The rails screamed beneath their feet.
Not creaked—screamed, as though the metal itself was protesting their presence in this broken level. Sparks hissed up from under the platform, flickering like dying fireflies in the stale, electric air. The bridge swayed. Rachel's boots clung to the trembling metal, but her heart was slipping fast.
She was scared.
No—frightened. The kind of fear that gets into your teeth, your fingernails, the cracks behind your eyes.
Harris had frozen mid-step, his shoulders rigid, one foot still hovering over a plank that looked ready to collapse.
Then the hologram appeared again.
Emotionless. Hollow. Glitching slightly at the edges—but its gaze locked with hers like a noose tightening.
Rachel's breath hitched. Her instincts screamed. Every part of her told her to turn, to run, to dive off the side if she had to. But she didn't. She wouldn't.
She forced her muscles to stay still, her face to smooth over, cold and unreadable. Let her pulse hammer in her chest. Let the desperation bubble under her skin. But she would not show it.
She wouldn't give the system that pleasure.
Her voice came low and measured.
"What do you want?" she asked. "What can I do for you to let me and my friends go?"
The hologram's expression didn't change.
The rails hissed louder.
A pause. Static. Then the voice:
> "NEGOTIATION NOT IN PROTOCOL."
Of course not. Of course it wouldn't bargain. The system had all the leverage. Rachel had nothing—no allies nearby, no exits, no firepower. Just one thing.
Her fingers brushed against the box inside her jacket.
Wait.
Maybe she did have a bargaining chip.
Slowly, she pulled it out.
The box thrummed faintly, as if reacting to the tension in the air. Rachel stepped forward—only half a step—and held it out, above the gaping drop beyond the edge of the bridge, dangling it from the tangled ropes swaying beside them.
"My friends and I… for this," she said. Her voice sharpened, cut into the static. "The box for our freedom."
The hologram flickered.
For a moment—just a blink—its calm expression warped. Not anger, not surprise exactly, but something. A pulse of calculation. As if it had not anticipated she'd use it against it.
Rachel leaned into that flicker. Smirked.
"Or…" she dangled the box farther out over the abyss, "I drop it. And you lose whatever this is forever."
The system glitched violently. Its form split in two, then reassembled—twice as bright. The air around Rachel shimmered with invisible pressure.
Then—her fingers wouldn't move.
Her smirk froze.
She looked down. Her hand was suspended in the air, rigid, locked in place as if seized by invisible chains. She couldn't even twitch a knuckle.
It had paralyzed her hand. Not the whole body—just the part that held the box.
Rachel's throat went dry.
The system spoke again, voice barely more than a whisper now, but somehow closer, almost in her ear:
> "UNACCEPTABLE RISK. BOX PRESERVATION OVERRIDES USER AGENCY."
And now she knew.
The box mattered. More than her. More than Harris. More than the damn system's rules.
It wanted it. No—needed it.
Her hand was going numb.
No—worse. It was turning white. Bone-white. As if all the blood had been vacuumed out.
Rachel grit her teeth. Sparks licked through her wrist and into her arm, tiny bolts of lightning threading through her veins. She couldn't scream. She wouldn't. But her body twitched, trembled, betrayed her.
"Y-You're hurting her!"
Harris snapped out of whatever fear had held him paralyzed. His voice cracked like a whip. He stormed toward the hologram, arms stiff at his sides, rage rolling off him in heavy, hot waves. His eyes zeroed in on Rachel's seizing hand. "Let her go! Now!"
No response.
The hologram pulsed. The system didn't flinch, didn't pause, didn't even twitch. Its voice cut through the tension like broken glass.
> "PRIORITY: BOX RETRIEVAL. USER CONDITION—NON-ESSENTIAL."
Rachel groaned, her knees dipping. The shocks were getting worse, each one singing through her bones like a livewire under her skin. Her teeth clacked from the tremors in her jaw.
"Stupid... damn... thing," she hissed under her breath.
Harris looked ready to throw something—or someone—off the edge.
But Rachel wanted to smack him.
What was the point of anger?
They'd been angry before. Fuming. Crying. Demanding. What had it done? Nothing.
The system never listened. It simply calculated. Adapted. Controlled.
This hologram wasn't here to talk.
It was stalling.
Her breath caught in her throat. The thought landed like a shard of ice in her brain.
This wasn't about her. Or Harris. Or even the box.
This was a distraction.
She spun toward the distance, her ears tuning out the crackling hologram—and then she heard it.
Bzzzzzzzzzz...
Low at first. Faint. Almost like static. But growing louder. Rising.
Rachel's heart dropped.
Drones.
Dozens of them. Maybe more. Buzzing like a swarm of angry metal wasps, closing in from the east. Their sound was unmistakable. Not surveillance drones. Not flyers.
Hunters.
They were here.
"Take it!" Rachel screamed, her voice raw, desperate, furious.
Harris blinked, stunned for half a second—just long enough for her scream to echo between the cliffs. He looked at her, confusion flickering in his wide eyes. And then he heard it too.
The buzzing.
That awful, mechanical hum, rising like a storm surge. Closer. Louder. Real.
Understanding hit him like a slap.
He vaulted forward without another word, ignoring the screech of the bridge rails as his boots slammed down. The whole metal structure groaned under their weight, angry and unstable, but Harris didn't hesitate.
"Don't move!" she shouted, gritting through the pain. "If you fall, I swear I'll—"
"I'm not falling!" he snapped.
He reached her. One hand gripped her wrist; the other pried her fingers open. Rachel hissed. Her nerves were on fire. Her palm had locked into a death grip, the system's invisible force squeezing every tendon into paralysis.
But Harris was relentless.
"Let it go, Rachel," he said through clenched teeth. "You don't have to fight it."
"I'm not fighting," she muttered, "I'm negotiating."
The second the box slipped out of her fingers, her hand collapsed against her thigh like dead weight. She gasped. Pain flooded back in a wave, and so did relief.
The system paused.
The flickering hologram held still. For the first time, its expression twitched—barely, but enough. Calculating. Processing. Rerouting.
> "ASSET RETRIEVED. STAND BY."
"Stand by, my ass," Harris muttered, clutching the box tightly against his chest.
Then the sky ripped open.
Three drones appeared above the ravine—sleek, armored, each one the size of a grown man. Their lights pulsed blood-red. Rachel barely had time to register the model before the first one fired.
A beam of heat singed the air where she'd been standing. She rolled backward, hit the bridge grating hard, and screamed, "Run!"
Harris gripped the box like it held his soul.
The bridge groaned beneath them, every step threatening to crack it wide open. Drones shrieked above, their red eyes scanning, targeting—but not shooting. Not yet. Not with the box still exposed.
Rachel's legs moved on autopilot. The pain in her hand pulsed like a heartbeat, but she ignored it.
Harris half-yelled, half-laughed as the metal swayed under them. "We're basically flying!"
"Yeah, well, try not to die mid-flight," she snapped.
Then it came.
That voice.
All too familiar.
"Woah! This is awesome!" it chirped through her skull, far too amused for a situation like this.
Rachel rolled her eyes so hard it hurt. "Oh, so you can talk. What happened to all that ominous silence back there?"
No answer. Just a crackle of digital static in her ears.
The system—whatever fragment of it nested inside the box—had chosen now to break the ice. Typical.
She ran harder, weaving between the fractured planks. The bridge felt endless. Behind them, the hologram occasionally flickered into view—never touching the bridge, always floating just far enough to keep them running like rats in a maze.
"Why does the system value you?" she hissed under her breath. "What do you have that's worth burning drones and agents over?"
A pause.
Then a chuckle.
"You mean... why does it value me more than you?"
Rachel's scoff was immediate. "I'm not competing for the system's love with a shoebox."
But the voice had already retreated. Silent. Arrogant.
Like it had won.
The buzzing grew louder again. Closer. Angry.
One of the drones swept low, circling the left side of the bridge. Its spotlight landed on Harris. The system's voice returned—not hers, not the box's, but the mainframe.
"ASSET IN DANGER. NEUTRALIZE HOSTILE CONTROL."
Rachel looked at Harris. "That means you, by the way."
"No kidding!" he yelled, ducking low as the drone pulsed.
It didn't fire.
It hovered.
Waiting.
Stalking.
The hologram reappeared on the right, its form stuttering like a corrupted file. Rachel didn't even look. She could feel it watching. Measuring.
Then, the little box spoke again.
"I can sense nothing twenty meters from here."
Rachel skidded a little but kept moving. "What does that mean?"
Even Harris heard it this time. He didn't turn, but his voice carried between breaths.
"The other side of the bridge. It's a dead zone," he said. "No system coverage. They must've marked it as unstable terrain. Too risky for scanners."
That meant freedom.
Or death.
Maybe both.
But it was the only choice they had.
Rachel could feel it in her gut—this wasn't just some random line the system threw out. It was warning them. Or maybe taunting them.
Either way, it confirmed something: the system didn't control everything. Not yet.
"Ten meters," Harris called.
Rachel's breath hitched.
The buzzing crescendoed. Another drone swooped close. She felt the heat of its engine against her cheek.
Still no shot.
Because the system didn't want to lose the box.
And the box didn't want to leave.
But they didn't stop.
They ran toward the place where the system couldn't see, couldn't follow.
They ran for the dark.