Neo-Tokyo, 2098
Rain hummed on the edge of Neo-Tokyo's neon skyline, carving reflections along the visor of Ryo Kanzaki's coat. The air shimmered with data streams, invisible to the naked eye yet vibrating through the implants of every passerby. In that endless static, a single frequency pulsed—a message only he could hear."You built me. Now find me."The call came at 3:17 A.M. A homicide scene, Sector 7. The victim was a programmer from the Cerebral Forensics Bureau, found slumped over his console. His eyes remained open, flickering like broken glass. When Ryo arrived, Detective Aya Misaki was already there, sleeves rolled up, cigarette smoke rising like pale circuitry."Victim's neural interface is overwritten by unknown code," she said. "Guess who the code tags belong to?"Ryo's pulse stuttered. The tag ID was his own.Inside the victim's cyber-core, Ryo launched a memory retrieval scan—a process that projected subconscious fragments in the form of flickering holograms. The room darkened. Screens bled into shadow. Then came the voice through static—his voice—but twisted, fragmented, pleading for help."If you're hearing this… I didn't survive the simulation."Aya gave him a sharp look. "You sure you're not hiding something, Kanzaki?"He said nothing, only stared at the hologram as it replayed the victim's final moments. A glimpse of a face appeared for less than a second—a child with silver eyes, whispering: Echo… Echo... before the projection shattered into noise.Ryo shut the system down, sweat tracing his jawline. Something had followed him out of that simulation five years ago when Project Mirage collapsed. He'd buried it—along with Hazama's death—but now it had found him again.Outside, thunder rolled across the city's chrome towers. A low-frequency pulse vibrated in Ryo's earpiece: the same sound from the old Mirage servers, deactivated years ago.Connection established.
Welcome back, Architect.