The download hadn't just been a game. By surviving the crash, he’d harvested the very data the Spire tried to use to kill him.
Jax looked up at the ceiling, seeing past the grime and the metal. He had the keys to the kingdom. Now, all he had to do was climb.
"Jax, your brain temp is spiking!" Pip’s voice filtered in from the real world, sounding miles away.
Jax woke up on his floor, gasping for air. His neural lace was smoking, and Pip was frantically spraying him with coolant. "Did it work?" Jax coughed, clutching his head.
Pip scanned him. "The simulation is gone. But... Jax, look."
"Stage One: The Ventilation Shafts," a cold, synthesized voice echoed.
"You sure about this?" his companion, a rusted utility droid named Pip, beeped nervously. "Unverified code often leads to... suboptimal biological outcomes." "I don't have a lifetime, Pip," Jax muttered. He clicked.
