Chapter 1

Giselle clenched the straw of the empty juice box between her teeth, reaching into the depths of her bag. She retrieved her cellphone and read the message she had received.

[When are you going to reply?]

"Another message?" she whispered, studying the string of numbers. She had already blocked twenty-seven different numbers, all from the guy she had met a day ago.

Giselle sighed before turning her face towards the blazing sunlight streaming through the cafeteria windows. Her gaze fell upon a poster advertising a sugar-free soda, which she read with bitterness, "Zero Sugar! Discover the new Cola flavor."

A shiver ran down Giselle's spine as she remembered her nickname, Zeros. She also recalled Charon. "You will die," he had said to her. She wondered if it was a threat. If it was, she didn't stick around to find out. Giselle rushed home as fast as she could.

It took her some time to calm down. She realized that death was something far off in the future. How could she die? Her health was perfect, and she was not foolish enough to get involved in accidents or meet strangers from the internet ever again.

In fact, her excessive caution ensured that she couldn't die anytime soon. Maybe one day... she hoped it would happen during old age.

Giselle lowered her gaze back to her phone screen. Another text message had arrived.

[I need to see you!]

Once again, he was trying to reach out to her. How did he even get her cellphone number? Giselle decided she needed to change her number and turned off the device.

"Hey, Dardi!" she suddenly heard Luan's voice calling out.

Luan Goulart was her mother's friend and her superior at the police academy. He was a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard that he used to give a tough look and intimidate others.

"Luan," Giselle replied, tossing the juice box into the trash bin in the cafeteria of her platoon.

"You seemed agitated," the police officer crossed his arms. "I could see your furrowed brow from a mile away. It was the first thing I noticed when I came to have lunch."

He lifted his brimming bowl of food. He always ate well.

Giselle had known him since she was a child. Luan lived in the Barefoot Community, in a house next to hers and her family's. He had been raised to be a "good man" despite growing up in a rough neighborhood. He had been in love with Lillian, Giselle's mother, and became very upset when the handsome Raoul Dardi showed up out of nowhere with his obvious flirting and won over his beloved.

But even though he didn't like Giselle's father, Luan treated her well.

"It's nothing," she replied, sighing.

"Are you sure?" the man insisted.

She nodded. Everything would be fine, she believed, as long as she stayed away from anything related to that game. Her system still displayed a 404 error, and most players wouldn't challenge her to any match — they felt sorry for her. She was the sole survivor of that deadly game she had gotten involved in two years ago.

"Don't worry, Luan," Giselle reassured her friend. She checked the time. Her lunch break was over. "Today is my first day on patrol, so I should go. My partner doesn't seem... patient."

Luan chuckled, gesturing with his hand.

"You better go," he laughed with a hint of bitterness. "I heard you got stuck with Lieutenant Mader. That guy really is a tyrant, despite being so young!"

He lightly tapped her shoulder.

"I advise you to hurry up; he must already be furious," warned with a smug satisfaction. "You wouldn't want to get dismissed on your first day, would you?"

Luan didn't like that Giselle joined the force. Not the military police. He advised her to go for the civil police, even saying she was smart enough for the Federal Police. So, he always found any opportunity to make her give up. She wouldn't be surprised if it was his advice that got her paired with the worst man in the force.

She sighed, refusing to give in.

"Well, see you later, Luan," Giselle bid farewell, acting indifferent.

"Be careful not to get shot on your first day, Dardi," the man laughed.

Giselle ignored him and headed towards the cafeteria exit. It was her first day on the streets. In the morning, she had gone through a brief refresher course before being assigned to her patrol partner.

Joining the police force had been her career dream from afar. Even though she believed she was safe as Zeros, she thought she could do something to defend herself. In the academy, she learned some hand-to-hand combat and, most importantly, how to shoot. She wasn't thrilled, but at least it was a kind of guarantee for her own safety.

For the past two years, Giselle had been doing hundreds of things she didn't enjoy. It was all because of a game test she participated in after being invited to play a new game during her time as a gamer on video streaming platforms.

Before that, she was a very famous girl on the internet. She had a channel on a popular video streaming platform called Glitch, with over 19.8 million subscribers. During that phase, she was approached to sponsor and test a mobile game from a secretive developer that planned to release it in the following year.

Giselle found that strange, but for the money, she allowed herself to undergo minor surgical procedures to be able to test a new technology for gaming. They implanted chips in her body—microchip implants were trendy—connected by wires to her neck. It was something they called symbiotic technology, where the chips and wires formed a symbiotic bond with their "hosts," creating a single entity.

These chips were actually interfaces, like a personal computer, that could wirelessly communicate with the user's brain. They had two functions: "Virtual Reality" and "Augmented Reality."

After the initial procedure, they gave her and other testers a small disk the size of a coin, which connected to the chip implanted in her neck. She saw, frightened for the first time, a screen like a video game display, called a HUD. A window popped up with the name BB2026.exe, asking if she wanted to install it.

For the money, she installed it.

Giselle only needed to write reports while participating in mundane missions like brushing her teeth and leveling up; being kind, she leveled up; helping strangers, another level. As part of her daily routine to be a decent person, she quickly reached level 100 (the maximum), the first among the testers.

It was an easy job, nothing special happened. Until one ordinary day, near the end of the test, the entire game spiraled out of control. It gained a life of its own.

While at home, coming out of a well-deserved shower after spending the afternoon writing reports, Giselle felt a sharp headache. The augmented reality screen went haywire. It was full of glitches, with static appearing from all sides. Another informational window popped up in her blurry eyes, announcing a major patch, an update called "The Game."

Giselle didn't even have the chance to say whether she accepted it or not; the patch installed itself— not only on her symbiotic device but on all players' devices. The installation caused her even more headaches, causing her to slip and fall hard onto the bathroom floor. She hit her head so forcefully on the sink that she instantly blacked out.

When woke up, she was in the hospital. Her roommate at the time, with whom she shared an apartment, found her unconscious and called an ambulance. The doctors detected the symbiote and wanted to remove it, but they couldn't... It was rooted in her brain, and she would die if they tried.

She wasn't concerned about that; she was only troubled by the fact that was starting to hallucinate. Her "auxiliary system" was completely bugged. The very thing that was supposed to serve as a guide for her to survive in that game was filled with errors, making Giselle's life more difficult.

Perhaps due to the head impact, she wasn't sure, but at least the glitch was helping her survive.

Just a little later, she discovered that everyone who participated in the game test had passed out. When they woke up, their lives were fused with the System, which could change the rules of the game at will.

Thus began the hellish nightmare. A virtual reality prison that caused its users to die of heart attacks or strokes if they didn't follow the rules. For the past two years, the rules had been absurd. Those who tried to forcibly disconnect would die. Those who reported the Game to authorities or the press would die.

Others died of fear when virtual monsters appeared at specific locations. There were deadly traps, player intrigues. Distraction or any mistake meant death. It was a "survival" game.

When the number of players dropped to just over a hundred, there were bonuses for bringing in a certain number of new players. That turned a hundred into a thousand or more.

Some people enjoyed playing that hellish game.

Hundreds of new rules were introduced, and the new rule of the game allowed the formation of families, known as clannads, which were superior to guilds. And it all started with marriage.

Giselle thought her status might change by getting married, but it remained the same. The System itself gave her the name Zeros due to her level zero. A level she now knew could never be surpassed, even if she shared everything with her "clannad"—she hadn't separated from Charon yet.

Returning to reality, Giselle barely realized that she had been lost in thoughts, reminiscing about how she got involved in that deadly game. She let out a long sigh, heading towards the parking lot where she was supposed to meet her work partner.

She passed through a small gate, remembering her instructor telling her that she would initially patrol schools to monitor the surroundings for offenders.

At least it wasn't a very dangerous assignment.

As she passed by a patrol car, Giselle immediately spotted the only person who had said he would wait for her there. To her general surprise, she immediately recognized the man leaning against the car door, looking at his phone screen.

It was Charon.

Giselle would have jumped in surprise if, before that, the symbiote hadn't glitched in her field of vision, making your head hurt. It was only a second, but the pain lingered.

"Zeros?" she heard Charon's voice and noticed him looking at her.

She moved her hand away from her throbbing head and looked at him. He was a tall man, handsome in his military police uniform. In addition to his beautiful dark olive skin tone, Giselle noticed how muscular he was.

She arched an eyebrow. She had never imagined a man could be as handsome as Charon. And especially with such a macabre nickname.

"I'm trying to speak with..." Charon looked her up and down, pausing his sentence after looking from his phone screen to her. "Wait," he realized. "You're my new partner? Corporal Giselle Caetano Dardi?"

Certainly, she was also surprised that he was Lieutenant Ian de Abreu Mader, her new partner. But she shook her head, remembering him telling her he was going to die. A chill ran down her spine. She reached for the grip of her weapon, positioning herself defensively.

"What a convenient coincidence, don't you think?" she questioned, not removing her hand from the gun.

Ian raised a smirk at the corner of his mouth. He playfully raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"Easy there," he said. "I'm not going to harm you, Zeros."

She remained with a furrowed brow.

"Don't even think about getting closer to me," Giselle demanded when he tried to take a step towards her.

The officer lowered his hand, running the tip of his finger across his mouth.

"I know I scared you with my acquired abilities in the Game," he tried to suppress a smirk. "But the moment you married me, that information simply vanished. Somehow, you were supposed to die, but not now."

"Oh, hallelujah, how lucky for me!" Giselle replied sarcastically.

Ian looked at her for a moment. His eyes completely lost their sparkle.

"Good for you, terrible for me," he responded, with evident concern. "Now it's me who's going to die..."

Giselle deepened the creases on her forehead.

"What?" she said, confused.

"Yes, I will die if I don't follow the new rule of the game," Ian replied impatiently.

Everyone died if they didn't follow the rules, except for her, who remained "invisible" to the System's gaze.

"What does that have to do with me?" she asked, feeling the headache worsen.

He looked at her, with an enigmatic expression.

"We are married now, Zeros," Ian had a pretentious smile back on his face. "And not just in the Game..."

A warmth engulfed Giselle's body before she could fully comprehend it. In half a second, she was startled by the news that a marriage in the Game wasn't just pretend...

She was married. Truly married.

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The software tester, term in English to define software tester, is the professional responsible for finding errors, flaws, bugs and other types of problems that were not detected during the making of a software.

Patch means correction, in games or software is a computer program created to update or correct software in order to improve its usability or performance.