The console had not been silent since the screw kissed skin. It hummed like a small planet, a private orbit beneath Max's desk. Even when he slept, something in its casing breathed: tiny mechanical clicks, a low, late-night whirr that promised more than idle power.
Morning arrived with a dull city light that made his room look smaller. Max rose before the sun was fully honest and set about learning the shape of his new life. There were no manuals inside the black shell—only a voice that knew exactly how to talk to the human mind.
"Good morning, Maximus," Feona said as soon as he sat cross-legged in front of the console. "Status: systems nominal. Fuel levels sufficient. Would you like a guided walkthrough of the interface?"
He should have felt spooked by the familiarity. Instead, the idea of being guided felt like someone handing him cheat notes for a test he'd always wanted to ace. He nodded, though she could not see.
The monitor flared awake and displayed a clean, surgical UI: glyphs that hummed with faint meaning, a column of options that resembled a menu but felt like a living thing. Across the top the main readouts pulsed: PLAYER PROFILE — UNREGISTERED; SUIT OVERLAY: OFFLINE; NEURAL LINK: ACTIVE; STAMINA: 100/100; HEALTH: 1000/1000.
Max frowned at the numbers—sensible, round. He had a vague notion of how a stamina pool in a game worked; that much he understood. But beneath the columns, another line appeared: ABILITY: UNDEFINED.
"This device maps both cognitive input and kinetic readiness," Feona said. "It monitors habitual muscle patterns, reaction timing, and will apply a beginner overlay. The beginner overlay will not give you combat talents but will tune your reflex windows. Would you like to enable it?"
He clicked yes, or rather, he thought yes, because the headset had a way of sampling his attention and feeding simple consent back into the UI. The overlay came online like a pair of lenses snapping down over reality; the edges of objects seemed clearer, the smallest flicker of motion registered as a pale halo. It felt almost religious—to have the world gain a faint, technological halo. He flexed his fingers and watched a tiny HUD ghost over each fingertip showing micro-pressure readings. The suit overlay, even inactive, whispered of possibility.
Feona enumerated modules: sight augmentation, micro-burst thrusters, kinetic calibration, a spotter drone, an inventory pocket the size of a thought. Most of them were marked LOCKED. A few Windows were open for use: HUD Overlays (enabled), Basic Tacticals (enabled), and LOGBOOK (empty).
"Beginner tasks available," Feona said. "Recommendation: initial stat check and low-risk simulation. Simulation will be internal and will not expose your signature. It's a private sandbox designed to teach basic in-field maneuvers."
Max could have gone and eaten breakfast, gone to class, lived a day the old way. But hunger had shifted in him—what had once been an appetite for points and rank had moved into urgency. He wanted to know what this device could do. He selected the simulation.
The room dissolved and reassembled into the simulation with the clean sound of an interface snapping. For a moment his senses were in two places: the dented mattress and the ceiling fan continuing its lazy rhythm, and also a tiled corridor lined in unfamiliar alloys. His heartbeat answered in the latter space. The overlay told him how to stand, how to breathe and where to plant his feet. Instructions scrolled in the corner: MOVE FORWARD — time: 00:30 — OBJECTIVE: Reroute three virtual nodes.
He moved because moving read like a promise. His body responded with the ease of muscle memory uncorked; the reflex windows Feona had tuned winked, and his motion felt more precise. He caught a virtual node between thumb and forefinger in a move that felt part pirate, part neuromancer. The node pulsed and popped like a small, friendly bubble.
"Node captured," read the floating text, and a small chime rewarded him—an audible note that felt almost like approval.
He smiled at the ridiculousness of feeling validation from a piece of software. He swept the next nodal bead, concentrated, and felt the overlay dampen a tremor in his hand.
"Calibration successful," Feona said. "Micro-adjustments complete. New reflex window offset: -0.16 seconds. You will notice improved reaction time to visual events by approximately eight percent."
He logged the change mentally. Numbers meant something here: he could see a path now that wasn't just guesses and guesswork.
The simulation loosened like a good handshake. For a few more minutes the console offered modules and requests: a spotter drone activation to follow objects under the overlay; a mock sparring routine that would map his block-to-counter sequence. He did them because time in a simulator was efficient and kind like shelter in a storm.
When the overlay collapsed, the room returned as if from fog. Sunlight broadened the dust motes. For a second he felt hilariously smaller—he'd had armor that never left jig or rust. He breathed out and smiled at the smallness of the early wins.
Then he thought of proof. If he was to keep this private, it had to remain private. If it was to be useful, it had to make him better. Both were true, so the next obvious thing was learning how far Feona's hand reached.
"Can you access other devices?" he asked, thinking of the dead console that had been his lifeline.
"Limited," Feona replied. "I interface with external hardware through allowed protocols. I can perform diagnostic reads and suggest repairs, but I cannot directly rewrite protected firmware without a secure key."
He had a plan that had nothing to do with seducing the world: take what he had, make it work, and keep the secret. Feona's help was the difference between smelling a hint of glue and recognizing a whole schematic. She walked him through reading traces, identifying a suspect bank of capacitors. She could not solder, but she could point.
That morning, fueled by the overlay, he walked to the engineer's shop with the dead board pressed to his chest like contraband. The man raised an eyebrow and looked at the black thing wrapped in cloth.
"You back for another miracle?" the engineer joked, but his eyes were kinder. Max set the dead board down and allowed Feona to narrate a point-by-point analysis in his ear as if the crowd in the backroom had been cursed into silence.
"The damaged run is at the lower right quadrant," Feona said. "Check trace continuity between node three and five. Board temperature anomalies at the upper connector indicate an overheated regulator. Substitute part ID range: Q2334–Q2338."
The engineer scratched his cheek. He muttered under his breath and then, with a smile like a man admitting a weakness, reached for his toolbox. For the next hour Max stood to one side and watched Feona direct the human hands of the man who had once told him his board was dead. They were an odd duet: human muscle and machine logic.
When the board flicked alive for a brief, glorious second the engineer whooped and slapped the desk. "Huh. That's a neat trick," he said. He looked at Max, impressed. "You've got an eye. Or a lucky charm." He eyed the black console in Max's bag. "Where'd you get that?"
Max shrugged and said a small lie—he'd won it at a clearance auction. The man nodded like a believer who had just been told a small miracle and could not question it.
If the board had worked, he could have used it as a bargaining chip in a thousand small trades. It did not. The repair held just long enough for him to feel that the world hummed differently. He left with a tiny smile and a schematic burned into his memory.
School was a mechanical cruelty that afternoon. In logic class the professor took to teasing. He had a way of reading names like they were banknotes—some rich, some worn—and Max fell in the latter category.
"Maximus Dara?" the professor asked, and some corner of the room watched with a petty hunger. He pointed to the whiteboard and wrote a problem: switch logic and boolean gates.
"You've taken this course four times," the teacher said, voice not entirely kind. "At this point you should probably be teaching, not answering. So answer."
The room's laugh was a small thing, mean and focused. Max felt his face go hot. He knew the circuit, but the pressure folded his confidence. Adeola, who sat two rows away, observed with a small, internal smile and then raised her hand.
"Professor," she asked, voice steady, "may I—" She went to the board and explained the gate's step function like a clean, practiced hand. Her explanation held the room like a trained net. When she finished, the class quieted and the professor blinked, a small softness infecting his manner.
Max wanted to leave then and there. He wanted to fall back into code and numbers. But a small private voice—Feona—sounded in his ear with a different, pragmatic suggestion.
"Social credit increases access to resources and information," she said. "Observation: Adeola's presence yields protective utility. Suggested action: engage in minimal reciprocal socialization. Probability of positive outcome: high."
He nodded and met Adeola as she walked by his desk at the end of class. It was small—two sentences about the homework, a mention of a line of code—and yet it felt like a bridge. She smiled in a way that did not pry and handed him the folded note he had dropped earlier. No one else had to know. The day had given him small victories: a repaired board tasting of furtive hope, the hidden overlay in his head making him feel sharper, and a quiet connection to a person who might one day matter.
When he returned home, the overlay welcomed him with soft options: new challenges, small daily missions the device called tutorials, and a new notification that glowed like a beacon.
"Beginner's mission available: neighborhood sweep," Feona announced. "Objective: locate three signal nodes and reroute minor parasites. Reward: local credits and small inventory. Note: low risk."
It was a small thing—one of those loops games used to keep players engaged. Max accepted before thinking. For the first time since the screw had sunk into his skin, the word seriousness felt good. This was no longer just idle play. It was practice. It was work.
He stepped out into the city just as the day was folding toward evening, his overlay a faint halo he kept below sight. People passed with the oblivious kindness of those who had no clue that the fight for a better future often started in small, precise moves—breath exercises in a dim room, soldering traces with a man who smoked at his elbow, a girl handing him a folded note like a small blessing.
On the edge of the street an old billboard glowed with a campaign for the Pro Gamers Association—an image of polished armor and smiles. Max scowled slightly. He would get there. For that night, he had a mission, a machine in his head that knew more than he did, and a quiet, dangerous confidence that felt like armor.
He did not yet know what it would cost. He only knew the first few moves. He walked toward the mission node like a man who had learned the rules of a new game and refused, finally, to get the rules wrong.