Bursting onto the street felt less like an escape and more like being spat out of a concrete cannon into the middle of a very hostile, very glitchy block party. The Probability Drive fishtailed, its massive tracks tearing chunks from the pavement before Anya wrestled it back under control, the vehicle settling into a low, predatory hum. Alarms still beeped intermittently from the console, adding a cheerful counterpoint to the sound of my own blood pounding in my ears.
"Status?" Anya snapped again, her eyes already darting between the flickering holographic map display and the viewports, assessing the rapidly converging threats.
I tried to focus on the core stability monitor, but my vision swam. The crisp numbers and lines I'd seen just moments ago seemed fuzzy, overlaid with faint static trails. My thoughts felt thick, sluggish, like trying to wade through digital molasses, or trying to run modern code on ancient hardware. This was the cognitive hangover, in full effect.
"Uh… eighty-three percent stability," I managed, blinking hard, trying to force the numbers into focus. "Holding… mostly. Patch seems… intact?" Even my internal certainty felt fuzzy. Was it really holding, or was my perception just glitching now too? The [SP: 1/80] warning pulsed weakly at the edge of my vision, occasionally dissolving into meaningless pixels before reforming.
The URE interface, usually an annoying but stable fixture, flickered erratically. A helpful tip about [Optimal Hydration Levels for Cognitive Function] scrolled past, partially obscured by a low-resolution image of a dancing banana. Extremely useful. Maybe I should ask it for a glass of water.
"Mostly isn't good enough!" Anya shot back, swerving violently to avoid a shimmering tear in the asphalt that pulsed with nauseating purple light – a minor spatial distortion that could probably flay the armor plating off the rig if we hit it wrong. "Keep watching it! Leo, eyes open back there! Call out targets!"
Outside, the welcoming committee was assembling. Low-level Glitch Skitters, all static and disjointed limbs, scuttled out from under overturned cars. A shimmering [Data Wisp] – usually harmless but annoying – drifted menacingly towards our viewport before dissolving. More worryingly, half a dozen figures emerged from a crumbling storefront, clad in patched-together armor, wielding scavenged projectile weapons and rusty melee implements.
Scavengers, drawn by the commotion, smelling potential loot or desperation. Behind them, a larger shape coalesced from flickering data streams and ambient debris – a [Minor Data Elemental], perhaps level 4, vaguely humanoid but shifting and unstable.
My [Perceive Glitch] skill felt… muffled. Like trying to listen through earmuffs, or access a server through layers of overloaded firewalls. I could sense the general instability, the hostile energy signatures, but the fine details were lost in the cognitive fog. Analyzing specific weaknesses felt impossible right now.
"Got Scavs, six o'clock high!" Anya called out, referencing her tactical display. "And some low-grade data-crud popping up ahead." She spun a dial, and a low thrum emanated from the vehicle's exterior plating. "Deflectors up. Minimal power draw."
"Anya, wait!" Leo's voice suddenly cut through the chaos, high-pitched but clear. He wasn't looking behind us, but frantically tapping one of the secondary monitor screens bolted near his jump seat – likely displaying side sensor feeds. "Side alley! Right side, coming up! Ambush! Two… no, three heavy weapons!"
My sluggish brain struggled to process. Side alley? Ambush? I hadn't perceived anything specific there, just background noise and the buzzing static behind my own eyes. Anya, however, reacted instantly. Her eyes flickered to the feed Leo indicated, her face hardening.
Draftsman's eye for detail, I thought hazily. Or maybe just less brain-fried than me. Leo, caught between terror and observation, had spotted something crucial we'd missed.
"Got it!" Anya didn't praise him, didn't acknowledge it beyond the instant reaction. She slammed the control yoke hard to port, the Probability Drive responding with an almost unnatural sideways lurch, inertia seemingly optional. A volley of heavy slugs, spitting sparks, impacted the spot where we would have been fractions of a second later, chewing chunks out of a derelict bus stop.
"Nice catch, Leo!" Anya actually grunted, executing a tight, track-shredding turn that swung the vehicle's rear end around, presenting heavy armor towards the alleyway ambushers. "Trying to flank us, bastards!" She thumbed a control. "Deploying countermeasures!"
A wave of crackling blue energy erupted outwards from the side plating – the deflectors pushed into an offensive pulse. Screams and the discharge of shorting electronics echoed faintly from the alley.
"Where are we going?" Leo asked, voice still trembling but laced with the adrenaline of having actually contributed something useful.
"Undercroft access!" Anya snapped, eyes flicking between the main route ahead and the converging threats on her display. "Section tunnels beneath the old financial district. Glitchy as hell down there, full of resonance ghosts and structural failures, but it's the only route west from here that avoids the Kilo-7 Distortion Field – and that's something even this rig can't handle." Her destination hinted at knowledge of the city's deep infrastructure, maybe a past life before courier or scavenger? "Need to get off these surface streets before that thing decides to join the party."
She meant the large metallic object I'd glimpsed earlier. Looking ahead now, as we barreled down the ruined avenue, I could see it more clearly. Distorted by distance and atmospheric shimmering, it looked like a walking construction vehicle, maybe a repurposed mining mech, bristling with crude weapon emplacements and moving with a heavy, ponderous gait that nonetheless covered ground alarmingly fast. Definitely not standard Glitch-spawn. That was built. That was piloted. That was hunting us.
"Core stability holding at eighty percent," I reported, forcing myself to focus, the number swimming slightly. "Minor flux when you pulsed the deflectors." The patch was straining, but not breaking. For now.
"Can you give me a short burst?" Anya demanded, eyes fixed on the road ahead where a cluster of Glitch Skitters and two Scavs wielding sparking stun batons were blocking the way. "Need to clear the road."
A burst? On 1 SP and running on cognitive fumes? "Define 'short'," I managed, already trying to gather my fragmented focus.
"Three seconds. Localized inertia negation," she commanded. "Just enough to… glide through."
Glide through. Right. Easy. I focused on the drive core's representation again, ignoring the throbbing pain. Targeted the specific subroutines controlling localized inertia. Instead of reinforcing or shielding, I needed to inject a brief override. Tell the universe, just for a moment, that the concept of 'mass resisting acceleration' didn't apply right here.
Visualize: A quick, clean pulse of code directly into the inertia control module. set_inertial_mass(target=self, value=0, duration=3s). Simple command, impossibly complex execution.
My remaining SP vanished. The world went grey again, briefly, accompanied by a wave of intense vertigo. [Cognitive Strain Warning: Continued Stunts May Result in Unscheduled Reboots]. The URE's sense of humor was impeccable.
Outside, the effect was instantaneous and eerie. The Probability Drive, despite its immense size and speed, seemed to suddenly become… weightless. Effortless. It didn't smash through the enemies ahead; it drifted through them, their bodies and attacks passing harmlessly through the space the vehicle occupied, like we were momentarily out of phase with reality. The Scavs stared in stunned disbelief as a multi-ton armored vehicle ghosted silently through their position. Three seconds later, inertia snapped back into place with a bone-jarring thud.
We were clear. But the metallic walker behind us was closer now, maybe only two blocks away.
"Undercroft Access Alpha – fifty meters ahead!" Anya pointed towards a gaping hole in the street beside a collapsed subway entrance, reinforced with scavenged steel plates and marked with faded hazard symbols. It looked less like an access tunnel, more like a maw leading into the bowels of a dead city.
"Looks inviting," I muttered, trying to shake off the disorientation.
"It beats becoming scrap metal for that oversized Tonka toy back there," Anya retorted, already angling the massive vehicle towards the hole. "Hold on tight. The entrance ramp is… technically non-existent."
She didn't slow down. As we approached the opening, she hit another control. The front end of the Probability Drive tilted down sharply, track units clawing for purchase on the edge of the precipice.
With a final surge of the reality drive's hum, we plunged downwards, not onto a ramp, but into sheer darkness, leaving the chaos of the street, the converging enemies, and the relentlessly pursuing mech behind us, swapping one set of dangers for another entirely. The darkness swallowed us whole.