Six months.
That's how long Zane had been gone.
Not dead. Not missing . Just… altered.
Unmade and rebuilt by something he still didn't understand. They had taken him. Torn him down to muscle, code, fear and put something else in his place.
Now, seated on a cold steel bench inside NexaStation's subterranean terminal, he watched the world pass him by. It moved quickly too quickly yet every flicker, every breath, every microexpression etched into the faces of strangers unfolded in front of him with startling precision.
He saw the sweat trickle down a businessman's temple three meters away, the twitch of a child's eye as they blinked too fast, the subtle drag of a woman's limp despite her polished heels. Everything was hyper-defined.
And yet, everything felt unreal.
The station hummed with life: footsteps echoing against steel tiles, holo-ads flickering overhead, the synthetic tang of ozone and recycled air biting his nostrils. His hoodie clung to his skin—wet from rain or sweat, he couldn't tell. The fabric was tight across his shoulders now. He hadn't been this broad six months ago. His body had changed before he realized it. Denser and with sharper features.
He rolled his wrist slowly, watching the tendons flex with unnatural fluidity. No stiffness. No fatigue. His body no longer ached like it used to. Even hunger felt... dulled. A faint echo, not a demand.
People streamed past him, living and breathing the air. And him? He wasn't sure what he was anymore.
Above, a bright blue holo-banner shimmered across the digital sky, stretching from pillar to pillar:
"Humanity Preserved. Progress Engineered. A New Future Awaits — NexaTech."
Zane's stomach turned.
He had seen that slogan before. Everywhere. On monitors, pill bottles, facility walls. It haunted his sleep.
NexaTech wasn't just a company. It was the architect of this new world. Of his new reality.
Of him.
He clenched his fists. Beneath the skin, something pulsed. Like a second heartbeat. Mechanical. Beating with purpose.
He didn't know what they'd done to him in those months, but every cell in his body streams with potential now. He could feel it in his reflexes, in the way thoughts linked together faster, cleaner.
He wasn't just seeing more,he was understanding more. Like his brain had been tuned to a new frequency. One the rest of the world didn't even know existed.
But all that clarity brought no peace.
He shifted on the bench, muscles tense. He hadn't moved in over an hour. Didn't need to. No stiffness, no soreness. Just a low, buzzing energy building in his limbs like a coiled spring.
Then he saw it. That pale face as before.
The banner flickered.
Dr. Charles.
Clean-cut. Reflective glasses and an old man's smirk. The kind of face built for trust and marketing.
Zane's jaw clenched. That smile—it looks warm, human. But it was a lie.
That man had helped build the program. The lab. The project.
The prison.
A sudden flood of memory slammed into him. Cold and vivid.
He was nine.
Rain against the windows. A cracked toy drone lying in the corner. His nanny sat slouched in a chair, eyes glazed over a holo-feed. She barely acknowledged his presence, her job as dull as another night alone.
Then, keys dangled at the door.His mother's white coat soaked through. Her eyes were red, panicked.
"Zane," she'd whispered, kneeling. "You have to listen to me."
He had clung to her like a lifeline.
But she hadn't held him back. She had shoved something into his neck instead.Something that hurt deeply.
A neural injector it was. A betrayal from his loving mother.
And then, darkness.
He woke up three days later in a child's care center. No windows. No answers.
He'd never been the same.
Even now, just the thought of her made his heart race—not from love, but from a tangled storm of longing, confusion… and fear. What kind of mother leaves scars deep enough to make her child flinch at her memory?
She had said it was to protect him. But from what?
From whom?
Noise erupted from the terminal speakers. A train slid in, doors opening with a mechanical sigh. The crowd surged toward it. Zane didn't move.
He wasn't waiting for transport. He was waiting for clarity.
And then, it came.
A pulse.
Not sound. Not sight. Something... internal. Like a tremor through his bones.
His vision twitched.
Then flickered.
A translucent interface overlaid his vision—barely visible, ghostly. Alien code spun across it. Language not built for human eyes, yet he understood it instantly.
Welcome, Zane. Protocol: ASCENSION—ACTIVE.
He froze.
The interface pulsed softly.
Instinctively, he raised his hand—hesitant, fingers trembling.
The world didn't stop. But time felt thinner, stretched.
He tapped the interface.
[START.]
Pain exploded behind his eyes.
He collapsed back onto the bench, breath catching in his throat. Flashes seared through his skull—memories, algorithms, voice commands. Blood. Screams. His mother's voice again, warped and layered like a corrupted audio file.
"They'll take you if I don't do this…"
His hands clawed at his skull. The agony was blinding—merciless, but fleeting.
And then, silence.
He slumped there, gasping, his heart pounding like war drums against his ribs.
The glow behind his eyes returned, sharper this time. Intentional and controlled.
He looked around. The world hadn't changed.
But he had.
Time didn't slow, he simply moved through it faster.
Every detail sharpened, falling into place like pieces of a puzzle he could now solve instinctively.
Each person came with data: height, weight, movement arcs, threat probability.
His mind ran the numbers on reflex.
He didn't just feel stronger. He felt inevitable.
A low tone echoed in his mind.
[LEVEL UP COMPLETE. INVENTORY ACCESSED.]
Something opened inside him. Not a drawer or screen but a sensation. A mental shift. Like knowing where your hands are in the dark.
He could feel two objects inside his mind. One pulsed warmly. The other was… blank. Unreadable.
He reached toward the blank one.
[WARNING: UNVERIFIED DATA. ABORT?]
Every instinct told him to stop.
He clicked NO.
The interface shattered into static and everything went black.
A second passed. Then another.
Then:
[REBOOTING… External Server Linked. ANTI-GLITCH Protocol Disengaged.]
Zane's body jolted. Something slammed through his nervous system. His spine arched. His muscles spasmed. More like input. Data flooding every nerve.
He reached for control but there was no handle to grab. No brakes.
The interface reformed.
One line at a time.
[PLAYER ID: Zane Everhart
CODE NAME: GLITCH WALKER
CLASSIFICATION: GOD-TIER]
The words burned into his brain like fire. His breath caught.
What the hell did that mean?
He stood slowly, legs steady beneath him, but his mind was chaos.
God-tier?
What did they turn him into?
What was he capable of?
And why the hell was he classified like a damn virtual game character?
A final line slid across his vision, catching his attention.
[HELLO, ZANE.]
It wasn't just text.
It was spoken. A voice—female, soft, digitized, but familiar. Something embedded into the depths of his neural interface. Not a system.
A presence.
He didn't speak. He couldn't.
He felt the cold wind brush his face—real, this time.
The train was gone. So was the crowd.
The station is empty now. Silent.
He was alone.
But not like before.
Something was watching. Something was awake.
He was no longer a prisoner of what they did to him. But the aftermath.
And the aftermath was learning to stand in a new skin—not fully man, not fully machine, but something else.
Something that didn't belong in old categories.
And Zane?
He wasn't running anymore.
He was going to find Dr. Charles.
And get answers.
Whether NexaTech liked it or not.