The rain in Sector 7 didn't wash the city clean; it just turned the atmospheric soot into a greasy, toxic sludge that coated the throat. This was the Lower Hab-Zone of Aethelgard, the sprawling capital of the Unitary Corporate Republic. Down here, the sun was just a rumor, blocked by the massive atmospheric processing towers and the crisscrossing sky-highways of the wealthy districts miles above.
Ren Walker sat hunched over his desk, his posture folded like a carpenter's ruler. He was twenty-one, but the harsh blue glow of his monitor made him look older. His skin was pale, translucent from lack of sunlight, and dark, purplish circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes.
But he wasn't looking at the monitor. He was staring at a small, crinkled piece of thermal paper taped to the side of his computer tower.
It was a grainy black-and-white ultrasound image. A tiny, blurry bean-shape floating in a sea of static.
"Hey there, kid," Ren whispered, his voice raspy from disuse. He touched the paper with a scarred fingertip, tracing the outline of the life he had helped create. "Don't worry. I'm going to get us out of here. I promise."
His phone buzzed on the desk, vibrating against the cheap laminate. It was a text from Maya.
Maya: The clinic says I need the prenatal vitamins by Friday. And the hostel manager is asking for next week's rent. Ren, I'm scared. Do you have it?
Ren stared at the message. The guilt felt like a physical weight, pressing the air out of his lungs. Maya was six months pregnant, living in a crowded tenement hostel three blocks away because Ren couldn't afford to bring her here. Not into this house. Not into this madness.
"Ren! You useless parasite!"
The voice boomed from downstairs, vibrating through the thin, damp floorboards. It was followed by the heavy thud of a fist striking a wall, and the shatter of ceramic.
Ren didn't flinch. He just reached up and turned the volume knob on his cracked headphones until the white noise drowned out his reality.
This was life with Marcus. His stepfather was a hydraulic tech on the docks, a man made of dense muscle, short temper, and bad habits. It was Friday, which meant Marcus's paycheck had already dissolved into synth-whiskey and bad bets on the underground drone races. Ren's mother, Elena, would be in the kitchen right now, making herself small, trying to sweep up the broken plate before Marcus stepped on a shard.
Ren looked at his screen. A bright red "ELIMINATED" banner pulsed. He had placed 4th in the global qualifiers for Apex Vanguard.
Fourth place got nothing.
First place got ten thousand Corporate Credits.
Ten thousand. That was a deposit on a clean apartment in Sector 4, where the rain was water instead of acid. It was medical care for Maya. It was a crib. It was a future where his child didn't have to cough up black soot every morning.
Instead, he had nothing. His rig was a Frankenstein monster of scavenged parts. The graphics card was three generations old, salvaged from an e-waste dump. He was trying to win a Formula 1 race driving a car held together with rust and hope.
He looked at the eviction notice crumpled on the floor next to his trash bin.
Final Warning: Payment due in 48 hours. Amount: 2,400 Credits.
Ren checked his bank balance. 12 Credits.
Enough for two packs of instant noodles.
Ding-dong.
The sound cut through his headphones. It was a sharp, digital chime—too clean, too crisp for the rusty mechanical buzz of their actual doorbell.
Ren frowned. He pulled the headphones down around his neck. The apartment was silent now. The shouting downstairs had stopped, replaced by a tense, heavy quiet that was somehow worse.
Ding-dong.
He stood up, his knees popping audibly. He pulled his charcoal hoodie over his head to hide his face and crept out of his room. He navigated the hallway by muscle memory, stepping over the loose floorboards that groaned under pressure.
Downstairs, the living room smelled of stale alcohol and burnt cooking oil. Marcus had passed out on the threadbare recliner, his mouth open, snoring like a chainsaw. His mother was nowhere to be seen—hiding in the laundry alcove, waiting for the storm to pass.
Ren unlocked the three separate deadbolts and cracked the front door open.
The air outside was thick, tasting of sulfur. The street was a narrow canyon of crumbling concrete tenement buildings. Neon Japanese and English signs flickered violently, reflecting off the wet pavement.
The street was empty. No delivery drone. No courier.
Ren looked down.
Sitting on the sodden welcome mat was a box. It was an anomaly.
It was matte black, made of a material that seemed to absorb the neon light rather than reflect it. It was perfectly dry, despite the pouring rain, as if it repelled the water. There was no shipping label, no barcode, and no postage. Just his name, printed in razor-sharp silver foil directly onto the lid:
REN WALKER
Ren's heart did a strange double-thump. Paranoia pricked at the back of his neck. Marcus owed money to the syndicates in the Undercity. Was this a message? A bomb?
But he thought of Maya. He thought of the vitamins. He thought of the baby growing in a room that smelled like mildew.
Curiosity and desperation were stronger drugs than fear. Ren reached down and lifted the box. It was heavy—denser than lead—and cold to the touch.
He brought it inside, locking the deadbolts. He sprinted back up the stairs, clutching the box to his chest like stolen diamonds.
Back in the sanctuary of his room, he sat at his desk, the ultrasound picture staring at him. He grabbed a screwdriver and pried at the black seal.
The lid lifted with a pressurized hiss, releasing a faint puff of sterile, freezing air that smelled like a hospital.
Ren stared.
Nestled in the center, lined with high-density acoustic foam, was a piece of technology that shouldn't exist in Sector 7.
It was a VR headset, but not the bulky plastic buckets sold in the arcades. This was a seamless curve of obsidian glass and brushed gunmetal. It had no external wires, no battery pack, and no branding. Just a single, pulsating blue LED on the temple, beating slowly like a dormant heart.
Underneath the headset lay a thick, cream-colored envelope. Ren tore it open. Inside was a single card and a translucent tablet that looked like a credit card.
He read the card aloud, his voice raspy.
> SUBJECT: BETA TEST INVITATION – CLEARANCE LEVEL 1
> TO: Ren Walker (Gamertag: Wraith_09)
> FROM: Aegis Innovations
> Dear Mr. Walker,
> We have been watching your career. Your reflexes, tactical scores, and psychographic profile have been flagged. You are a predator, Ren, but you are starving in a cage built for rats.
> We offer you a key.
> You have been selected to beta test the Aegis Neural Link, the world's first fully immersive simulation engine. This is not a game. It is a gig economy platform for elite operators.
> Compensation: 5,000 Credits upon completion of the introductory assessment. Funds are transferred immediately to the enclosed debit card.
> Condition: Complete confidentiality. Put on the headset to accept the terms.
>
Ren stared at the paper. 5,000 Credits.
He looked at the ultrasound.
5,000 credits was the vitamins. It was the rent. It was the delivery fee at a real hospital, not a back-alley clinic. It was a start.
He picked up his phone. He texted Maya.
Ren: I found a gig. A big one. Hold tight. I'm going to fix everything tonight.
He put the phone down. He looked at the headset. It felt warm now, humming with a low-frequency vibration that made his fingertips tingle.
"For the baby," Ren whispered. "Just one job. Get the money, get out."
He sat back in his rickety chair. He took a deep breath of the stale room air. He slid the visor over his eyes.
LOGIN DETECTED.
The transition wasn't like watching a screen. It was a violent abduction of the senses.
Ren gasped as the smell of mold, the sound of the rain, the ache in his back—it was all stripped away in a rush of white noise.
For a second, there was infinite black. Then, text scrolled across his vision in fiery gold.
> NEURAL HANDSHAKE: COMPLETE.
> PAIN RECEPTORS: DAMPENED.
> ADRENALINE REGULATORS: UNLOCKED.
> WELCOME TO THE SERVER, WRAITH.
Sensory overload exploded around him.
Ren stumbled. He wasn't in his room. He was standing on a rooftop precipice, fifty stories up. The wind whipped at his face, cold and sharp—real wind. Below him lay a sprawling cyberpunk metropolis that made Sector 7 look like a garbage dump. Flying vehicles zipped along currents of light between gleaming towers of glass.
Ren looked at his hands. They weren't pale and skinny. They were gloved in tactical carbon-fiber weave. He clenched his fist. He felt strong. He felt fed.
A window popped up, floating in the air like a hologram.
MISSION: INTRODUCTORY ASSESSMENT
TARGET: Prefect Vane (Alias: The Bandit King).
LOCATION: Penthouse Suite, The Apex Spire (1,200 meters North).
OBJECTIVE: Eliminate the target. Do not raise the alarm.
REWARD: 5,000 Credits.
"Prefect Vane," Ren read. "Generic bad guy. Okay. Let's get paid."
He looked North. A massive black tower dominated the skyline. Through his zoomed vision, he could see into the penthouse windows.
He felt a weight on his back. He reached over his shoulder and pulled off a heavy, matte-black anti-material sniper rifle. The weight felt reassuring. Familiar. He dropped into a prone position on the gravel roof, unfolding the bipod.
He looked through the scope. The optics were flawless crystal.
He scanned the penthouse.
There.
Sitting at a long mahogany table was a man in a tailored suit that cost more than Ren's life. He was laughing, holding a glass of amber liquid, gesturing to an unseen companion.
The UI tagged him with a red diamond: [PREFECT VANE - LEVEL 10 BOSS].
Ren controlled his breathing. His heart rate slowed. The anxiety that plagued him in the real world—the fear of Marcus, the fear of losing Maya, the fear of failing his child—it evaporated.
Here, he wasn't Ren the failure.
Here, he was Wraith.
He thought of the ultrasound picture taped to his computer. He thought of the crib he was going to buy.
"Sorry, Prefect," Ren whispered. "My kid needs to eat."
He squeezed the trigger.
BOOM.
The recoil slammed into his shoulder, a satisfying, heavy kick that rattled his digital teeth.
Through the scope, he watched the window of the Apex Spire shatter.
The Prefect's head snapped back in a mist of red pixels. The figure slumped forward onto the table.
A massive golden banner erupted in the sky.
MISSION COMPLETE.
CLEAN KILL BONUS: +500.
TRANSFERRING FUNDS...
The dopamine hit was instantaneous. Ren pumped his fist in the air. "Yes! Easy money!"
LOGGING OUT...
Ren gasped, his real body jerking violently in the chair as if he'd been shocked.
He ripped the headset off, throwing it onto the desk.
He was back. The room was dark. The moldy smell was back. The rain was hammering the window.
But he wasn't trapped. He was awake.
"Was it real?" he panted, his chest heaving.
He grabbed the translucent credit card and pulled up the universal banking app on his phone. He typed in the card numbers with trembling fingers.
Loading...
Loading...
BALANCE: 5,500 CREDITS.
Ren stared at the screen. Tears welled in his eyes, hot and fast.
"Maya," he choked out. "Oh god, Maya, we made it."
He jumped up, pacing the small room. He felt lighter, stronger.
He opened a browser tab to check the news, a habit he had while cooling down.
The homepage of the Aethelgard Chronicle loaded.
BREAKING NEWS
HIGH PREFECT VANE ASSASSINATED IN APEX SPIRE PENTHOUSE
Ren froze.
He clicked the headline. The video report auto-played.
"...High Prefect Valerius Vane was dining alone when a single, high-caliber round, fired from an unknown location, struck him in the head. He died instantly at 23:48."
Ren looked at the clock. 23:53.
Five minutes ago.
He looked at his hands. They were shaking. He could still feel the phantom weight of the rifle.
"No," Ren whispered. "No. It's a simulation. It scanned the news. That's all."
But the sick feeling in his stomach said otherwise.
He looked at the banking app.
5,500 CREDITS.
That wasn't beta-test money. That was a hit.
He had just killed a man. A government official.
Panic clawed at his throat. He needed to call the police. He needed to throw the headset in the river. He needed to run.
But then he looked at the ultrasound picture.
If he called the police, he went to prison.
If he went to prison, Maya was alone. The baby would be born in a shelter. The baby would starve.
Ren took a deep breath. He hardened his heart. He didn't care about Prefect Vane. Vane was part of the system that kept them in the mud.
Ren had to be smart. He had to secure the future.
He opened a new tab. He went to the Aethelgard Stock Exchange.
He created a custodial account.
Account Name: Baby Walker.
Deposit: 2,500 Credits.
Investment: Aegis Innovations High-Yield Index.
He watched the transaction clear.
"You're going to be rich, kid," Ren whispered, his voice trembling but determined. "You're never going to work in a factory. You're never going to live in Sector 7."
THUD.
The sound came from downstairs.
"Ren! I know you're holding out on me!" Marcus screamed.
Heavy footsteps thundered up the stairs. The doorknob rattled violently.
"Open this door! I'm gonna teach you some respect!"
Ren stared at the door.
Yesterday, he would have cowered. Yesterday, he was a victim.
But today, he was Wraith. He had 3,000 credits left in his operating account. He was a provider.
He stood up. He didn't reach for the headset to hide.
He walked to the door and unlocked it.
Marcus kicked it open, stumbling into the room, his face red with whiskey rage and veins bulging in his neck. "About time! Where's the—"
Ren held up his phone. He showed Marcus the transfer screen.
SENT: 1,000 CREDITS.
Marcus froze. He looked at the phone, then at Ren. The anger drained out of him, replaced by greedy confusion.
"What... where did you get this?"
"I got a job," Ren said. His voice was cold. Steady. "That covers rent. And your tab."
Ren stepped forward, forcing Marcus to take a step back into the hallway.
"Now get out of my room," Ren said. "I have work to do."
Marcus blinked, stunned by the shift in power. He looked at the skinny kid who used to flinch, and saw something dangerous in his eyes. He pocketed his own phone, grunted, and backed away.
Ren closed the door. He locked it.
He picked up the headset from the desk. The blue light pulsed. Thump-thump.
It wasn't a toy. It was a weapon.
And Ren was going to use it to build an empire for his family.
He picked up his phone and texted Maya.
Ren: Pack your bags. I'm coming to get you. We're getting a real apartment.
He smiled, looking at the rain. He had won the first round.
He had no idea that he had just signed a contract with the devil.
Ren Walker was free.
But the game had only just begun