashed in the projection.

(C.C.): ‘He cloned his come on mine?’

(D.C.): ‘More than that... he has transferred all tracking and surveillance data from him to you.’

The words were like a cold shower. The avatars in the tearoom became immobile. In the Megacorp world, there was no worse punishment than becoming a walking database of someone else's secrets. It was a kind of humiliation that was almost as profound as death itself.

(C.C.): ‘This son of a bitch!’

When Clare's recording hit her fist against the glass of her desk, the sound in the virtual space was surprisingly sharp, an unexpected shock that spread wavy.

(D.C.): “I had hoped it would be a small game, a plan to have a heart attack before the signing ceremony tomorrow evening; it would be typical for “Harry” to make my job even more difficult. Or at least to inform me through my surveillance teams that he is now fucking my wife.”

(C.C.): ‘EX-Woman!’ corrected Clare

(D.C.): ‘Where is he, Clare?’

(C.C.): “I don’t know... but I will look for him.”

The avatars of the managers in the tea room did not look directly at each other, but the slight narrowing of their virtual pupils, the minimal change in the color intensity of their avatars, revealed their tension. They knew it didn't mean anything good when a corporate boss redirected his surveillance to another person, a digital death notice.

Clare's last words echoed in the room as David stormily left the office and his personal smoker followed him closely on his heels:

(C.C.): ‘What are you up to, Harry?’

[DATENFEED ENDET]

The holographic projection went out, and the Ikebana orchids returned to their muted glow. The gentle hum of the data streams filled the room again. The tea bowls remained untouched. The representatives of OmniTech and BioDyne sat in silence. The virtual heat gave way to an icy reality.

Every avatar in this room knew Harrison Webb, a wartime consigliere in a shop where everything is war. But more than that: Harrison Webb has been loyal to the company for over 70 years. He looked like he was in his fifties, but thanks to numerous anti-aging remedies, he was already over ninety. He spent most of his time defending the interests of others. A thief, a murderer, and worse. 1A Leadership quality. A one-man troop of dirty tricks; A power behind the throne, but a man who would never ascend it himself. His rise to OmniTech's C-level was virtually unavoidable. You could even say that he was devoted to the Corp in every measure.
This man didn't just disappear. He had turned himself into a Kintsugi masterpiece by filling the ruptures of his loyalty with the gold of treason. And the fusion OmniDyne was supposed to create now hung on a silky, digitally woven thread.

The samurai and executive both set out to break the deafening silence at the same time. With a hinted nod, he gave her the lead. His only exposed tattoo, the silhouette of a flying crane pulsating slowly under the skin, a symbol of pain, however, screamed his tension into the room. This was his struggle for inner dignity in a world that tries everything to take it away from you.

A thought was formed: The real struggle is not only on the street, but always in one's own mind said...once an honest, hard-working wise man; from wherever.

‘This information remains classified as L5 Classified. You will not inform anyone else, central data collection by OmniTech Archology SAD Departments and coordination is done exclusively through Col. Lancaster in the X4K. I hope I don't have to remind anyone what's at stake.”

Without a single word, the avatars of both sides left the virtual tea room immediately afterwards, until finally only the synthetic petals of the fluorescent orchids, those silent witnesses of this meeting, remained as an optical algorithm of beauty in the virtual space. Their synthetic glow was a silent promise that even in the darkness of betrayal and power games, a perfect, cold logic also existed.

Data network

Kai Renjiro hated Sector 12 more by the minute. The stench, the chaos, the human despair. All that manifested in every rusty line and screaming voice, every decayed home and all the organic remains. He preferred the sterile purity of a BioDyne laboratory, the cool, logical sequences of a data analysis. But his mission inevitably led him here, into the heart of human disorder. Since the discovery of Juno's destroyed hideout, he traced the subtle traces left by a data-runner and a former Syndicate Enforcer without knowing who exactly he was on his heels. It was not a hunt with blades or firearms, but a hunt of logic, of forensics.

For a moment he managed to escape the sector. Aris had sent him an armored BioDyne transporter parked inconspicuously behind a hill near his area of operations. Its sensors scanned the countless illegal radio signals that emanate from the slum like smoke. In front of him, on a holographic display, a 3D model of the rat hole also flickered below the abandoned synth meat factory, peppered with data points and potential escape routes.

‘Status update, Aris’, Kai said in his headset, his voice was cool and controlled. “Any deviations in the pattern of OmniTech patrols?”

‘Negative, Renjiro’, Aris’ voice was clear and precise, slightly out of tune by the compression algorithms of long-distance communication. She was his primary source of information, one of the best BioDyne analysts, whose neural networks were almost as fast as Kai's.
“Colonel Lancaster is still pushing for a complete clean-up of Sector 12. Evaluation of the communication of their teams show an 87%inefficiencies. Their operational strategy is static, focusing on the main arteries and ignoring the secondary networks. Their presence is limited to the upper sector levels. You are looking for Webb in the vicinity of larger energy nodes. No immediate threat to your infiltration profile.’

"Good", Kai nodded. “In order to find Webb, I am following other tracks. Who we are looking for, what we are looking for, are not the kind of destinations that move on the main roads. They are shadows. I analysed the combustion pattern in this high-hunted back room – a signature pointing to an overloaded energy source, something individual, not standard syndicate. An individualized dataport coverage. In addition, there are traces of an older model of a military bio damper nearby. I'm sure they must have retreated to the rat hole after the chaos on the streets there. It is the only place that is chaotic enough to hide and yet organised enough to allow an escape.”

‘Confirmed. Our databases verify the profile of ‘Pox’, a former network hacker and operator of illegal gambling nodes.’

‘Pox’, Kai murmured. A well-known factor. “It is the weak point. Information can be sold, blackmailed or... reprinted." Kai looked at the 3D model. ‘Show me the thermal signatures of the underground installations. And cross them with the recordings of the surveillance cameras of the last hours. I want all the anomalies, all the faces that don't fit the usual movement patterns.”

Aris’ voice became more alive. ‘Processing is ongoing. A weak but persistent signature consistent with an improvised multi-hop modulator technology was detected. Location localization is inefficient. The movement suggests a shift to deeper zones within Sector 12. All available data shall be transferred.’;

Kai’s eyes lit up. That was it. A trace. ‘The modulator. That must be it. It's special, even for an old hacker like Pox. Did he possibly equip Webb with such a thing?’ He got up, his movements were fluid and precise. “Aris, keep an eye on the OmniTech teams. I'm infiltrating the rat hole. I will interview Pox and secure this trail.”

He left the van, his tactical armor, as dark as the shadows themselves, fused with the twilight of the slum. His cybernetic obsidian eye scanned the countless alleys that would lead him into the guts of the rat hole. The air immediately became thicker, the noise louder, the chaos omnipresent. Kai breathed in the stench, which now became a necessary nausea. He was the hunter, and he had thundered his prey.

Playing stake

In sector 12, the rat hole was regarded as the bubbling witch's cauldron par excellence: Light, vice, lust and the sweet smell of synthetic alcohol and cheap cybergrass – what a spectacle! Pox’s arcade, hidden deep in the guts below, was the cozy epicenter of this chaos for any lucky knight. Neon billboards flickered over their heads, casting colorful shadows on the sweaty faces of players crowding around flickering holo tables. The exciting rattling of cyber chips, the murmur of bidding and the distorted laughter of the losers filled the room.

Pox was visually a fascinating old man. No bodymods were visible to him, not even a simple optics module. If his remaining appearance were not so extreme, he could go through any family celebration as a distant uncle. The personified face of the world. He no longer had a single tooth, but a feral beard and his constantly grinning face permanently displayed the missing rows of teeth. Always in a good mood and at any time a rough saying on the lips could be the inscription on his gravestone. He sat at a central terminal, the gritty king of this fascinating underground realm, a master of manipulation and digital deception.

Kai Renjiro glided through the crowd, an island of silence in the midst of the storm. His BioDyne armor was also conspicuously unobtrusive here, his movements flowing. He scanned every corner, every face, every hidden camera. Pox wasn't hard to find. His reputation had preceded him, and the accumulation of players around him was almost as clear a clue as the toothless grin.

Pox saw Kai coming, his eyes flashed amused. Another corporate snoop who believed he could earn respect down here. Pox had already swept away dozens of them, of course, only after he had excluded them to the best of his ability and finally misled them with false information. He saw Kai’s inconspicuous but expensive equipment, the precision of his movements. A professional. But Kai was in his It's rich.

‘Well, friend’, Pox’s voice was scratchy but warm. “Is it going on? Or are you looking for something specific in my humble establishment? Maybe a bit of luck at the tables?” He waved Kai to himself. ‘Come on, take a seat. A drink at the expense of the house. Looks like you could use one.’ He pushed a cup of steaming greenish synth ale over the table.

Kai sat down, his face unmoved. He smelled the sweet smell of alcohol, which tasted far too chemical. He took a little sip, though. “I'm looking for information, Pox. About a few... old acquaintances of mine. I'm looking for a data-runner and his military buddy.”

Pox’s grin widened. ‘Ah, the favourites of the system. Always on the run. I've seen a lot of people like that. They come and go. Who exactly are you looking for? Names, faces? Here below, most of them are just ghosts.” Pox played the game pretending to be clueless while his internal processors were already developing a strategy. He would lead Kai astray, heap him with fog candles, and then send him away empty-handed.

‘Just before, not an hour ago’, Kai said precisely, his gaze fixed on Pox. ‘You were here.’

Pox laughed, a guttural, throaty sound. “Just now? No one came by. My old scoundrels! Yeah, they used to be here. A few days ago, maybe weeks. Got a little trouble, hit a few heads, common stuff. But they've been gone for a long time. I think they went north, according to rumors. The cold climate is supposed to be good for old joints.” He winked at Kai. "But I heard the OmniTech guys are still looking for them. Poor pigs. Come on, play a round of dice with me. If you win, I'll tell you everything I know about ghosts.’

Pox pushed a set of glittering holographic cubes across the table on a round playing surface covered with a polymer textile. Kai, who recognized the distraction, played along. He needed Pox to feel safe. They dice, Pox won a few rounds, laughed loudly, told anecdotes about junkies, mercenaries and runners allegedly hiding in the north. Kai analysed Pox’s microexpressions, the subtle twitching of his eyes, the pace of his breath. He was good, but not perfect. Pox tried to get Kai to change his game, to manipulate him, as he did with everyone else. But Kai remained stoic.

While Pox just spun another anecdote about an alleged escape attempt in the northern sector and confirmed a release for another table on his arm interface, an incoming message briefly flickered on this small, barely visible terminal. It was Augusto. The screen was aligned so that only Pox could see it, but Kai’s cybernetic eye scanned the room and caught a glimpse of the lines in a reflection from the empty glass next to Pox, flashing for a few milliseconds before Pox had wiped them away: <URGENT> X: J/S OTW | MODAKTIV | ⁇ CONF ⁇ AUGUSTO

Pox’s laughter continued to fill the room. However, his eyelids twitched several times, only a fraction of a second, an uncontrolled reaction that Kai nevertheless immediately registered. Pox’s grin widened, but it was now forced, his eyes were empty. “Well, my friend, the stakes are rising! I don’t think luck is on your side today.’ He raised his hands to demonstratively remix the cubes, but Kai saw his fingers trembling for a moment.

The atmosphere changed. Kai felt Pox’s sudden despair, the cold fear. The brief look at the news had betrayed him more than every hour of interrogation. Shibuya, modulator. That was the connection that Pox so desperately tried to hide. Kai knew that Pox, or even the sender Augusto, would rather bite off his tongue than reveal the truth. But they had just served it to him on the silver platter.

miscalculation

Kai Renjiro left Pox’s gambling den without looking around again. He had not left, he had strategically retreated. The noisy, chaotic environment that Pox used as cover became a noise to Kai’s mind. He found a quiet, abandoned niche between two overcrowded container warehouses, where the smell of cheap synth noise was weak in the air. Here he was able to process the information he had collected in peace.

His cybernetic eye projected the fleeting message he had seen on Pox’s terminal into his internal field of vision. <URGENT> X: J/S OTW | MODAKTIV | ⁇ CONF ⁇ AUGUSTO
He had the words rotated, analyzed the syntax, the code names used. ‘Modulator’ – this confirmed his theory on improvised technology. The old kanji for ‘Shibuya’ – a geographical indication. Augusto was no stranger to him. BioDyne already had a detailed file on the ‘spiritual technomancer’ classified according to the datasheets. But the crucial variable was the assumption he made based on his mission and BioDyne's priorities.

‘Aris, status update’, Kai said in his headset, his voice was filled with a new, cold certainty. “I interviewed Pox. He tried to mislead me. But I have learned something decisive.”

“Renjiro, you sound different”, Aris remarked. ‘Successful?’

"Highly successful," Kai replied. “Track 2 individuals, data-runners and military. They're deep into Sector 12, I suspect on their way to the old Shibuya archives. And I bet they use this unique modulator." Kai called up data on his display, crossed the information with the well-known locations of high-security tracts and secret R&D facilities that BioDyne had previously maintained in the old sectors in and around Shibuya. “The most important point is: You are involved.”

"Involved?" Aris asked, her voice now sharpened.

"With Harrison Webb", Kai said with firm conviction. His logic was relentless, even if it was based on a fatal false assumption.

“BioDyne had no trace of Webb so far. OmniTech is also desperately looking for him. It all makes sense now. You have Webb. They may have kidnapped him to blackmail him into betraying his knowledge of their technology. Or they're holding him captive to torpedo the merger. Anyway, the Shibuya archives... they were once a testing ground for BioDyne’s “Project Prometheus” – so that Webb is being held captive there or that they are seeking access to a hidden facility there to force him to crack the encryption is the most logical conclusion.”

Kai’s internal monologue supported this conclusion. Webb is the key. He has developed dozens of projects. If he's gone, there must be a reason. And these runners... they are the opportunistic vultures who rush to such targets. Pox and Augusto are just the helpers here. They are not interested in saving humanity, but only in profiting from Webb's knowledge. My mission is to secure Webb and eliminate any threat to BioDyne. He incorrectly linked the Shibuya route to the possible abduction of Webb, rather than Voss’s remorse and the true purpose of the protocol.

‘Confirmed, Renjiro. This variable changes the operational strategy. OmniTech's search patterns are not optimal. This gives us a 63.%An efficiency advantage. Own teams can be redirected to the Shibuya archives. All data on BioDyne facilities, blueprints, security routines, access codes shall be made available to you.’;

‘Negative’, Kai interrupted. "The teams are too slow. Also much too conspicuous. That's my goal. I'm faster, more efficient on my own. Just send me the data. And keep an eye out for unusual energy packets that could emanate from devices or the modulator in this zone. I want a real-time track, Aris.”

‘Update BioDyne Teams targets on perimeter backup’, Aris replied. ‘Find Webb.’

Kai ended the connection. He felt no excitement, only the cold, logical calculation of a hunter who imagined his prey. His misinterpretation was complete. He believed he had found the truth and the irony was that he was doing exactly what NeuroNet would have felt was ‘inefficiency’ – he was drawing the wrong conclusions from insufficient information.

Trace finder

The night had passed over New Babel like a heavy mantle, but the artificial lights of the megastructures above cast an eternal, sinister glow into the depths. Kai Renjiro was now moving at a new, targeted speed. He had the rough lead. He was the hunter who sensed his prey, not by instinct, but by the incorruptible whisper of data.

Looking at Pox’s Datapad message, which he could subtly catch while Pox panicked to delete the messages, Kai now knew that he was tracking unique frequency patterns from the self-built modulator. His own cybernetic eye projected a holographic map onto his field of vision, where two fine, pulsating lines marked the corridor Juno and Samuel had probably taken. Aris fed him the appropriate data. He had no exact signpost, hardly more than a rough direction, but that was enough. It was a ghost trail, a noise in the nested nets of OldNet remnants, but for Kai it was his infallible lighthouse.

The environment became increasingly hostile. Collapsed buildings, devoured by time and the elements, turned into narrow paths and impassable barriers. Kai used his superior agility and cybernetic improvements to overcome the obstacles where Juno and Samuel had to fight. He jumped over deep abysses, climbed effortlessly on crumbling facades, his tactical boots also found support on slippery, rotten surfaces. The stench of decay became even more intense down here, mixed with the biting smell of smoldering cables and the cold air rising from the deeper, unventilated shafts.

‘Aris, analyze updates’, Kai said, his voice was calm, his breathing steady, even as he tackled a difficult descent. ‘Irregular data packets from the modulator signature. What do they mean?”

‘Analyzed, Renjiro’, Ari’s voice came immediately. “It seems that the modulator is activated for short, intense bursts. High bandwidth, but very short-lived. This indicates a fast data download or upload. They may access old databases. Or they try to send a signal.” Ari’s voice contained a hint of concern. “The OmniTech teams report increased disruptions in their local communications networks, sporadic outages in sector 12. No direct link, but the temporal correlation is striking.’

Kai grinned lightly. That was the work of the data-runner. No doubt he wasn't just a runner, he was a living jammer, a thorn in the eye of the system. ‘They are looking for access. And they disturb the corporations. This is typical.’

He passed a rotten checkpoint where an old, decommissioned security goliath, a massive, rusty fighting machine, stood like a stone guard. Kai ignored him. His priority was the modulator's trail that led him deeper and deeper into the forgotten guts of ancient Shibuya, into the heart of OldNet data points.

‘OmniTech Delta Team Three reports that they encounter increased radiation levels in sector 12, sub-level F, and request a diversion,’ Aris reported. “This could be a distraction, or they might get too close to your position.”

"Unlikely," Kai replied. ‘The radiation indicates an old, unstable nuclear fusion unit, which is probably still gambling there. Not their style. Keep me informed of your actual movements. I need the exact distance to the signal and further a projection of the route.”

The distance between Kai and his targets was steadily shrinking. The pulsating line on his display became thicker, more stable. He was close. He would catch the runners before they could inflict too much damage on Webb before they got data into the wrong hands. Kai Renjiro was the hunter, and he would pursue his prey to the end of the world. And the end of the world seemed to be right here, in the crumbling depths under Shibuya.