Wade's lungs burned as smoke filled the workshop.
The explosion had left his ears ringing, tools scattered, and half the wall torn open. Through the haze, the dark figure moved like a ghost—faceless, silent, glowing blue from the seams of its armored skin.
The woman who'd found him was already in motion, blade humming as it clashed against the intruder's gauntlet. Sparks flew. Every hit she delivered was calculated, surgical. But the figure didn't flinch.
Wade ducked behind his bench, heart hammering.
His eyes dropped to the chip still clutched in his hand. It pulsed with a rhythm that matched his heartbeat.
> Node 07: Synch in progress (14%)
Cognitive Link initializing…
Pain is temporary. Code is eternal.
"What the hell is this thing doing to me?" he muttered.
"Exactly what it was made for," the woman shouted, kicking the attacker back with a shockwave burst. "Wade! Plug in now!"
He hesitated.
Then the tablet on the floor cracked and a beam of violet light surged out, scanning him head to toe. The words appeared in his mind more than his eyes:
> WARNING: Compatibility Detected. Full Integration Required.
The enemy lunged.
Wade had no choice. He jammed the chip into the neural port at the base of his neck—a port he didn't even know he had.
The world stopped.
Time fractured.
His veins lit up with violet circuitry as his consciousness snapped into something larger than himself. Layers of data, blueprints, strategies, and battle maps poured into his thoughts.
He wasn't just seeing the fight—he was predicting it.
The figure struck again. But this time, Wade moved.
He grabbed a power gauntlet off his table mid-dive, rerouted the core's polarity in one blink, and fired a burst of kinetic energy that shattered the attacker's left arm plating.
The figure stumbled.
Wade landed in a crouch, gauntlet crackling.
"Whoa," he breathed, eyes glowing faint purple.
The woman smirked. "Welcome to the Shadow Circuit, kid."
The enemy retreated, cloaked itself in static, and vanished into the night.
The room went still.
Wade's chest rose and fell, his skin humming with residual energy.
"What… what was that?" he asked, voice shaking.
"A hunter," she said. "One of many. Now that you're awakened, they're coming for you."
"And you're with D.O.N.?"
She nodded. "Name's Lynx. I'm your handler now. Welcome to a war that doesn't exist. A network that never sleeps. A family… that fights from the shadows."
Wade stared at the still-glowing chip in the tablet.
Somewhere deep in the code, he felt it:
This was just the beginning.
---
[To be continued]