The rain on Nexus Prime never stopped. It fell in sheets of silver, refracting the neon glow of the city's underbelly into a kaleidoscope of fractured light. Kael Vortex crouched atop a rusted maintenance platform, the damp metal biting into his knees as he peered through a cracked datascope. Below, the sprawl of Lowtown pulsed like a living thing—streets choked with vendors hawking bio-augs, holo-ads flickering with promises of eternal youth, and the ever-present hum of drones weaving through the smog. Above, the orbital ring known as the Lattice Crown loomed, a faint arc of steel and light that tethered Nexus Prime to the galaxy's quantum network.
Kael adjusted the scope, his gloved fingers steady despite the chill. His target was a nondescript warehouse, its facade a dull gray slab amid the neon chaos. To the untrained eye, it was just another storage hub for the megacorp VynTek, stuffed with obsolete server racks or surplus synth-food. But Kael knew better. His contact, a jittery decker named Sylas, had tipped him off: the warehouse held a quantum shard, a rare fragment of the Lattice's core architecture. A single shard could rewrite data streams, bypass security protocols, or—most tantalizingly—grant access to the Lattice's restricted nodes. In the right hands, it was a key to power. In Kael's hands, it was a ticket out of Lowtown.
He wasn't delusional. Kael knew he wasn't a genius, not like the corp-born prodigies who designed the Lattice or the AIs that policed it. His intelligence was practical, honed by years of scraping by in a city that ate the weak. He could read people, systems, and situations like code, spotting the flaws others missed. It was why he'd survived this long as a data-thief, slipping through the cracks of a world that didn't care if he lived or died. But survival wasn't enough anymore. Kael wanted more—control, influence, a name that meant something. And he was willing to step on anyone to get it.
The warehouse's security was tight but not impenetrable. Kael had spent weeks mapping its defenses: motion sensors, thermal cams, and a pair of VynTek Enforcer drones—sleek, beetle-like machines with pulse cannons that could vaporize flesh. The real threat was the human element. VynTek's guards were ex-mercs, hardened by off-world campaigns, and they didn't take kindly to intruders. Kael's plan hinged on misdirection, a carefully timed hack to overload the warehouse's power grid and draw the guards to a false alarm on the far side. It wasn't elegant, but elegance was for people who could afford to fail.
He tapped the comm implanted behind his ear, a cheap model that itched when it overheated. "Sylas, you in position?"
A crackle, then a nervous voice. "Yeah, Kael. Grid's primed. You sure about this? VynTek's not some street gang. They'll hunt us to the void if—"
"Focus," Kael cut in, his voice low but sharp. "Trigger the surge on my mark. Three… two… one."
A distant hum rose to a whine, and the warehouse's exterior lights flickered. Kael didn't wait. He leapt from the platform, his coat billowing as he slid down a drainage pipe to the alley below. His boots hit the pavement with a soft splash, and he darted toward the warehouse's service hatch. The hack had worked—partially. The thermal cams were offline, but one drone still patrolled, its red optic sweeping the perimeter. Kael pressed himself against the wall, his heart steady despite the adrenaline. He'd accounted for this. From his satchel, he pulled a decoy emitter, a palm-sized device cobbled together from scavenged parts. It pulsed a faint heat signature, mimicking a human's. He tossed it into the alley's shadows.
The drone's optic snapped toward the decoy, and it whirred off to investigate. Kael didn't smile—smiling was for amateurs who thought they'd already won. He pried open the hatch, its lock already disabled by Sylas's earlier hack, and slipped inside.
The warehouse was a labyrinth of crates and humming server towers, their surfaces etched with VynTek's logo—a stylized helix that glowed faintly blue. The air smelled of ozone and metal, and the faint vibration of the Lattice's quantum relays thrummed through the floor. Kael moved quickly, his steps silent, guided by the blueprint Sylas had stolen. The shard was stored in a secure vault at the center, protected by a biometric lock and a localized AI firewall. Cracking it would take time—time he didn't have.
He reached the vault, a sleek cylinder of black alloy that seemed to drink in the light. Kneeling, he connected his dataglove to the lock's interface, its holographic display flickering to life. The AI firewall was a problem, but Kael had a workaround: a worm he'd bought off a black-market coder. It wasn't perfect, but it would scramble the AI's protocols long enough for him to bypass the lock. He uploaded the worm and watched the display glitch, lines of code fracturing like glass.
"Come on," he muttered, glancing at his chrono. Two minutes until the guards realized the power surge was a ruse.
The lock clicked, and the vault hissed open. Inside, on a cushioned pedestal, lay the quantum shard—a crystalline fragment no larger than his fist, its surface alive with shifting, iridescent patterns. It was beautiful, in a cold, alien way, like staring into the heart of the Lattice itself. Kael's breath caught, not from awe but from the weight of what it represented. This was his chance, his leverage to climb the hierarchy of Nexus Prime. He reached for it—
And froze as a klaxon blared.
Red lights flashed, bathing the warehouse in a bloody glow. Kael cursed under his breath. Sylas had screwed up—either the hack failed, or the idiot had tripped an alarm. Footsteps echoed, heavy and purposeful. The guards were coming.
Kael snatched the shard, its surface cool against his palm, and stuffed it into his satchel. He sprinted for the nearest exit, weaving through crates as pulse rounds scorched the air behind him. A guard shouted, his voice amplified by a helmet's vox. "Stop! Drop the package!"
Kael didn't bother responding. He dove behind a server tower as a drone's cannon blasted a crate to splinters. His mind raced, calculating angles and options. The service hatch was too far, and the guards had likely sealed it. The only way out was up—through the warehouse's skylight, three stories above.
He climbed a stack of crates, his muscles burning as he hauled himself onto a catwalk. Below, the guards fanned out, their thermal scanners sweeping for his signature. Kael pulled a smoke pellet from his belt and crushed it, releasing a cloud of ionized mist that scrambled their sensors. It wouldn't last long, but it gave him a window.
The skylight was reinforced plasteel, but Kael had planned for that. He slapped a micro-charge onto the glass, set the timer for three seconds, and braced himself. The explosion was a muffled pop, but it shattered the skylight into a rain of glittering shards. Kael leapt through, landing on the roof as alarms screamed across Lowtown.
He didn't stop to admire his escape. The shard was his, but the heist was only the beginning. VynTek would come for him, and Sylas—poor, stupid Sylas—was likely already selling him out. Kael's lips twitched, not quite a smile. Betrayal was just another thread in the game, and he was already weaving the next move.
As he vanished into the neon-drenched night, the Lattice Crown glimmered above, a reminder of the power he now held—and the enemies he'd just made.