The rain never really stopped in New Hawkins.
It just changed its mood.
Tonight it fell in slow, heavy sheets the color of bruised electricity—blue-violet from the massive Arasaka holo-billboard that dominated the skyline. The ad cycled the same thirty-second loop: a smiling woman with glowing neural ports promising "Eternal Sync – Become More Than Human." Steve had seen it so many times he could mouth the script in his sleep.
He stood on the narrow balcony of his fifteenth-floor walk-up in the Edge district, forearms resting on the rusted railing. The cybernetic left arm—Militech surplus, matte black with faint red status lights—clicked softly when he flexed the fingers. It still felt foreign after three years, like wearing someone else's skin. The flesh-and-bone right arm ached more predictably: old scars from demodogs and Vecna's vines pulling tight in the damp.
Thirty-eight years since the final gate cracked open wider than anyone expected.
Thirty-eight years since the Upside Down didn't just bleed monsters—it bled code.
They called it The System now.
A neural overlay that appeared in your vision the moment you jacked in or got implanted. Stats. Skills. Quests. Levels.
At first people thought it was salvation: enhanced reflexes, instant knowledge downloads, pain blockers that let you keep fighting when your body should have quit.
Then the corruption started.
Whispers in the back of your mind. Visions of red clocks. A voice that sounded too much like Henry Creel saying, *"You're not done yet."*
Steve never fully synced.
He kept his implants minimal—arm for strength, ocular HUD for threat detection, pain dampeners so he could still function after a bad night. Nothing that touched his brain stem.
He'd seen what happened to the ones who went deep: eyes glazing over, smiles too wide, reciting gate coordinates like scripture.
A soft chime in his right ear—private comms, not the public net.
Robin's voice, crackly but warm.
"Dingus. You brooding on the balcony again?"
Steve exhaled through his nose, a half-smile tugging at his mouth.
"Habit."
"You're gonna rust that fancy arm standing out in the rain."
"It's waterproof."
"Still looks dramatic as hell. Come down. Got someone you need to meet."
He pushed off the railing.
"Another runaway netrunner with a 'world-saving' data shard?"
"Worse. She says it's pre-'86 code. Mixed with something new. Calls it the Future Protocol."
Steve's stomach did a slow roll.
He hadn't heard anyone mention pre-'86 code in years. Most of that era was scrubbed, mythologized, or buried under corporate NDAs.
"Where?"
"Old Family Video block. Basement level. She's holed up with enough Faraday mesh to make a corp sweeper cry. But Arasaka drones were circling Sector 7 thirty minutes ago. Clock's ticking."
Steve glanced at the city again.
Neon veins pulsed through the streets below—hover-bikes weaving between elevated walkways, joytoys under pink umbrellas calling out to salarymen, street vendors frying synth-meat that smelled almost like the real thing.
"I'm on my way," he said.
"Bring the bat?"
"Always."
He stepped back inside, the door sealing with a pneumatic hiss. The apartment was small, sparse: reinforced walls, a single mattress in the corner, a workbench littered with spare parts, and the one thing he refused to upgrade or sell—the nail-studded bat hanging above the door.
The nails had been replaced twice since '86. Now they were vibro-spiked tungsten, humming faintly when charged.
Still felt like home.
He shrugged into the long black coat—ballistic weave, thermal lining, hood that could double as a rebreather. Slung the bat across his back in its custom sheath.
Checked the mirror out of habit.
Hair still mostly there, though streaked with silver at the temples. Eyes tired but sharp. Jaw set the same way it had been when he was seventeen and swinging at demodogs in a junkyard.
He looked like a man who'd survived too much and still expected more.
The elevator was out again, so he took the stairs—fifteen floors down, boots echoing in the empty shaft.
Each landing had graffiti: old resistance tags from the early gate wars, newer ones warning about System addiction. One fresh tag caught his eye on floor 8:
THE SYSTEM LIES. THE GATES REMEMBER
Steve paused for half a second.
Then kept moving.
Outside, the rain hit like needles. He pulled the hood up and started walking.
No car tonight—too easy to track. The streets were safer if you stayed low, moved like you belonged.
He passed the old arcade, now a black-market chrome clinic. Passed the noodle stand where Dustin used to drag him for late-night ramen before everything went to hell.
Dustin was gone now—corporate consultant in Tokyo, married, two kids, hadn't answered a call in seven years.
Most of the old crew had scattered.
Nancy ran investigative journalism from a hidden bunker in California.
Mike and El lived off-grid somewhere in the Rockies.
Lucas coached kids in augmented sports leagues.
Max… Max was still in a long-term care facility, neural-locked, waiting for a cure that never came.
And Eddie—
Steve shoved the thought down.
Not tonight.
The Family Video ruins appeared at the end of the block: half-collapsed brick shell, windows boarded, roof caved in places where vines of glowing data-cable had grown through the concrete like ivy on steroids.
Robin waited just inside the shattered doorway, hood up, a compact pistol loose in her hand.
Her eyes—augmented now, faint blue rings around the irises—scanned him head to toe.
"You look like shit," she said fondly.
"Love you too."
She jerked her head toward the back.
"Downstairs. Name's Jax. Twenty-one. Fastest fingers in the Edge. And currently scared out of her mind."
Steve followed her through the dark, boots crunching on broken glass and old VHS cases.
The basement smelled of ozone, solder, and fear-sweat.
A single red emergency light illuminated the space.
In the center sat a young woman on an overturned crate, portable deck balanced on her knees. Purple hair shaved on one side, neural ports glowing softly at her temples and the base of her neck.
She looked up when they entered—eyes wide, pupils dilated from adrenaline or stims or both.
"Harrington?" Her voice cracked just a little.
Steve nodded once.
"You the one who found the Protocol?"
Jax swallowed.
"I didn't find it. It… found me."
She tapped a key.
A small holo-projection flickered to life between them—lines of green and red code twisting slowly, like vines reaching for light.
Steve stared.
He recognized fragments.
Old Hawkins Lab formatting.
Vecna's clock chime encoded in binary.
And something new—cleaner, colder, future-tense.
"It says it can close the gates," Jax whispered.
"For good. But it needs a Prime Anchor. Someone who was at the beginning. Someone who survived the first sync."
Robin looked at Steve.
He didn't meet her eyes.
Outside, a low drone hum began to rise—Arasaka hunter-killer closing in.
Steve's hand drifted to the bat.
The vibro-spikes woke with a soft, hungry whine.
"Time's up," he said quietly.
Jax shut the holo down.
"I can spoof our signal. Buy us twenty minutes. Maybe thirty."
Robin checked her pistol.
"Then we use every second."
Steve stepped toward the stairs, rain dripping from his hood onto the cracked concrete.
In the corner of his vision, uninvited, a notification bloomed:
[System Alert: Prime Anchor Presence Confirmed]
[New Quest Available: Secure the Future Protocol]
[Reward: Permanent Gate Closure Access]
[Failure: Systemic Corruption – Level 5]
He didn't acknowledge it.
Just kept walking.
Some things never changed.
Even in neon and chrome, Hawkins still needed someone to swing first.
**End of Chapter 1**