"You've always been the brain, Elijah. I'm just the executioner."
Victor Slade's words echoed louder than the explosion that followed.
Elijah Kane remembered everything in sharp, color-bleached flashes: the stage lights, the roar of applause for his work, stolen in broad daylight. His mentor, Victor, had taken the MindVault app they built together, removed Elijah's name from the codebase, and claimed it as his own. To make it stick, Victor created fake shell companies and falsified Elijah's financials. Fraud. Embezzlement. Intellectual theft.
Security pulled him out of the launch, past flashing camera drones and Apex Corp banners lighting up every tower wall in Neonspire, the megacity where Apex ruled tech, law, and media.
By midnight, Elijah's arrest was trending on every feed. By dawn, Victor Slade was Apex's new golden god.
And Elijah?
Dead in a totaled sedan, brakes cut, frame crumpled against an underpass wall. A rigged crash. Silent. Clean. Final.
Or it should've been.
[July 9, 2020 — 5 Years Earlier]
The first thing Elijah noticed was heat, then the faint scent of cheap coffee and instant noodles.
He bolted upright, heart racing.
The cracked ceiling fan whirled above. Peeling wallpaper. A flickering window screen showed headlines from five years ago.
[SYSTEM REBOOTING…]
[Welcome to the Shadow System. v0.1 BETA initialized]
A translucent interface blinked into the air, displaying icy-blue text with smooth neon edges. A pulse matched his heartbeat. Sleek. Responsive.
Then a voice—low, calm, with a sarcastic edge that mirrored his own:
"Welcome back, Elijah Kane. Congratulations. You're alive again. Don't screw it up."
"…Right," Elijah muttered. "Because coming back from the dead with a glowing UI in my face is totally normal."
"This is the Shadow System. I'm Shade, your strategic intelligence partner. We run on one currency: Influence Points."
A panel flickered:
text
[Name: Elijah Kane]
[Age: 22]
[Influence Points (IP): 0]
[System Rank: F-]
[Protocol Unlocked: Charm Protocol (Lv.1)]
[Active Mission: Gain 10 IP at the Neonspire Tech Expo]
[Reward: Stat Panel Unlocked + System Rank Upgrade]
[Time Limit: 6 Hours]
"You gain IP by manipulating outcomes: persuasion, popularity, dominance, public wins. Think of it like a social credit engine with extra power."
Elijah grinned. "So... second chance. No strings attached?"
"Please. There are always strings. Yours just happen to be razor wire."
[2 Hours Later — Neonspire Street Level]
Elijah stood outside the OmniDome Expo Hall, dark eyes scanning the crowd of corporate elites, indie coders, and camera drones buzzing overhead like flies on sugar.
He adjusted his cuffs and let the city pulse through him—steel arteries, glowing rails, neon signs flashing ApexCorp's dominance in deep crimson. Even five years ago, Slade's empire was already spreading through the city.
"Not this time."
He opened his old notebook, filled with timelines, memory fragments, names to remember, and mistakes to avoid.
Victor's downfall would begin here.
"You've got one shot to make a splash," Shade said. "Use it wisely. The Charm Protocol is ready—if your tongue doesn't fail you."
Elijah smirked. "I always had a way with words."
[Inside the OmniDome — Tech Expo]
The expo buzzed with electric tension. Holograms spun in midair. Booths advertised everything from emotion-mapping apps to gene-hacking implants. The crowd moved quickly, buzzword-drunk investors looking for the next billion-credit hit.
Elijah's microbooth was tucked between a crypto-mining AI and a biotech bracelet. He placed the MindVault prototype on display, ran diagnostics, and activated the stage mic.
"What if your mind had a private vault—unhackable, untraceable, completely yours?"
Heads turned. A few murmurs. A camera drone moved in closer.
[+2 IP: Crowd Attention]
[+1 IP: Technical Curiosity]
Elijah noticed an older investor with silver glasses nearby—Henrik Thorne, if he remembered correctly. A venture angel from LuxonTech. If he could sway Thorne…
"Activating Charm Protocol..." Shade whispered like a backstage director.
Elijah stepped forward, voice smooth. "Mr. Thorne, I've followed your work since your Data Whisperer days. Your critique on cloud fragmentation? Game-changing. MindVault aligns with your vision for total neural sovereignty. If you'd give me sixty seconds…"
Thorne blinked, surprised. Then he smiled.
[+3 IP: Investor Connection]
[+1 IP: Personalization Bonus]
[Charm Protocol Success: Effective]
[Current IP: 7]
"You smooth bastard," Shade commented. "I like you."
Three more points. One pitch away.
Elijah's fingers hovered over the prototype's core chip.
Just as he began his demo, the lights dimmed, and a second figure stepped onto the stage beside him.
"I thought MindVault was vaporware," said a cool, teasing voice. "But maybe it's just... last gen."
The crowd shifted. Even Thorne looked intrigued.
The woman was tall, lean, dressed in a dark leather jacket over sleek combat-fiber pants. Her short black hair framed a face like a sharpened diamond—elegant, lethal, too precise to be called soft.
And her eyes?
Amused. Calculated. Dangerous.
"Lyra Voss," Elijah whispered.
She wore an interface glove that shimmered with faint glowing glyphs—code alive, streaming up her arm like a second skin. Her Cipher System hummed subtly, casting mirrored text into the air.
[System Alert: Parallel System Detected — Cipher Carrier]
"Oh, she has a system too," Shade whispered, intrigued. "We are definitely keeping her around."
Lyra flashed a grin that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"I filed a patent for Cortex Ghost this morning. Neural compression in real-time. No lag, no leak, full quantum pairing. Real-time memory ghosting—unlike this... well, nostalgic USB chip."
The audience broke into murmurs. Her specs displayed behind her in luminous gold script. Some of them didn't even make sense to Elijah yet—future tech.
[IP Disruption Detected: -2]
[System Compatibility: 61% — Status: Competitive-Romantic]
"She outbid you, outcoded you, and she's definitely enjoying it," Shade said. "You're going to hate her or kiss her. Maybe both."
Lyra leaned closer, her voice a low purr meant only for Elijah:
"Welcome back to Neonspire, Kane. Try to keep up this time."
The crowd turned toward her. The judges began typing. Thorne looked torn.
Elijah's fingers flexed over his device. His jaw clenched.
The mission wasn't over. And this time, he wasn't playing nice.