Against the Machine

Prologue

Vektor City doesn't sleep — it optimizes. From the gleaming subscription towers of the upper tiers to the crackling jury-rigged corridors of the Underbelly, every block, every breath, every transaction runs through OmniCorp's infrastructure. The corporation doesn't govern the city. It is the city — its water, its medicine, its silence. For months, something has been wrong with that silence. Slush funds rerouted to underground clinics. Executive communications leaked to street journalists. Surveillance grids ghosted in the lower districts. OmniCorp's covert enforcement arm — the Null Directive — has been hunting the source. They don't arrest. They disappear. And now, after months of triangulation, they're three blocks from a neon-drenched converted transit hub called the Glitch & Groove, and the distance is shrinking. The crew inside knows what's coming. They also know what's buried in OmniCorp's Data Spire — evidence that could break the corporation's grip on Vektor City permanently, if anyone can reach it, crack it, and detonate it loud enough that the whole city hears. The window to act is measured in hours, not days. Somewhere in the Underbelly, the music is still playing. For now.