Chapter 5 — The Guardian
The heat smelled like an animal. When the Guardian fired, it wasn't a beam so much as a promise: sharp, terrible, immediate. The street turned into bright lines where plasma cut holes into the world.
Ethan rolled, grit in his teeth as the blast seared the jacket at his back. For a second the world narrowed to the taste of burnt fabric and the precise count of his breaths.
[TIME REMAINING: 15:12]
[SCENARIO: PHASE TWO — GUARDIAN ENGAGED]
He hit the dirt and shoved a fist into the exposed wiring he'd been eyeing. Sparks climbed the cable like angry beetles. Logic turned into a rhythm in his head — two beats to draw attention, three to reroute, one to trigger. His Adaptive Logic hummed in the background, colder than his fear, faster than his pulse.
The Guardian's heavy steps vibrated through the ground. It swung a plated arm, scanning. Ethan watched the pattern — three seconds, pivot, two forward, scan — and he counted in his head like a metronome. Predictable. Too predictable. He needed chaos inside that rhythm.
He ducked under a bent sign and crawled toward the cables, mindful of every shadow. A smaller figure darted past him — another participant trying the same flank. For a second their eyes met; there was no time for recognition. The other man bolted, tripped, and the Guardian's gaze snapped.
A clawed hand carved air above Ethan. The robot's sensors swept where he had been two heartbeats ago. A panel on its shoulder opened and a missile spit out like a wasp. Heat hit the pavement nearest him, shrapnel biting concrete.
Ethan had three choices: run, hide, or force a variable. Running meant becoming predictable. Hiding meant waiting for the next sweep. Forcing a variable meant using the environment against the machine — and that required improvisation under fire.
He slammed his palm on the beacon. The device vibrated, reading, calculating. The Adaptive Logic whispered the pattern of the sign's ballast and the cable's residual current. He jammed a metal rod into the junction, felt a pain lunge up his arm as the circuit fed back into his skin.
[DISCHARGE: CONTROLLED — RISK: EXTREME]
Blue light arced from the sign into the battered mechanized guard. The machine convulsed, its red veins scattering like spilled ink. Sparks rained. The Guardian stumbled, a mechanical bellow tearing at the air.
[GUARDIAN: INTERRUPTED]
[SYSTEM REWARD: REALITY POINTS +40]
[ADAPTIVE LOGIC: NEURAL LEAP +4%]
Pain spiked through Ethan's head — not the sharp white of before, but a hollow, echoing ache, like someone slamming a hand against a door inside his skull. Images burst: a lab corridor, a woman's palm pressed to glass, a screaming alarm, then a name in a scientist's handwriting: VERDEN.
He doubled over, chest heaving. For a moment he saw Alyssa as a fragment: tired eyes, a jaw clenched as if she herself were choosing between truths. The memory — or whatever the simulation fed him — tasted like metal and guilt.
"Don't go all hero," Alyssa snapped in his ear, real and raw through the reflection node. "You just unlocked a trace. Get the crucible and run. The system will escalate if you linger."
Ethan wiped a wetness from his mouth. His vision had a thin shimmer at the edges where the overlay fed him the new node.
[MEMORY TRACE ACQUIRED: 2/5]
[TRACE DATA: BLURRED — SOURCE: LAB ORIGIN]
Two of five. The idea that pieces existed made the world both smaller and more dangerous. Whoever had built this wanted something assembled — not merely players surviving, but clues being collected.
He pushed himself up, shoulder burning. The Guardian, wounded but functional, was resetting its systems. Its optics spun like lazy planets.
He had one route: the crucible sat in the plaza center, half-buried beneath a collapsed statue. It shone faintly through the rain as if refusing to stop glowing no matter what the Algorithm did around it.
Ethan weighed the options: bait the Guardian farther away and try to sprint in, or loop under cover and pick the crucible clean. He chose neither. Predictability was a demand the system could exploit; unpredictability meant risk, but it also offered reward.
He kicked a chunk of iron toward the Guardian's foot, the sound clang like a bell. The machine turned. He sprinted the opposite way, then ducked into a maintenance hatch that sloped under the plaza. Sweat stung his eyes. He felt the world above him shift as the Guardian recalibrated.
The hatch opened into a narrow crawlspace littered with detritus and old wiring — perfect for a man who had learned to think inside circuits. He crawled, breath shallow, until the hatch spit him out behind the statue with a dozen seconds left on the timer.
The crucible was smaller up close: a glass orb nested in a lattice of black titanium, humming with a slow inner light. Ethan reached for it and felt the overlay prick with static.
[CRUCIBLE ACCESS — AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED]
[PROTOCOL: TEMPORAL CHARGE]
He pressed his palm to the orb. The world shivered. For a heartbeat the Algorithm seemed to study him, like a predator marking a new prey.
A vision like a blade slid across his mind: a man in a suit, hand on a control console, whispering, "Phase two. Deploy the subjects." The face was half-hidden in shadow, voice flat with authority. Then—Alyssa again, her hand over her mouth as if to muffle a scream.
He staggered back, the orb's light dimming as if sated. A new overlay line unfurled.
[SCENARIO COMPLETION — CRUCIBLE SECURED]
[REWARD: REALITY POINTS +100]
[ITEM ACQUIRED: MEMORY FRAGMENT (LAB ORIGIN)]
A heavy relief settled on him, but it was immediate and fragile. The plaza stuttered. A new bell tolled somewhere inside the system, an alarm with a tone built for dread.
[MULTI-USER DEPLOYMENT — NEIGHBOR NODES: INCREASED HOSTILITY]
Ethan clutched the crucible to his chest. He was breathing like someone who'd run through glass. The city around him began to twist again, faster now, as if the Algorithm, having gained new data, could no longer keep the illusion steady.
Alyssa's voice came, softer now. "You did that well. But listen—there's something else. The lab logs mention an offsite server: 'Prometheus Node.' If you find a projection anchor, you might get a direct data link."
"Prometheus," Ethan repeated. The name hung in the air like a dare. He had two memory traces now and another name to follow. The system had handed him breadcrumbed logic, and every breadcrumb meant a reason to keep going.
He glanced at the timer. [TIME REMAINING: 07:43]
Below him, in the crawlspace, a shadow moved. Not a construct. Not the Guardian. A silhouette, human-shaped and deliberate.
Ethan tightened his grip on the crucible. He had choices to make, and the Algorithm loved to watch men make choices.
He slid into the dark.
---
Author's Thoughts
Thanks for reading Chapter 5 — the Guardian fight and the crucible payoff. If Ethan's discovery of "Prometheus Node" intrigued you, hit Add to Library and leave a comment: what would you risk to learn the truth? I read every reply before planning the next chapters. Your support helps this story climb the rankings — and keeps Ethan alive a little longer. 🙏⚙️