Liam, shoulders hunched beneath a frayed leather coat, moved with deliberate caution through the narrow alley leading to a forgotten quarter of NeoNexus’s underbelly. Every step stirred the stagnant air, thick with the smell of rotting waste and stale desperation—the kind of odor that seeped into clothes and lingered like bad memories. It was no wonder so few ever ventured this way.
But Liam had his reasons. His client had promised generous compensation for a simple mission: retrieve data from something that should’ve been buried long ago. Or rather, someone. Word on the street was that souls trapped in Neurocradle’s machines still lingered—whispering their secrets in half-formed dreams. It was, after all, a relic of a time when corporate ambition knew no bounds. If the rumors were true, death was no longer an end, but a doorway into a digital purgatory.
He paused at the edge of a rusted chain-link fence, eyeing the structure beyond. Once, Neurocradle had been heralded as a miracle of technology, promising second chances and eternal life for those wealthy enough to afford a neural implant. Now it stood desolate, windows smashed, its interior swallowed by darkness. The rumor mill claimed it was abandoned not because the technology failed, but because it succeeded too well—creating ghosts that refused to rest.
Liam tugged his coat tighter around him, each rivulet of rain sliding down the worn leather and dripping onto the grimy asphalt. He spotted the corroded steel door he’d been told about, half-obscured by neon graffiti pulsing under flickering lights. Above it hung a battered sign that read: Neurocradle VR Terminal, its buzzing neon tubes sounding like the labored breath of some wounded animal. A hollow, repetitive wheeze that set Liam’s nerves on edge.
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Taking a slow breath, he keyed in a code scrawled on the back of his hand. With a grinding shriek, the door unlocked, revealing only darkness beyond. Liam glanced over his shoulder, momentarily questioning his decision to trust a faceless client. But curiosity—and the promise of a substantial payout—drove him forward. He pushed the door open, stepping into the stale air that clung to the interior like a sickness.
Within, the once-sterile corridors of Neurocradle had devolved into a graveyard of rusted machinery. Rows of shattered VR pods stood like tombstones, coated in a fine layer of dust and illuminated by sporadic bursts of malfunctioning emergency lights. Dangling wires and frayed cables trailed from the ceiling, forming a maze of technological sinew. The hushed drone of failing power units echoed throughout, an unsettling lullaby for the ghosts rumored to dwell here.
“Dead men tell the best tales,” Liam muttered under his breath, recalling the old saying among data-thieves and netrunners. If the stories were true, those who perished with Neurocradle’s implants still roamed these halls in digital form. Liam just hoped the one spirit he needed to question would be willing—and sane—enough to speak.
He pressed deeper into the facility, each step echoing ominously. Ahead, a faint glow pulsed where a central console waited, dormant but not yet dead. Liam approached, carefully avoiding debris underfoot. He could almost feel the weight of thousands of lost consciousnesses bearing down on him, like invisible eyes watching from the shadows. Clenching his jaw, he steadied himself and prepared to do what he did best: pry open the past and scavenge its darkest secrets.