Chapter 3 - The Black Dive
The weight of the neural interface in Ethan’s pocket felt heavier than it should. This wasn’t just some piece of tech—it was his key into the unknown, a threshold he was about to cross. He turned the small device over in his hands, its matte black surface smooth and unassuming, but beneath its casing lay the power to drag him into the digital abyss where his brother had vanished.
Kira and Ethan stood in the parking lot of the Crossroads, it was largely empty. It became apparent to Ethan that he had no idea how Kira had arrived here. He had taken the hovertrain downtown and walked over to the bar. Suddenly, she tossed him a helmet. “Get on" Kira said, with a smirk. Her dark hair vanished as she put on a helmet. She flung one of her long legs over a red electric performance bike in a dramatic fashion, before mounting the bike completely. The bike beamed to life; the electric motor began humming with intensity.
"Well, are you coming or not?" She asked Ethan, impatiently.
"Yes, hang on" Ethan stated, while fumbling to get his helmet on.
“You’re the one who is going to need to hang on, dear!" Kira teased.
Ethan gave a concerned look to Kira which she found amusing, before he too mounted the bike. Kira felt him grab her waist, and she accelerated into the night.
Ethan found the ride to Kira’s apartment terrifying. He started to wonder if they would make it to her apartment at all, or if diving into the abyss would be as scary as this. Ethan''s grip on Kira''s waist got firmer, her posture was rigid. She was constantly bracing for what came next, weaving in and out of other vehicles and banking around corners with speed.
He wasn’t sure if he was ready to dive, but the ride has certainly kept him alert. It was almost Dawn, neither of them had slept. Kira appeared to be wide awake.
"Last chance," she muttered as they pulled into the underground parking garage of an unassuming residential block. "You plug in, and there''s no guarantee you''ll make it back out. The first dive is always the hardest. You’ll be disoriented. Vulnerable."
Ethan exhaled, forcing himself to steady his nerves. "I have to do this."
Kira nodded but didn’t look convinced. "Suit yourself."
She led him upstairs through a dimly lit corridor, stopping at a reinforced steel door. A biometric scanner blinked beside the handle. Kira pressed her palm against it, and after a brief scan, the lock clicked open. Inside, her apartment was spartan—minimalist furniture, her bed built into the back corner wall, a few scattered datapads, and a single window covered with blackout curtains. The air smelled faintly of burnt circuits and old coffee coming from the small kitchenette.
In the far corner of the room sat the dive rig.
Ethan took a step forward, his breath catching in his throat. He’d worked on projects tangentially related to deep-dive interfaces before, but he’d never seen an off-grid rig in person. It looked ancient—a bulky, modified unit stripped of corporate branding, its panels held together by a mess of exposed wiring and improvised repairs. It was built for one purpose: untraceable access.
"You’re sure this works?" Ethan asked, running a hand over the frame.
"It’s got a ninety-percent success rate," Kira said, shrugging.
"And the other ten percent?"
"You really don’t want to know."
Ethan swallowed hard.
She grabbed the neural interface from his hand and started attaching it to the dive rig, syncing the hardware. "This thing’s old school. No corporate firewalls. No safeties. Once you’re in, you’re on your own. No emergency eject unless I pull you out." Kira stated. "And you don''t want that, the load will fry your brain".
Ethan nodded. "Got it."
The small apartment felt even more claustrophobic now. Ethan stood next to the dive rig, staring at it as Kira worked, syncing the neural interface to the ancient machine. He had a hundred questions rattling inside his head, but Kira—ever pragmatic—was already laying down a plan.
"Alright, listen up," she said, crouching by the interface terminal. "We don’t have time for trial and error. This is how it’s going to work."
Ethan crossed his arms. "I’m listening."
"First off, our entire mission will be to retrieve a data cache and then head straight to the exit" Kira stated. "We don’t know the exact location of the data cache, but I’ll point you to information brokers who can find out. When you wake, we''ll review the data together”
“And that data will provide the answers to where Cedric is?" Ethan questioned.
"More or less, I hope so.” Kira replied. "But listen Ethan, when you land you will arrive in the Bridge—or at least, what''s left of it. It’s the last known stable zone before the deeper fragments of the Abyss. Picture a huge city designed decades ago, based on what they thought the future would look like."
"Ok that doesn''t sound too bad..." Ethan stated.
Kira paused. "But it is a wasteland now... A deadly wasteland with AI-controlled districts, and rogue NPC factions fighting over what’s left."
Ethan nodded, committing it to memory. "Great... Ok... So, locate the information brokers in the Bridge, and the Bridge is the hub between all other domains?"
"Exactly. This interface is limited and we have to land you there to go cross-domain, to go deeper. We don''t have the luxury of CyberWatch tech or landing at other domains" She tightened a few cables, then looked up at him. "But you need to understand that you''re new to this world, which means you’ll be weak. You won’t be able to waltz around unchecked. Play it smart. Keep your head down. Avoid drawing attention, especially from the overlords."
Ethan frowned. "Overlords?"
Kira sighed, rubbing her temples. "High-level rogue AI entities that patrol the Abyss. They rule different parts of it. Think of them as corrupted administrators who used to be part of the system before it all went to hell. They don’t take kindly to outsiders—especially real people like you. The moment they realize you''re not a program like the others, you’ll have a target on your back."
That sent a chill through Ethan. "Good to know."
"Which brings me to communication." She held up a small data drive. "Turns out the interface we got from Sledge was a game variant, it was designed for multiplayer gaming in some of the off-shoot domains. This will install a hidden function in your quest log. The interface doesn’t support external messaging, so if we need to talk, all I can do is send standard system notifications, but it’ll be me."
"Will you be able to watch me inside?" Ethan questioned.
"No, the interface is very limited and the rig is old, I will be able to loosely track your world position, see system notifications and send directions through your display" Kira replied.
Ethan took the drive and tucked it into his pocket. "And the exit?"
Kira’s face hardened. "This is important. You’ll have coordinates burned into your interface—your only way out. Think of it like a hidden backdoor programmed into the system. Once you’re in, you’ll have to navigate through the bridge and reach it manually. If you don’t make it… I can’t pull you out without almost certainly killing you. You’ll be stuck. And you don’t want to be stuck."
Ethan exhaled slowly. "No pressure, huh?"
"Yeah, no pressure. Welcome to the Abyss" Kira smirked. "You need to set up your avatar," Kira continued, tapping at the interface. "First time diving into the Abyss with this interface means you’re starting from scratch. No injected data. You’ll be vulnerable Ethan."
Ethan hesitated for only a moment before stepping toward the chair. "Let’s do this."
He lowered himself into the rig. Kira moved around him, attaching the interface to the base of his skull, securing the electrodes along his temples. The system hummed to life.
"Deep breaths, don’t fight it." She whispered, before kissing him on the cheek. "You better come back to me!"
Ethan felt a rush of adrenaline; his eyes were already closing as the connection initialized.
The world vanished.
> Welcome, Player.
> System Initializing…
> Loading Virtual Construct…
> WARNING: Unverified Entry Detected.
> Proceeding with Manual Configuration.
Ethan’s eyes snapped open.
He was standing in an infinite black void. Shapes flickered in the distance—half-formed structures dissolving before they could fully take shape. Code scrolled across the air, shifting like living, breathing text.
He glanced down.
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His hands were pixelated, his form shifting between solid and fragmented. He flexed his fingers, and the distortion settled, stabilizing.
> [Character Setup Initializing]
> Please Select Class.
A grid of glowing symbols appeared before him, each representing a different archetype. Fighter. Vagabond. Gunslinger. Custom.
He barely hesitated before selecting Custom.
> [WARNING]: Advanced Class Selection Requires Manual Configuration.
> Proceed?
A grin tugged at Ethan’s lips. Perfect. He had built entire systems for games like this—he knew how to manipulate the character creation process. He dove into the manual settings, tweaking parameters with a hacker’s intuition. If he played this right, he could break the system just enough to give himself an edge. After a few moments, he scrolled through the custom subclass options.
Then he found it.
> [ERROR]: Invalid Selection. Unlisted Class Detected.
> Override System Verification?
Ethan exhaled sharply. He had found something off-grid, something not meant to be accessed. He selected Override. The screen glitched violently.
> [CLASS SELECTED: GLITCHBORN]
> [HP: 50/50 | STAMINA: 50/50 | CORRUPTION: 0%]
> [ATTRIBUTES: STR 4, AGI 6, END 5, INT 7, WIL 5, PER 5]
> Trait Unlocked:
> [Anomaly]
> Skills Unlocked:
> [Unknown] [Level Null]
> [Unknown] [Level Null]
> [Unknown] [Level Null]
> [Unknown] [Level Null]
> [Unknown] [Level Null]
> [Unknown] [Level Null]
His stomach dropped.
The air around him rippled. He felt seen, like a thousand invisible eyes had turned toward him.
> [WARNING]: Detection Radius Increased.
> Proceed with Caution.
His form solidified, and for the first time, he felt weight in this world. A cold wind rushed past him as the void around him shattered. The Digital Abyss swallowed him whole.
Ethan fell.
The sensation was gut-wrenching, as if he had been yanked through a collapsing vortex. His HUD flickered violently, error messages screaming in the corners of his vision.
Then—impact.
He hit the ground hard, pain flaring through his limbs.
> [WARNING]: Pain Simulation at 100%.
Ethan gritted his teeth, pushing himself up. He was lying in the middle of what looked like a ruined cityscape.
"Where am I...?" he thought to himself.
Ethan took a slow step forward, absorbing the overwhelming sprawl of The Bridge. The city was a grotesque fusion of the past and future, where shattered skyscrapers reached toward the sky like broken fingers, their glass facades shattered, and their steel skeletons exposed. Neon billboards flickered erratically, some frozen mid-advertisement, others cycling through cryptic error messages.
The air carried a dense, metallic tang, and every few feet, gaping cracks in the pavement bled raw, shifting code that pulsed like an open wound. In the distance, he could see distorted figures moving—NPCs stuck in corrupted loops, endlessly repeating broken scripts. Others gathered in makeshift markets, trading stolen data packets, black-market augmentations, and forbidden scripts, their glowing eyes scanning for threats. The deeper he looked, the more Ethan realized—this city wasn’t just a hub. It was a graveyard of forgotten systems, a testament to the lawless chaos of the Abyss.
This wasn’t a game. This was something else.
He stood, his hands tightening into fists as he scanned his surroundings. His interface pinged. A hunched figure shuffled toward him from the shadows of a nearby alley. It was a gaunt man wearing tattered digital robes, his face obscured by a flickering mask of static. "Traveler... traveler, you seek the path?" The voice was hollow, layered with a distorted echo.
Ethan hesitated. "Who are you?"
The NPC twitched. "The path... yes, the path. Follow the light, but beware the broken ones. The broken ones. The broken... ones..."
Ethan frowned. Something was off. The man''s body trembled as if caught in a corrupted loop. His hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly, his head twitching in the same jerky motion. The realization hit Ethan like a shock to the system—the NPC was broken, stuck in a repeating error.
"What happened here?" Ethan asked cautiously.
"The path... the path... find the path..." The NPC''s voice stuttered, his body flickering in and out of existence. He suddenly convulsed, freezing mid-motion, eyes staring into nothingness before snapping back into the loop.
"Traveler... traveler, you seek the path?" he repeated, his voice identical, as if Ethan had never spoken.
> [Quest] Activated: [Find the First Trail]
A waypoint flickered in his vision, leading down a ruined alley the NPC had come from.
"That has to be Kira" He thought. "This must be the way to the data cache."
Ethan cautiously moved deeper into the alley, the neon lights above flickering erratically, casting jagged shadows against the walls. The further he went, the more NPCs he encountered—some slumped against the buildings, whispering fragmented code to themselves, while others wandered aimlessly, their faces vacant, their eyes flickering between expressions as if trying to process their own existence.
At a corner where the alley widened, a makeshift stall had been set up, cluttered with an assortment of crude, glitching weapons. The vendor behind it was an NPC with a metallic jaw and a single glowing eye that scanned Ethan as he approached.
"You look like you need protection, outsider," the vendor rasped, his voice modulating between different pitches. "I have the finest tools for survival: destabilizers, voltage blades, even a pulse cannon—cheap, cheap!"
Ethan eyed the weapons warily. Some of them looked serviceable, others flickered between shapes, as if unable to decide what they were meant to be. "What’s the catch?" he asked, crossing his arms.
The vendor chuckled, a sound like corrupted audio. "No catch. Just data—your data. A small, insignificant fragment for something that could save your life. A fair trade, yes?"
Ethan’s interface pinged with a prompt:
> [Transaction Request] - Unknown Source. Warning: Potential Data Integrity Risk.
He took a step back. "No thanks."
The vendor’s smile twitched; his glowing eye narrowing. "Shame. The Abyss is not kind to the unarmed."
Ethan turned away before the vendor could push further, his unease growing. Whatever passed for a marketplace in the Abyss, it was clear that every transaction came with hidden consequences.
Ethan continued following the waypoint until he reached a long desolate highway with empty and abandoned vehicles, their rusted frames stripped of anything useful. The air was unnervingly still, the neon reflections from the skyline casting eerie shadows through shattered windshields. Each step he took echoed against the cracked asphalt, the silence pressing in around him. A cold sensation crept down his spine—he was being watched. His HUD flickered.
> [Stealth] Skill: Level 1
> [Perception] Skill: Level 1
Barely enough to be useful. Still, he focused, attempting to listen beyond the hum of the digital wind. A faint distortion crackled in his audio feed, a pattern that didn’t match the environment. Someone—or something—was tailing him.
A distant roar split the silence.
Ethan turned sharply.
At the far end of the highway, something massive moved. A shadow against the neon haze. A shifting, grotesque form—half-machine, half-nightmare, its limbs twitching in ways that defied logic. Its red eyes locked onto him.
> [WARNING]: AI Detected.
> Threat Level: LETHAL.
Ethan barely had time to react before it lunged, violently flipping vehicles in its wake.
Instinct took over. Ethan ran.
His feet pounded against the cracked pavement, his breath coming in sharp gasps. The AI monstrosity pursued, its body distorting as it phased between reality and digital corruption.
His HUD flashed.
> [NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED]: [System Exploit]
Ethan’s lungs burned as he sprinted across the desolate highway, weaving between abandoned vehicles as the rogue AI closed the distance. His HUD flashed red—a warning just before a devastating blow clipped his side. Pain exploded through his ribs as he was sent tumbling across the cracked asphalt, skidding to a stop against the husk of a rusted-out transport.
> [HP =<10%] Critical - System Integrity Failing
He groaned, pushing himself up just as the AI loomed over him. Its monstrous frame glitched, limbs elongating and contracting in unnatural ways, its red eyes burning like twin infernos. It was preparing for the final strike.
Desperation took over.
Ethan’s raised both of his hands to shield himself, his mind locking onto the only thought he had left.
> [System Exploit] Activated.
The world fractured.
A massive section of the highway disintegrated into raw code, entire chunks of asphalt and vehicles dissolving into cascading lines of shimmering data. The ground beneath the AI vanished. With a distorted howl, it plunged into the abyss below, crashing onto the exposed lower infrastructure of the highway. The impact sent a shockwave through the environment, stunning the creature momentarily.
Ethan wasted no time. Clutching his ribs, he scrambled to his feet and bolted toward the waypoint. He didn''t look back. The AI wouldn’t stay down for long, and he had no intention of waiting to find out what happened when it recovered.
Ethan staggered off the highway, lungs burning, each step sending fresh waves of pain through his battered body. He ducked into a crumbling overpass, its skeletal remains offering some cover from the chaos he had just escaped. The city beyond flickered with corrupted neon, but here, in the dim shadows, he could finally catch his breath.
His HUD pinged.
> [New Skill Unlocked]: Regenerate (Level 1) - HP will recover slowly over time.
Relief flooded him as he felt a faint warmth spread through his body, the pain in his ribs dulling ever so slightly. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Another notification flickered onto his display.
> [System Exploit]: [Cooldown] Active. Time Remaining: 23:12:47
Ethan’s jaw tightened. So that’s what it was—an ultimate move, not something he could spam whenever he wanted. It made sense. The way the world had broken apart, how the AI had fallen straight through the highway—this wasn’t just another hack. It was a game-breaking ability, and now, he was locked out of using it when he might need it most. "No wonder this class didn''t make it to the production build of the game" he sniggered to himself.
He focused on the time, it had been night since he arrived, however dawn was approaching, and the cooldown seemed to be ticking away seconds. Ethan deduced that time here passed the same as it did in base reality. He did a review of his class, attributes and skills that had been revealed to him so far, partly regretting that he didn''t stick to a preset character class and messed with the creation process. He really had no idea how the base system worked, or this "Glitchborn" class even matched the same standards.
> HP: 14% (Regenerating)
> CLASS: Glitchborn
> [HP: 14/50 | STAMINA: 20/50 | CORRUPTION: 10%]
> [ATTRIBUTES: STR 4, AGI 6, END 5, INT 7, WIL 5, CHA 5]
> TRAITS: Anomaly
> SKILLS:
> Regenerate [Level 1]
> Stealth [Level 1]
> Perception [Level 1]
> Unknown [Null]
> Unknown [Null]
> System Exploit [Ultimate] (Cooldown: 23:12:25)
> INVENTORY:
> [NULL]
He was still unaware what the traits or missing skills of his class were and had not managed to work out his inventory at all. He felt like he was way in over his head and would give anything to be able to speak to Kira, to ask her a question, to feel her lips again. He removed the thought from his mind, in a futile attempt to stay focused.
His HUD remained still, nothing, no new notifications.
And then suddenly, his HUD flickered.
> [Deception] Skill: [Level 1]
It wasn''t a message from Kira, but another unknown skill of this class finally revealed. He wondered if the reveal was anything other than coincidental timing, there seemed to be no way of telling how this Glitchborn class was playing out.
"Deception might just come in handy..." he thought to himself. There was only one prelisted skill set to unknown, but he had no idea how to trigger the reveal, or if it was even going to be useful.
He sank against the cold concrete, breathing heavily. He needed to move soon, but for now, he let his regeneration take hold, every tick of healing a small victory in a world that wanted him dead.