Smoke trailed from the ruins of the collapsed vault, curling like serpents into the neon night. Somewhere deep below the carnage, the fire still burned—but above, in the chaos-strewn rooftops of the Outer Circles, Raizen, Meiko, and K1D were already running.
Raizen’s breathing was jagged. His mind—still reeling from Vermia’s download—felt crowded. As if her voice was now another part of his own thoughts. She didn’t speak, not directly. But memories flickered like echoes… guiding him.
“We need a safehouse,” Meiko said, ducking under a flickering signboard as a drone zipped overhead.
“I know just the place,” K1D muttered, opening a map of the city grid on his optical lens. “Welcome to the Wilds.”
The Wilds weren’t on any official Echelon map. That was the point. A territory forgotten by the system, overrun with rogue AIs, exiled hackers, merc gangs, and data pirates. A lawless jungle of digital ghosts and real-world savagery.
It was the last place they could vanish.
By dawn, they'd reached the perimeter wall. Half of it was crumbling, eaten away by rust and vines that glowed with bio-coded phosphorescence. K1D placed his palm on a sensor embedded in the bark of a tree-like terminal.
“You’re sure they won’t shoot us on sight?” Meiko asked.
“They’ll try,” K1D smirked. “But not before hearing the price I’m willing to pay.”
The gates didn’t open traditionally. Instead, the wall split into segments, folding inward like a puzzle solving itself. Beyond was a world unlike anything Raizen expected. It was both primal and futuristic—buildings grown from code-infused trees, holograms flickering between jungle vines, and people who wore outdated tech like tribal ornaments.
They were immediately surrounded.
“ID yourselves,” barked a woman with twin neural whips dangling from her arms. Her left eye was a ruby-colored implant.
K1D raised both hands. “Yo, Skarra. Been a long time.”
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Not yet. And I brought company.”
Skarra’s eyes shifted to Raizen. Her expression darkened. “That’s him,” she said. “The Kurogane kid.”
News traveled fast in the underground.
After some tense negotiations—and a brief, unnecessary brawl with a heavily-modded data gladiator—they were allowed into the inner hub of the Wilds: a massive amphitheater called The Core, where a neural bonfire pulsed in the center, feeding on stolen signals and old code.
There, they met The Wired—the leader of the outcasts.
He was young, younger than Raizen expected. Barefoot, tattooed in binary, eyes pure white from years of direct uplink immersion. He spoke softly, but every syllable crackled with electric power.
“You come carrying the ghost of Vermia,” he said. “And the tracecode of Juno.”
Raizen didn’t ask how he knew. Instead, he stepped forward and showed him the drive.
“I need to unlock her memories. Fully. She said there are others like her. Others hidden in the system.”
The Wired nodded. “There are. Scattered across the city. Sleeping minds embedded in the Echelon network. Vermia’s code was only the map.”
He placed a hand on Raizen’s chest. “But your mind is not ready.”
Images poured into Raizen’s head. Visions of the other sleepers—hunted, hidden, or corrupted. One in the Hall of Mirrors, buried beneath the entertainment sector. Another in the old Neural Cathedral, deep within the City of Bells. And one more... in the core of Echelon itself.
Then it all vanished.
Raizen gasped.
“You must awaken the Mind Chain,” The Wired said. “Or Echelon wins.”
Suddenly, the warning alarms rang again—this time from the jungle perimeter.
“They found us,” Skarra growled. “Someone sold us out.”
Raizen turned, heart racing. His eyes widened as a silhouette stepped through the fold of trees.
It wasn’t Dawg.
It was Elisa.
She looked unchanged. Deadly. Elegant. A phantom dressed in a sleek cloak that shimmered like starlight. Her smile was a blade.
“Hello, Raizen,” she said. “I missed you.”
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