PLANET ORYXS - MORRIAN CITY

“Sorry, I gotta go, Atty. Water and cereal.” The call was cut off.

Atticus huffed before he scooped another spoonful of dry cereal into his mouth. He wasn’t sure if he was genuinely hungry or just bored to death. Dion had been going out on his own more frequently since they moved in a few months ago. It made sense, given that they only had one death-trap of a vehicle, but it meant that Atticus was left alone in the apartment with nothing to do almost every day. 

“Old Fart, play video.” Atty’s DataCuff came with the option to give it a custom name for voice commands. It was a newer model than Dion’s but still outdated by nearly 20 years. Atticus had decided to ‘appropriately’ name it Old Fart.

‘Female penguins will choose their mate by flying over the nesting site while the males build their homes. Like a beacon, these brilliant nests of crystal glint in the afternoon sun, causing a kaleidoscope of colour designed for the specific purpose of attracting as many females as possible.’

The documentary wasn’t that interesting, but mindless garbage seemed to be the only thing he could find to entertain himself. There was undoubtedly a particularly Atticus-shaped dent in the only chair they had. It was worn out before they owned it and smelled like animal pee, but it was free with the apartment. The option was the pee chair or the floor… which also smelled like pee. There was a reason the landlord was willing to rent the apartment out at such a low cost.

‘Their rich black and purple feathers give them the perfect cover as the sun sets–’

With an irritated grunt, Atticus slapped his hand down on the Cuff to turn off the display. The apartment sounds seemed louder and more irritating than usual; the loud humming of the refrigerator, the light bulb buzzing in the ceiling, and even the muffled sound of the couple next door doing… interesting things. The stagnant mana in the air around him prickled his skin like millions of tiny insects trying to get a taste. 

Atticus scratched furiously at his neck and chest. He was sick of this place. He was sick of the heat, the smell, and the complete and utter boredom.

He felt like a trapped animal. 

Old Fart chimed with an incoming call. It was an unknown number. Atticus hesitated, watching the display pulse for a moment.

“Hello?” Atticus asked tentatively; not many people had his direct line.

“Do you have time?” The mystery voice had the crackling effect of a voice changer stamped on it.

Atticus only knew one person who made calls with a changer. They went by the name ‘E.Mortal’ online and acted as a contract broker for the criminal underworld. Shrouded in mystery, no one knew anything about the real person behind the moniker that had been used for over 600 years.

Atticus immediately sat upright, combing back his dark blue hair with his fingers. It was only an audio call, but somehow he still felt exposed sitting there in nothing but boxer shorts.

“Always! Yes, please, for the love of Earth, give me something to do!” He was practically bouncing up and down on the spot. It was rare for E.Mortal to reach out to someone first, but when they did, it was always to the person they were confident could do the job.

“Great! It’s an easy one. Angry woman wants to expose her cheating husband’s secrets online,” E.Mortal explained as Atty’s holodisplay lit up with a message containing the target’s personal information.

“If it’s easy, why me? You could do this with your eyes closed,” Atticus wondered aloud, scrolling through the information.

“He’s a NexTech employee. I’ve never been able to get inside that fortress.”

With that information, Atticus stopped scrolling. Anxiety welled up in his throat.

“Is that a problem?” E.Mortal queried when he didn’t hear a response.

Atticus shook his head, even though he couldn’t be seen. “No, it’s fine. I can do this.”

“Perfect, I’ll wire you half the Digits now, the other half when it’s done. I’ll contact you again in an hour.”

The call ended.

Atticus stared at the holodisplay, tapping his finger on the table while he questioned his own abilities. NexTech was anything but easy to hack into. The biggest security company in the galaxy didn’t leave backdoors open. Their network was so air-tight the only way to get in was to knock and wait for something to answer. 

A chill ran over his body. Last time he nearly got himself trapped in the NexTech nexus. Dion made him promise never to do it again… but Dion didn’t need to know. He wouldn’t be back for at least another hour.

Atticus unscrewed an access panel in the living room wall that was usually used by maintenance staff. Behind the panel was a series of wires, circuit boards and clear tubes of blue, glowing liquid. The fluid provided power to the complex, constantly circulating through the building as a source of clean, environmentally friendly energy; another NexTech design, of course. It was a powdered rock mined from asteroids that could store mana suspended in fluids. The mana-infused powder circulated the liquid at high speed, creating endless kinetic energy that powered most of the infrastructure on the planets, space stations and even some large spacecraft.

It took a lot of manoeuvring to reach in and wiggle the cable Atticus needed out from behind the pipes without searing the skin of his hand. The speed of the moving powder caused extreme temperatures in the lines.

He paused briefly, gathering energy inside himself like a small hurricane. Atticus wasn’t sure why, but he could move faster through the network the more turbulent the energy inside him felt. He sucked in a long deep breath, filling his lungs with as much air as possible.

“I can do this,” Atty told himself, removing Old Fart. NexTech could track him if he used any of their devices, including the ID chip in his wrist. Instead of the Cuff, he put on a sweatband with a strong magnet sewn into it. This disrupted the ID signal without damaging the hardware. Atticus effectively became a ghost, an apparition the security network couldn’t make heads or tails of.

Atticus connected the end of the cable he had pulled from the wall to an input just behind his ear.

The sudden sensation of his consciousness being pulled from his body felt like the frozen sting of an ice bath. It bit at his flesh and sucked what was left of the air out of his lungs. Atticus wanted to scream, but there wasn’t any air to make a sound. It was both terrifying and thrilling. He loved the rush he got every time he directly jacked in.

A brilliant blue light filled his mind. Before he could think, he was already in front of a semi-transparent wall with nothing on the other side. It felt as tangible as brick and mortar but left a tingling static sensation. Atticus focused energy into his hand and pressed his palm against the wall. Red web-like patterns radiated out against the blue wall, growing larger and more aggravated the longer Atticus made contact. Around the edges of the wall, black pixelated darkness started to spread, converging fast toward the centre of corruption. The ground beneath him shook violently and Atticus nearly let go. 

Something had heard him ‘knocking’. 

He maintained his focused energy on the palm of his hand, watching the creeping darkness gather toward it. There was a strange ping sensation, for lack of a better term, when it touched his hand and his mind went blank.

Atticus was in an enormous white room with a large, red orb floating in the middle. It crackled and pulsed like the energy he’d poured into the barrier. It was contained in some kind of blue, transparent energy shield; the system’s security software was repairing the corruption. 

On the other side of the room was an open doorway that led out into a large, white hall that seemed to go on forever. Everything looked so sterile and pristine that Atticus could hardly make out the doors that lined each wall. He was in the NexTech nexus. Now he just needed to find the information and get out again before Dion came home.

The next part was the trickiest. Because everything was so perfectly organised, it all looked the same and was difficult to navigate.

“Query,” Atticus stated as he stepped out into the hall. From inside the room, it looked like there was only one hall, but once he was in it, it seemed to branch out in every direction to infinity. A small search bar appeared in front of him as he walked.

“Location for records of employee number 2278465208765378408625: Miguel Gomez.” As he spoke, the search bar filled in with his words. Atticus flicked his wrist and the search bar turned into a loading bar instead. Once it reached 100%, a glowing light filled a doorway in one of the halls. Atticus smiled to himself. This was too easy.

Once he reached the glowing doorway, he was presented with another wall and a prompt for a password. This room contained all the data and information that Miguel Gomez kept on his personal devices. It was easier to get into these than it was to get into the nexus. 

Instead of typing in a password, Atticus pressed the ‘forgot password’ option. The password prompt flashed and emitted a small light. It didn’t get far before Atticus caught the little light and stretched it open with both hands. The email prompt to change Miguel’s password would never reach him. Atticus only needed it to create a temporary password to get in.

He highlighted the generated password and dragged it into the password prompt on the door. It slid open with no sound. Inside was a circular-shaped room with walls made up of filing drawers. A small spiral staircase wrapped around the wall, ascending so far that Atticus couldn’t see where the top was.

“Query.” The search bar appeared. “Location of encrypted data.”

Several drawers in the wall lit up and a grin spread wider across Atticus’ face. Poor Miguel was going to have a hard life after Atticus was done with him.

The information the client requested was already neatly arranged and unencrypted. There was so much information that it took a long time for Atticus to find everything the man had done to slight his significant other. “Function. Compile located data. Function. Send all compiled data to all contacts.”

The little window that opened and disappeared with Atticus’ instructions burst into a cloud of glittering light before it all flew out of the door. Atticus strolled out after the dust cloud to see it had separated and spread in every direction, each spec looking for its recipient. The job was done. Atticus felt pretty smug about his success…

Until he heard metallic screeching behind him in such a high pitch that it stabbed at his brain, it almost sounded like a wailing noise. His body went rigid and the warmth drained out of his soul as he turned to face the Sentinel.