Her brother, Jack, had been the first casualty of the "Mind-Sync" glitch, a catastrophic error in the city’s neural network that had left thousands of citizens as empty shells, their spirits trapped in the digital ether.

Across Neo-London, every screen, every neural implant, and every billboard flickered to life. A young man with bright, defiant eyes looked out at the city.

As the soldiers pinned her to the cold floor, Holly didn't struggle. She looked at the terminal. The .zip was gone, uploaded into the city’s public broadcast grid. Jack wasn't just back; he was everywhere.

Holly’s hands flew across the mechanical keyboard, weaving through firewalls as sirens began to wail in the physical world outside her basement. The CIB was breaching the perimeter. "Come on, Jack," she hissed. "Download, damn it."