The city of Rivers never slept. Neon lights flashed on every street corner, but their glow barely softened the cold steel edges of skyscrapers clawing at the smog-choked sky. Beneath those lights, people moved in faceless masses, breathing the same stale air, going about their lives like ghosts. But tonight, one face among them was anything but ordinary. Silas Midori, hood pulled up to blend in, adjusted his grip on a coffee cup and walked briskly along the sidewalk toward the VR arcade. The place was packed, just as Iron Knight had told him to expect.

Silas had seen VR arcades before, but never one like Escape. This arcade was one of the largest in the city, and the whole block seemed almost hypnotized by the flickering lights and the sounds of games playing. Rows of pods lined the walls inside, each one connected to cables that snaked through the floor like veins feeding a living creature. Escape was a beast, all right, but not the kind you walked away from with just an empty wallet.

Iron Knight—or Steve Gallagher as Silas knew him—had briefed him on what this place was really hiding: a front for an unknown trafficking operation. People walked in for an escape from the grind of daily life, but some didn’t walk back out. And they weren’t just targeting anyone—this arcade had a hidden clientele. Those with minor mutations, the ones who couldn’t blend in like Silas did, would often be lured here with the promise of high payouts in exchange for testing “new” tech.

“Just scope the place out,” Steve had told him over the comm earlier. “Don’t get too close. I’ll be watching from outside.”

But Silas wasn’t exactly the “play it safe” type, and Steve knew that. As soon as he stepped inside, he could feel his technopathic senses tingling. The whole place was wired with far more than a standard arcade setup. Surveillance cameras covered every inch, and complex data streams ran through the building’s walls and ceiling, much more sophisticated than for just gaming.

He scanned the room, trying to look like any other tired worker looking to blow off steam. But he kept catching glimpses of staff members eyeing certain customers—ones who looked a little too desperate, a little too unusual. People like the young girl with gills on her neck, hunched over in the corner as if she’d rather disappear into the shadows.

“Silas,” Iron Knight’s voice crackled in his earpiece. “Don’t get too close to them. You’re there to observe, not interact.”

“Got it,” Silas replied, though he was already adjusting his technopathic senses to feel the cables underfoot. He knew where they all led—the back rooms, the restricted sections. He could feel the hum of processors and power surges coursing through them, hinting at something much more sinister.

He was about to turn back, keeping his promise to Steve, when he caught a glimpse of a worker roughly handling the girl with the gills. Her body tensed, her eyes darting around as if seeking an escape, but there was none. The worker guided her down a hallway marked “Staff Only,” and she gave one last desperate look over her shoulder.

Silas couldn’t ignore it.

He ducked into a nearby VR pod as if preparing for a game. Once inside, he let his technopathy connect with the pod, feeding his consciousness into the arcade’s network. The signals were overwhelming at first, but he focused, sifting through layers of data until he found what he was looking for: the hallway security feed. Through the cameras, he saw the worker pushing the girl through a door at the end of the hall.

“Steve,” Silas whispered into his earpiece. “They’re taking people into the back. Looks like they’re doing more than just gaming here.”

“Did you see where they’re taking her?” Steve’s voice was hard, laced with the kind of tension Silas hadn’t heard before.

“Not yet. But I can get deeper into the network if you want me to,” Silas suggested.

There was a long pause. Silas could almost picture Steve’s jaw tightening as he weighed the risk. The Iron Knight didn’t like using Silas in dangerous situations, especially if it meant exposing him, but this was different.

“Do it,” Steve finally replied, his voice grim. “Get me the layout, any key feeds, and record everything. But Silas—don’t get too close. The second they sense something’s off, they’ll bolt.”

“Understood,” Silas replied, already working his way through the network’s layers. He disabled the security on a few of the restricted files, pulling up a map of the arcade and finding the live feed of the room where they’d taken the girl. He recorded every second, his mind buzzing with the stolen data.

The room on the screen looked like a repurposed lab. A row of VR pods lined the walls, but these weren’t gaming stations—they were containment cells. People sat slumped inside, many with mutations that made their identities too obvious to hide. He saw the girl, her face pale and terrified, as the worker shoved her into one of the pods and closed the hatch.

“Steve, you need to see this,” Silas murmured, sending the feed directly to Iron Knight’s receiver.

“I see it,” Iron Knight replied, his voice tight. “We’ll need evidence to tie this to someone high up. Keep recording.”

Silas clenched his fists, feeling the anger boiling inside him as he watched the scenes play out in real-time. He’d seen people treated badly in Rivers before, but this was worse than anything he’d imagined. These people were being sold as products, thrown into VR pods where they’d either be harvested or sent out as slaves for labor—mutants who wouldn’t be missed because society had already forgotten about them.

And with that realization came a fierce determination. Silas wasn’t going to just watch this happen.