Zane's hands were still trembling from the last encounter, the flickering light of the screens around him reflecting the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He leaned back in the stolen rig chair, the hard plastic creaking beneath him, his body soaked in sweat. The silence was heavy—too heavy. It wasn't just the aftermath of bypassing Blackwall Security's third-level firewall. It was what he'd seen in the system logs just before pulling back.
A name.
One he hadn't heard in ten years.
"Project Redline."
It hadn't just been a buried protocol. It was alive, still updating, still growing—and someone else had been accessing it at the exact same time as him. Another user. Another signal.
Another hacker?
His mind spun with possibilities. Was he being watched? Followed? Or worse—was someone else also using Root Access?
The console beside him blinked, drawing his attention. A new message pulsed on the screen in a deep red font.
Root Access Alert: Unverified Protocol has been triggered. Engagement authorized.
Mission 2 Activated: Intercept the Redline Protocol before the rival user gains control.
Failure will result in Level 2 Penalty.
Zane clenched his jaw. The system didn't play games—and this wasn't a test anymore. This was a race. A hostile infiltration scenario where failure wouldn't just cost him time—it could cripple his system, fry his hardware, or worse, leak his location.
Root Access was supposed to give him control, but it was also pushing him further, harder, deeper. And right now, it was baiting him with something big.
Zane pulled up the trace logs. The rival's digital footprint was faint—hidden behind layers of military-grade proxy tunnels—but he'd caught a fragment of the signature: [Y42-THX].
The handle was unfamiliar, but the precision of the coding style wasn't. This wasn't just some rogue hacker poking around. This was someone trained. Someone who knew how to move like a ghost.
And yet, they'd made a mistake.
They left a trail.
Zane cracked his knuckles and whispered, "Let's dance."
He launched a counter-sweep, rerouting through six different spoof nodes before deploying a custom tracker worm—a twisted little code he'd written himself back when he worked at Omniscient Systems. Before the betrayal. Before the blood.
The moment it hit the trail, it latched on.
Worm engaged. Tracing signal.
Zane watched as the signal darted across the digital map—bouncing through Tokyo, Frankfurt, Johannesburg—before finally narrowing on a server cluster in Brazil. The name of the host server hit him like a brick:
VirexCorp / Node: RE:13
That name wasn't a coincidence.
VirexCorp was one of the shell companies used by the same people who had killed him ten years ago. The same ones who buried his code, betrayed his legacy, and erased his name.
They were still active. Still expanding. Still leeching off the system he had designed.
"Of course," Zane muttered. "You're all still in the game."
But this time, so was he.
The screen lit up again.
Root Access Integration Prompt: Do you wish to activate Redline Dive Mode?
Warning: Engaging this protocol will place your system into unrestricted combat state. All security overrides will be temporarily lifted. Proceed at your own risk.
Zane stared at the screen for a moment. The system was giving him a choice. No guarantees. No safety nets.
But this was what he came back for.
He typed: "Activate Dive Mode."
Confirmed. Dive Mode: Engaged. Initiating digital combat environment.
His system roared to life, fans spinning to max, red warning symbols flooding the HUD. Everything shifted. The code wasn't static anymore. It began to breathe, forming a virtual battlefield—one designed not just for navigation, but for war.
Digital barriers manifested like jagged walls. Defensive AI swarms circled overhead. At the center of it all was the Redline Protocol—a crimson sphere pulsing with raw energy, guarded by a hydra-like encryption serpent. And across from it—
A figure.
Cloaked in static. Masked. Watching him.
The rival hacker was already there.
And they turned toward him.
[Unknown User: Y42-THX] – Access Level: Override Tier 1
They typed fast, and a volley of hostile code fired toward Zane's interface like spears of light. He dodged, throwing up shields as his system flared red.
Engaged in Digital Combat.
Zane launched a backdoor spike, breaching the firewall guarding the Redline sphere, even as the rival user tried to seal it off. For every inch he gained, they pushed back harder. The code was dancing between them like a storm—snapping, shifting, reshaping. This wasn't just hacking anymore.
It was warfare.
His opponent sent a corrupt loop to try and force a system shutdown. Zane barely rerouted power in time, sacrificing two of his ghost nodes. They crashed and burned in digital flame, but he didn't blink.
He was used to pain. To sacrifice. To bleeding for every line of progress.
But not losing.
Not again.
He countered with a logic bomb—his own creation, something he'd dubbed "Deadman's Switch." It activated, expanding outward in fractal patterns of blue light, infecting the rival's control zones.
They staggered. The screen flickered.
He'd broken their left flank.
Zane seized the moment, charging toward the Redline sphere, inserting his Root signature.
Override Accepted. Redline Protocol Accessing…
Initiating Data Extraction.
The rival user screamed across the chat feed.
[Y42-THX]: Who the hell are you? That protocol doesn't belong to you.
Zane smiled coldly.
[ZANE]: It was mine before you were even born.
Root Access Update: Redline Protocol Extracted.
Warning: Intrusion from rival user has triggered Blacklight Counter-Protocol.
His eyes widened.
"Oh shit."
The system collapsed.
Not just his.
Everything.
The Redline Dive crashed into a full blackout. The screens went dead. The hum of his rig stuttered and screamed as sparks flew from the processor core. He ducked just in time to avoid a shard of melting plastic as the cooling unit exploded.
The rig was frying itself.
Zane ripped the headset off and yanked the power core free, breathing hard in the sudden silence. The stench of burnt circuitry filled the air.
But he was still alive.
Barely.
The emergency drive spun up, rerouting to his backup laptop. Data streamed in—corrupted, scrambled—but still readable.
Redline was his now.
Even if it came at a cost.
Root Access: Redline Protocol has been successfully retrieved.
New Power Unlocked – System Hijack v1.0
Description: You may now infiltrate, override, and temporarily control hostile systems. Use with caution.
Zane's breath caught in his throat.
This was it.
This was the beginning of real vengeance.
Of rewriting the game.
And as he stared at the new directive blinking on the screen, he knew this wasn't over. Y42-THX was still out there. The system was watching. And the next step in this war would come even faster.
Next Mission Unlocked: Trace and Eliminate Rival User.
Objective: Track Y42-THX. Terminate connection. Extract hidden payload.
Reward: Permanent System Hijack Upgrade.
Zane smiled through the blood trickling down his temple.
"Let's hunt."
[END OF CHAPTER 13]