Chapter 357 Escape, Exit, and Gathering

The wisp of grey smoke rose from the charred console, drawing Kincaid and Sterling closer to the desk. While Kincaid muttered, tapping at the dead keys, Sterling turned away to reach for a wall communicator.

Connor seized the moment. He slipped from behind the bookcase, keeping his footsteps silent on the plush carpet. He navigated the short distance to the double doors, slid through the small opening, and pulled the oak door shut with a gentle click.

He hurried down the carpeted hallway, bypassing the security cameras by blending into a group of guests carrying crystal flutes of sparkling wine. His fingers curled around the portable lens in his pocket, damp with cold perspiration.

He bypassed the ballroom, slipping out toward the glass-walled observation deck where he had agreed to meet Leo.

Leo stood near the glass railing, watching the artificial stars rotate across the city's orbital ceiling. When he heard the rustle of Connor's shoes, he turned, his brow furrowing as he noticed Connor's pale face and shallow breathing.

"You have the files?" Leo whispered, looking around to ensure no other guests were nearby.

Connor nodded, leaning against the cold glass. He retrieved the scanning lens, transferring the digitized images of Mercer's diary directly to Leo's hand-held device. "I found the 2065 records. But that is not all. The terminal in the study was hijacked while I was inside."

Leo looked down at the screen, his thumbs scrolling through the decrypted pages of the diary. His jaw tightened as he read the entries describing the Mariana Trench, the spatial rift, and the abductions. "They knew. The developers knew they were trapping real people."

"The girl with the silver eyes appeared on the console," Connor whispered, his eyes darting toward the ballroom entrance. "She burned the hardware right in front of them, repeating the exact warning she left on my computer. Sterling and Kincaid were helpless. The system is actively controlling them."

Leo stared at the data, his hand trembling against the screen. Fortunately, they had secured the physical evidence, but the realization of what they were dealing with remained.

"We need to get this to Ophelia and Ilyas. If the server is a physical rift beneath the ocean, we cannot solve this inside the game."

Connor looked back at the glowing ballroom, realizing the comfortable lives they lived in the High District were built on a foundation of stolen souls. "We leave the gala now. We need to plan our next move before the console administrators trace the file access back to us."

Connor's parents stood near the marble bar, deep in conversation with a circle of regional directors. His father gestured expansively with his glass, laughing at a joke made by an administrator from the water reclamation grid. His mother stood beside him, her smile perfectly practiced and vacant.

Connor approached the group, keeping his shoulders back to project a calm demeanor. He waited for a break in the corporate chatter before tapping his father's shoulder.

"Father," Connor said, keeping his voice polite. "I need to take Leo home. He took a turn for the worse after tasting the seafood catering."

His father paused, his smile faltering for a fraction of a second. His mother adjusted her pearl necklace, her eyes scanning the nearby guests to see if anyone had noticed the interruption. She offered Connor a tight, annoyed nod.

"Go then," his father muttered, dismissively waving his hand before turning back to the directors. "Take a private transit pod from the sub-level deck. Do not make a scene on your way out."

Connor bowed his head slightly and stepped back into the crowd. He signaled Leo and Ophelia with a brief nod, and the three of them quietly navigated the edge of the ballroom toward the elevators, leaving the music and the corporate elite behind them.

"Let's go to Ilyas' place."

The private automated transit pod glided away from the glittering towers of the High District, its polished metal hull cutting through the cold mist. Connor leaned his head against the damp glass, watching the neon reflections smear across the wet skyscrapers below.

Behind them, the pristine penthouse gala faded into a distant cloud of artificial stars, leaving only the quiet drone of the transport motors.

Beside him, Leo tapped his fingers against his knees, his face pale under the passing streetlights. Olivia sat across from them, her shoulders stiff as she watched the digital coordinates on her hand-held terminal.

None of them spoke. The memory of Harrison Sterling's ruined console, charred by a synthetic warning, still lingered in their minds. Connor reached into his jacket pocket, his fingers brushing the cool glass of his scanning lens, confirming the data remained intact.

"How far to Ilyas's sector?" Connor asked, breaking the silence.

"A few minutes," Olivia replied, her voice strained as she checked the map. "We are descending into the middle-tier residential zone. The municipal sensors are less dense down there, but we still need to be careful."

The transport pod angled downward, entering a concrete gorge lined with decaying brick apartment complexes. This tier of the city smelled of damp stone and old copper pipes, a far cry from the synthetic pine scent of the High District.

When the pod docked at the platform, Connor stepped out first, pulling his collar up to shield his face from the yellow-tinged rain. Leo and Olivia followed close behind, their dress shoes splashing in the oily puddles.

They walked through a narrow alleyway to reach a secure, older brick building. Ilyas's family owned the residence, utilizing it as a retreat because the structural layout lacked modern smart-home integrations.

Connor swiped a keycard through the reader on the service door. The lock clicked open with a quiet mechanical rattle, and they slipped inside.

They descended a flight of stairs to the basement level, entering an un-networked study. The room was plain, constructed from dense granite blocks and furnished with a sturdy wooden table.

Lucy, Nelson, and Evan were already there, sitting in silence. They looked up as Connor entered, their faces marked by a shared, deep-seated anxiety.

"You managed to get out," Lucy said, standing up. "Nelson told us the gala security went into a total lockdown."

"The director's office had a terminal failure," Connor explained. He walked to the wooden table, pulled the scanning lens from his jacket, and placed the device on the flat surface. "We obtained the data before the connection died. The company is hiding something far worse than a game."

He tapped the lens. A three-dimensional holographic projection flared to life, casting a blue glow over their faces. The scanned pages of Redmond Vane's personnel file bloomed across the granite wall, displaying yellowed, decades-old corporate background checks.

"Redmond Vane," Evan muttered, reading the name on the wall. "State university graduate. Specialized in logistics."

"The developers avoided programming the server from scratch," Connor said, pointing at the scrolled text. "Dr. Alistair Mercer discovered an active dimensional rift deep beneath the ocean floor. The company merely constructed a consumer interface around it to exploit the resource."

Leo leaned over the table, his eyes locked on the list of twenty-nine names scanned from the 2024 Miami registry. "Look at the names. Marcus Thorne, Chris Pitt, Elena Ross. These are the individuals who served as Heralds in Aethelgard. And now, half of them are dead and the remaining are Rubedo's slaves."

"They were real people," Olivia whispered, her hand trembling as she touched the projection. "They disappeared during a high school reunion in 2024. The earthquake the media reported was just the spatial rift pulling them through."

"Wait," Lucy said, her brow furrowing as she counted the entries. "There are exactly twenty-nine names on this list. But the royal mages in Aethelgard explicitly stated they calculated for thirty souls to distribute the energy load."

Connor adjusted the projection, zooming in on a cropped photograph clipped to the back of Redmond Vane's file. The image displayed a young, Redmond Vane standing in front of a dark corporate lobby. Beside him stood a girl with long, snow-white hair and solid silver eyes.

"She was there in 2024," Connor said, his voice dropping. "She existed forty years before the game was ever launched on Earth. She is the thirtieth classmate. She is the cover-art mascot, and she is the one who burned my terminal."

The room fell into a deep quiet. The realization settled over them like a physical weight, proving that the game they had played was merely a gilded cage built around an active apocalypse.

"So… what do we do now?"

"Look for the clues and connection of Rubedo and the missing people's family and relatives."