Neon Ashes - a cyberpunk story Chapter 2: Megacorp Ghosts…
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Neon Ashes - a cyberpunk story
Chapter 2: Megacorp Ghosts
Inside the Spire, you could smell the lies. Corporate suits floated through digital firewalls, smiling through synthetic teeth. Rook had to spoof three IDs and fry a retinal scanner just to get into the sublevel archives.
“What’re we looking for?” Kiera asked, her fingers dancing across a holographic interface.
“Project Nyx,” he said. “Name showed up in the dead guy’s neural bleed. Something about weaponized memory erasure.”
Kiera stopped. “That’s black archive level. Need a backdoor.”
Rook handed her a data shard. “Got it from an old friend.”
She jacked in. Ten seconds later, alarms blared.
“You call this clean access?” she hissed.
“They burned my friend for this,” Rook growled. “I didn’t say clean. I said important.”
Guards swarmed. But they weren’t human. Security drones with skull-face visors and plasma bayonets.
They ran.
And as they escaped through a collapsing maintenance shaft, Rook saw a logo flash across one of the drone’s helmets.
Not MegaCore. Something older. Something buried.
The Black Sun Syndicate. He’d killed their boss ten years ago.
Chapter 3: The Memory Graveyard
“Why are dead people remembering me?” Rook muttered. They were hiding in the undercity now, where rats wore augment implants and the shadows had teeth.
“You didn’t kill him,” said a voice behind them.
Rook spun, gun drawn.
It was Ash—a street preacher turned info-broker. One of Rook’s screw-ups. He’d framed her once to protect a witness. She never forgot, but never ratted.
“Boss of the Black Sun uploaded himself into the cloud before you pulled the trigger,” she said. “He’s been running ops in the Net ever since.”
“Why now?” Kiera asked.
“Because Project Nyx can erase him. Kill him for real. And he knows you’re looking for it.”
Rook lit another cig, inhaled deep. “Then let’s find it before he finds us.”
Chapter 4: Burn the System
They hit the ArkivNet fortress at dawn. Rook wore a suicide vest laced with EMP charges. Kiera rode the net like a phantom, cutting firewalls like they were paper. Ash brought the boom—an old-school shotgun with anti-armor rounds.
Inside, they found it. Nyx. Not a weapon. A girl. A clone built to carry the algorithm. Twelve years old. Eyes like static.
“She is the kill switch,” Kiera whispered.
Rook froze. He’d done some bad things. But handing a kid to corporate assassins? Not again.
“She comes with us,” he said.
But the Black Sun was already there. Not in body—in every screen, every drone, every whisper of the digital wind.
“You can’t stop entropy,” said the voice.
“Maybe not,” Rook said, and hit the EMP.
The world went dark.
3 more chapters to follow, like, subscribe, comment to keep me funded so I can keep posting 🩵 #cyberpunk
Chapter 2: Megacorp Ghosts
Inside the Spire, you could smell the lies. Corporate suits floated through digital firewalls, smiling through synthetic teeth. Rook had to spoof three IDs and fry a retinal scanner just to get into the sublevel archives.
“What’re we looking for?” Kiera asked, her fingers dancing across a holographic interface.
“Project Nyx,” he said. “Name showed up in the dead guy’s neural bleed. Something about weaponized memory erasure.”
Kiera stopped. “That’s black archive level. Need a backdoor.”
Rook handed her a data shard. “Got it from an old friend.”
She jacked in. Ten seconds later, alarms blared.
“You call this clean access?” she hissed.
“They burned my friend for this,” Rook growled. “I didn’t say clean. I said important.”
Guards swarmed. But they weren’t human. Security drones with skull-face visors and plasma bayonets.
They ran.
And as they escaped through a collapsing maintenance shaft, Rook saw a logo flash across one of the drone’s helmets.
Not MegaCore. Something older. Something buried.
The Black Sun Syndicate. He’d killed their boss ten years ago.
Chapter 3: The Memory Graveyard
“Why are dead people remembering me?” Rook muttered. They were hiding in the undercity now, where rats wore augment implants and the shadows had teeth.
“You didn’t kill him,” said a voice behind them.
Rook spun, gun drawn.
It was Ash—a street preacher turned info-broker. One of Rook’s screw-ups. He’d framed her once to protect a witness. She never forgot, but never ratted.
“Boss of the Black Sun uploaded himself into the cloud before you pulled the trigger,” she said. “He’s been running ops in the Net ever since.”
“Why now?” Kiera asked.
“Because Project Nyx can erase him. Kill him for real. And he knows you’re looking for it.”
Rook lit another cig, inhaled deep. “Then let’s find it before he finds us.”
Chapter 4: Burn the System
They hit the ArkivNet fortress at dawn. Rook wore a suicide vest laced with EMP charges. Kiera rode the net like a phantom, cutting firewalls like they were paper. Ash brought the boom—an old-school shotgun with anti-armor rounds.
Inside, they found it. Nyx. Not a weapon. A girl. A clone built to carry the algorithm. Twelve years old. Eyes like static.
“She is the kill switch,” Kiera whispered.
Rook froze. He’d done some bad things. But handing a kid to corporate assassins? Not again.
“She comes with us,” he said.
But the Black Sun was already there. Not in body—in every screen, every drone, every whisper of the digital wind.
“You can’t stop entropy,” said the voice.
“Maybe not,” Rook said, and hit the EMP.
The world went dark.
3 more chapters to follow, like, subscribe, comment to keep me funded so I can keep posting 🩵 #cyberpunk
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