"I'm a little busy right now, Leo."
Anya's voice, strained and breathless over the comms, was a death sentence for my plan. She was pinned down, about to be eliminated, on the other side of the map. She could not help me. My mission was a failure. The weight of it crashed down on me. I had asked her to trust me, to hold off two of Ouroboros's best killers by herself, and for what? So I could stand here, helpless, in front of a locked door.
I stared at the two glowing hand panels on opposite sides of the corridor. They seemed to mock me. Two people, at the exact same time. It was a perfect security measure. Simple, effective, and impossible for a single person to bypass.
Despair began to creep in, cold and heavy. I had failed Anya. I had failed Caden. I had failed myself.
Then, my eyes fell on my inventory list. My gaze passed over my weapons, my ammo, my data fragment… and stopped on a small, unassuming icon. A common item I had picked up from Caden's room, thinking it was just a piece of interesting junk. [Survey Drone (Common)]. It was not a combat drone. It was tiny, quiet, and designed for scouting. It was useless in a fight.
But maybe… maybe it was not useless here.
A crazy, desperate idea sparked in my mind. A spark of hope in the darkness. The panels did not need two people. They just needed two simultaneous authorizations. The system was looking for a command, not a person. What if I could authorize one of them remotely?
The plan was insane. It was a long shot. But it was the only shot I had.
I opened my comms again, my voice no longer desperate, but filled with a new, urgent energy. "Anya! Get ready! I have a plan! You just have to distract them for ten more seconds! Just ten seconds!"
[MESSAGE FROM ANYA: …WHAT? LEO, I CAN'T—]
"Ten seconds, Anya! Trust me!"
I did not wait for her reply. I selected the Survey Drone from my inventory. The tiny, insect-like drone materialized in my hand. I tossed it into the air. It hovered silently, its small propellers barely making a sound. I used my HUD to pilot it, sending it across the corridor until it hovered directly in front of the far authorization panel. The drone had a small, extendable manipulator arm, designed for collecting samples. It was weak, but it was enough.
Next, I pulled out my [System Diagnostic Tool]. I plugged it into the access port right next to the hand panel on my side of the hall. I was going to try something I had only read about on old game forums. A system exploit. I was going to try to slave the two authorization panels together, linking them through the diagnostic tool, and then trigger them both with a single command from my end.
It was a complex hack. It was not a simple puzzle like the last door. This was me trying to actively rewrite the security protocols of a live system. And I had no idea if it would even work.
A new, much more complex hacking minigame appeared on my HUD. It was not a simple rotating ring puzzle. This was a schematic of a circuit board, with multiple data streams that I had to reroute and connect. It was a maze of light and logic.
The pressure was immense. My focus narrowed until the only things in the world were the glowing lines on my screen.
The scene in my mind cut back and forth, a chaotic montage of desperation.
I saw myself, frantically dragging data streams across the schematic on my datapad, trying to find the right connection.
I heard Anya's voice over the comms, a defiant war cry, followed by the massive boom of an explosion. She must have used her last grenade, or found an explosive barrel. [ANYA HP: 10/100]. She was buying me seconds with the last drops of her life.
The puzzle on my screen glitched. A line of code turned red and failed. My System Anathema status. The System itself was fighting my hack, throwing up firewalls, corrupting the data streams. It was like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube while someone was actively twisting it against you. I cursed under my breath and rerouted the connection.
I saw Goliath's massive form on my minimap, charging Anya's last known position. I heard her scream in defiance. [ANYA HP: 5/100].
My hands were a blur on the screen. I connected the final node. A line of green light shot across the schematic, linking my panel to the drone's panel. The puzzle flashed.
[QUANTUM LINK ESTABLISHED. AWAITING SIMULTANEOUS AUTHORIZATION.]
I had done it. But had I been fast enough?
I did not waste a fraction of a second. I slammed my hand onto the panel in front of me.
Across the hall, the tiny manipulator arm on my drone extended and pressed the other panel. The two actions were perfectly, flawlessly synchronized.
The two hand panels, which had been glowing a hostile red, flashed a brilliant, permissive green in unison.
A voice, the calm, neutral voice of the station's AI, echoed in the corridor.
[AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTED.]
With a deep, powerful hiss of hydraulics, the massive server room door began to slide open.
A wave of triumph washed over me. I had done it. The impossible was possible. The path was open. I turned back towards the maintenance tunnel, ready to run back, to help Anya, to fulfill my end of the bargain.
But a figure was standing in the doorway. Blocking my path.
It was Kain.
He had ignored the wounded, dying Anya. He must have seen me on his own minimap, seen my static position outside this strange, locked room. He had realized the true threat was not the defender in the base. It was the ghost in the machine.
He stood there, his assault rifle aimed directly at my chest. His armor was scarred and dented from Anya's desperate defense, but he was alive. And he was furious.
"Going somewhere, VIP?" Kain snarled, his voice a low, hateful growl. "The hunt ends here. No more tricks. No more running."
He took a step into the corridor. Just as he did, the lights above us flickered violently. They sparked, buzzed, and then died, plunging the entire sublevel into absolute, suffocating darkness.
My System Anathema. It had triggered a complete power failure at the worst possible moment.
I was trapped in the dark. With one of my most hated enemies. And he was standing between me and the mission.