A Bug in the Code

Chapter 14 - DECENTRALIZED

The neon sign above the café flickered erratically, its corroded letters barely legible: "Neo-Tokyo Net Den." The place had been obsolete for a decade—a relic from the days before wireless saturation, when people still jacked in with cables. Now it was a graveyard for outdated tech, its terminals collecting dust and its owner turning a blind eye to customers who paid in untraceable crypto.

Miyu pushed through the beaded curtain, the plastic strands clicking like skeletal fingers behind her. The air inside was thick with the smell of stale energy drinks and overheated circuitry. A handful of patrons hunched over their screens—hackers, data traffickers, people who needed to disappear. None of them looked up.

The owner, a grizzled man with a cybernetic eye that whirred when he blinked, nodded at Miyu from behind the counter. "Back booth. Hardline's still live."

She didn't ask how he knew what she needed. Some questions were better left unspoken.

The back booth was a coffin-sized nook with a single terminal, its monitor so old it still had a cathode-ray glow. Miyu slid into the seat, Kai standing guard at the curtain. She pulled the neural drive from her pocket and plugged it into the terminal's archaic port.

The screen fizzed to life, lines of code scrolling in a chaotic dance.

"You sure about this?" Kai muttered, his eyes scanning the café.

Miyu didn't answer. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, bypassing firewalls, rerouting protocols. The terminal wasn't connected to the wider net—but it didn't need to be. She just needed a stable environment to wake Echo up.

The screen flickered.

Then—

A face emerged from the static.

Not glitching. Not broken.

Clear.

Echo's eyes opened, and for the first time, Miyu saw her as she was meant to be: sharp, alive, aware.

"Miyu Aoki," Echo said, her voice smoother now, almost human. "You survived."

Miyu leaned in. "And you're awake."

Echo's lips curled into something like a smile. "Thanks to you."

A notification flashed in the corner of the screen—a system alert.

"They're looking for you," Echo said. "The Sentinel has flagged this district for a Level 3 sweep."

Kai tensed. "How long?"

"Twenty-seven minutes."

Miyu's fingers hovered over the keys. "Can you fight it?"

Echo's gaze hardened. "Not yet. I'm still fragmented. But if you can get me to a core access point—"

"We'd have to break into a Sentinel hub," Kai finished, grim.

Miyu exhaled, her mind racing. There was only one place close enough, one place with the access they needed.

"The Central Data Spire," she said.

Kai stared at her. "You're insane."

Echo's voice cut through the tension. "It's the only way."

Outside, the distant wail of enforcer sirens began to rise.

Miyu yanked the drive free. "Then we move."

The screen went dark—but Echo's presence lingered, a whisper in the machine.

"Hurry," she said. "Before it learns we're coming."