Episode 1: Revenant

The rain hammered against the grime-coated windows of Neo-Seoul's underbelly. Mina, a whirlwind of crimson hair and steely blue eyes, crouched beneath a flickering neon sign, the glow painting fleeting stripes across her face. Her fingers danced across a holographic keyboard, the air thick with the hum of her ever-present companion, Echo.

Echo, a wisp of luminescent code, resembled a playful neon butterfly. He darted around Mina, his laughter tinkling like wind chimes. Unlike the other echoes – digital ghosts that clung to the living like whispers of the past – Echo was a glitch in the system, a spark of pure energy bound to Mina by an unknown force.

"Almost there," Mina muttered, her brow furrowed in concentration. The flickering image on her screen was a tangled mess of corporate security. Tonight's target: a data vault buried deep within the labyrinthine servers of Hyon Industries.

A familiar voice, gruff and laced with static, crackled in her earpiece. "You sure about this, kid? Hyon's security ain't exactly a walk in the park."

Kai. Her old partner, a man haunted by ghosts of his own. He'd left the corporate world behind, his past shrouded in secrecy, but their paths often crossed in the neon-drenched alleys of Neo-Seoul's underbelly.

"Relax, old man," Mina said with a smirk. "I've gotten out of tighter scrapes."

She punched in the final code, and the holographic display flickered, resolving into a complex security grid. With a practiced ease, Mina weaved through the virtual maze, her fingers a blur as she bypassed firewalls and disabled security protocols. Echo zipped ahead, scouting for hidden traps.

Suddenly, a klaxon blared, red lights pulsing ominously in the cramped space. Mina swore. "Looks like we got company."

From the shadows emerged Hyon security guards, augmented humans with glowing red implants pulsing on their temples. Mina grabbed a length of cable from her tool belt, her movements practiced and deadly. The close-quarters combat was a blur of adrenaline and flashing neon. Kai's voice crackled in her ear, a steady stream of tactical instructions.

With a final blow, Mina sent the last guard sprawling. She wasted no time, linking her interface to the data vault. A cascade of information flooded her vision – financial records, encrypted files, classified projects. Then, something unexpected snagged her attention.

A single, innocuous file pulsed with a faint blue light, a stark contrast to the usual green glow of corporate data. Curiosity piqued, Mina bypassed the security protocols and delved into the file.

A wave of dizziness washed over her as a torrent of raw data flooded her senses. Images flickered – a sterile laboratory, a man hunched over a console, a child's laughter echoing in the sterile room. And then, a blinding flash of white light, cutting the vision short.

Mina gasped, ripped from the data stream. Her head throbbed, and a cold sweat slicked her skin. Disoriented, she stumbled back, narrowly avoiding a stray punch from Kai.

"What happened?" Kai demanded, his brow creased with concern.

Mina shook her head, the fragmented images swirling in her mind. "There was... something else in that file. An echo, but different."

Echo, usually a playful presence, buzzed erratically around Mina, his glow flickering ominously. The air crackled with a strange energy.

Then, the city lurched. The familiar hum of Neo-Seoul's power grid sputtered and died. Plunged into darkness, the city erupted in chaos. Holographic advertisements flickered and died, plunging the streets into an inky blackness. Car alarms blared, a cacophony of panicked screams echoing through the canyons of steel and glass.

"What the...?" Kai swore, his voice tight with alarm.

Mina's heart hammered against her ribs. This wasn't a power outage. This was something far more sinister. The echo fragment, it was lashing out, taking control of the city's infrastructure.

The faint blue pulse from the data vault throbbed in her mind, a beacon in the chaos. Mina knew what she had to do.

"We need to get back to that file," she said, her voice grim. "That echo fragment, it's the key to all this."

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