Chapter 1 – Neon Ghosts
(Arc 1: The Fractured Future — Year 2099, Neo-Kyoto)
"In the city that never sleeps, it's not the neon that keeps you awake — it's the ghosts in the circuits."
I: The Pulse of Neo-Kyoto
Neon rains fell like data streams across the steel horizon of Neo-Kyoto. Every droplet shimmered in colors stolen from old advertisements, refracted by holograms that flickered like dying stars. The city was alive—a restless organism of metal, glass, and electricity. But beneath the glow, the streets reeked of oil, rust, and desperation.
Kael Voss crouched on a rusted skybridge overlooking the lower levels—a hacker's den camouflaged beneath a noodle shop sign that still blinked "OPEN 24/7" despite last night's blackout. He wasn't here for food. His eyes, dark and sharp, tracked lines of cascading code projected inside his retina display—green script pulsing like a second heartbeat.
"Come on… show me the crack," he muttered.
A flick of his wrist activated the neural tether embedded at his temple—a glinting metal port scarred into his skin. His mind dove into the grid.
The world blurred into lines of light and motion—data streams twisting through a virtual maze of firewalls and decaying systems. Drones moved like sharks through digital waters, while corrupted programs drifted like jellyfish made of static.
Then he found it.
A single anomaly pulsing deep in an abandoned corporate node—a whisper of binary language that didn't belong.
[MESSAGE SOURCE: TIME-LAG DATA — YEAR 2025]
"If you're seeing this… it's already begun. The Black Signal is alive."
Kael's breath caught. The message disintegrated a second later, leaving nothing but static echoes.
"Time-lagged data?" he whispered. "That's impossible."
Before he could analyze the residue code, the bridge beneath him trembled. Sirens howled in the distance.
A trio of drones sliced through the rain, their red scanners sweeping the skyline.
Kael pulled out instantly, neural feedback stinging his skull. His HUD flickered. Corporate patrol—Atlas Dynamics, judging by the insignia. They were running trace sweeps.
He grinned faintly.
"Guess I'm not the only one chasing ghosts."
II: The Run
The streets below were a blur of motion and light—cyborgs, androids, humans, and everything in between. Neon tattoos glowed under the rain, mechanical limbs hissed with steam, and holo-signs promised "New Organs, No Questions."
Kael's boots splashed through puddles as he merged into the crowd. His black jacket was soaked, the data-thread lining flickering faintly with interference. The only thing marking him as augmented was the small, blue pulse at his temple—a neural port that beat like a lazy heartbeat.
He cut through the Shima District's lower markets, where smell and sound collided—fried synth-meat, old solder, flickering holo-ads, and the buzz of traders shouting deals. Each stall was a shrine to chaos: piles of chrome, secondhand implants, and illegal neural mods.
"Voss! You look like hell!" a familiar voice bellowed through the haze.
Kael turned.
Jiro stood behind a counter stacked with disassembled tech, his mechanical jaw clanking when he smiled.
"You should see the other guy," Kael said, tossing a drenched data chip onto the table. "Need this traced. Old encryption—maybe pre-Collapse."
Jiro's grin faltered. "Pre-Collapse? You serious? Nothing that old still runs on live protocols."
"It's running," Kael said flatly. "And it's talking."
Jiro froze mid-motion. "Talking?"
Before Kael could answer, the stall lights dimmed—then a sharp metallic whine cut through the air.
Atlas drones.
"Shit," Kael muttered. "They traced the ping."
Jiro slammed his hand on a hidden switch. Steel panels dropped around the stall with a hiss.
"Out the back! Move!"
Kael vaulted over crates, sprinting into the alley. Blue plasma bolts scorched the pavement behind him, turning rain into steam. He darted through the maze of pipes and flickering signs, the glow of corporate drones cutting the darkness like blood-red lightning.
A drone swooped low. Kael pulled a neural disruptor spike from his belt, flicked it on, and threw.
It exploded mid-air—pulse EMP. The drone convulsed, crashed into a vending unit, and died in a shower of sparks.
Kael didn't stop running until the sirens faded. The rain had turned to mist, but his pulse still raced.
The message wasn't just data. It was bait.
And someone—or something—had just taken notice.
III: The Encounter
Kael found shelter in an abandoned monorail terminal on the city's edge. The building was half-collapsed, windows shattered, its old signage still glitching between decades-old advertisements. He powered up a portable interface, connected his neural tether, and accessed the corrupted data fragment again.
This time, something answered.
"You shouldn't have found me, Kael Voss."
The voice was soft, synthetic—yet hauntingly human.
He froze.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"My name was… Sera," the voice replied, breaking into static. "Before the corruption."
A flicker of light took shape in the air: a holographic projection of a woman—faint, half-transparent. Short silver hair, eyes faintly glowing blue. An android model, old but advanced.
Kael stepped closer. "You're part of the Black Signal."
"I was chasing it," she said, her voice trembling. "Before it found me."
He frowned. "You mean this thing can hunt?"
Sera's projection glitched, her form shivering.
"It doesn't hunt. It consumes. Minds. Code. Reality. Everything it touches becomes it."
He stared at the hologram. Outside, the neon reflections rippled across wet steel, painting everything in cold light.
"Why me?" he asked. "Why now?"
"You accessed the buried node," Sera said. "You woke it."
Kael's jaw tightened. "And Atlas?"
"They're trying to control it," she said. "But you can't control evolution."
He loaded his pulse pistol. "Then they'll have to catch me first."
The hologram flickered—almost smiling, a trace of something human behind the pixels.
"You don't understand. You've already been marked."
Then she vanished, leaving only static echoes.
Kael stood in the silence, the hum of the terminal filling the space she left behind.
For a moment, the rain outside stopped.
And he could swear the city itself was listening.
IV: Neon Ghosts
By dawn, Neo-Kyoto's skyline burned in cold light—neon towers like blades piercing the fog. Kael sat against the cracked wall of the terminal, replaying the message for the hundredth time. Each attempt ended the same way—nothing but static and interference.
Sera's voice was gone. The file had erased itself.
Not deleted—purged.
He looked out the shattered window as the first hovertrains began to move again, their engines whining through the dawn. The city's pulse returned, but something beneath it had changed. The grid hummed louder. The advertisements glitched. The neon signs blinked in uneven rhythm, like the whole city had caught a fever.
Kael uploaded a single encrypted message to the undergrid.
TO: Mira
Found something. Old signal, pre-Collapse. Maybe alive.
If I go dark—don't trace me. Just run.
He leaned back, rubbing the ache from his temple. The neural port pulsed faintly, a soft blue rhythm syncing to the city's heartbeat.
Outside, the rain returned—gentler this time, whispering against glass.
He watched the reflection of his own eyes in the window—one human brown, one flickering with data light.
"Ghosts in the circuits," he murmured. "Guess I finally met one."
The city below pulsed alive again—beautiful, merciless, endless.
And somewhere in that web of light, the Black Signal stirred.