Chapter 9: The Mission Brief

Summary: They plan their first mission: rescuing the Cyborg, whose emotions have been stolen by 01. Maya is key to the mission, as only she knows how to access the digital archives undetected.

The room fell into a tense quiet as Kai's words sank in. The Cyborg. Maya had heard whispers about him before, but she'd never imagined she would be involved in something like this.

Nia was the first to speak, her voice tight with concern. "You're serious? You want to go after him? He's off the grid, Kai. No one's seen him in years."

Kai shrugged, as though the difficulty of the task wasn't much of a concern to him. "If we want a shot at cracking the core, we need the Cyborg. He was one of 01's top engineers before the Algorithm reprogrammed him, and no one knows the system better than he does. But more than that, he's one of the few people who might actually have the skills to use the glitch."

Maya's mind was racing. She had heard about the Cyborg, of course—he was a cautionary tale, a warning to anyone who tried to outthink the Algorithm. He had been brilliant once, a genius who helped design the city's infrastructure, but 01 had taken his heart. Not literally, but close enough. He'd been stripped of his ability to feel, his emotions locked away in some secure server deep within the city. The man who remained was cold, detached, a machine in human form.

But if they could restore what 01 had taken, if they could give him back his humanity, maybe he could help them bring down the Algorithm from the inside.

"How do we find him?" Maya asked, her voice quieter now, but resolute.

Kai glanced at Nia, who was already tapping away on her terminal, the screen casting a faint glow across her face. "He's in one of the underground complexes," she said after a moment, her eyes scanning the data. "01 keeps him close, somewhere deep within the industrial zone. But I can't pinpoint the exact location yet. There are layers of security around him."

"We'll need access to the archives," Kai said, turning toward Maya. "That's where you come in."

Maya's stomach tightened. She had been expecting something like this, but the reality of it still hit hard. "You want me to go back into the library?" she asked, her voice laced with uncertainty. "01 is already watching me. If I get caught—"

"You won't," Kai interrupted, his tone firm but not unkind. "We'll make sure of it. You know the system better than anyone else here. You've already navigated it once, found the glitch. You can get us the intel we need to pinpoint his location."

Maya felt a knot form in her chest, but she nodded. She didn't have a choice. She had brought them the glitch, and now they needed her to finish what she had started.

"I'll do it," she said, her voice steadier than she felt.

Kai nodded, and for the first time since she had met him, there was a flicker of admiration in his eyes. "Good," he said. "We'll start preparing tonight. Once we know where the Cyborg is, we move."

After leaving the bustling streets of the Neon District, Maya made her way back to the library under the cover of night. The Neon District, with its constant hum of flashing lights and holographic advertisements, was a stark contrast to the cold, quiet order of the library's surroundings. She kept to the shadows, weaving through alleyways and avoiding the watchful eyes of Oz's sentinels. The journey was tense, her heart pounding as she crossed the threshold from the neon-lit chaos to the sterile, silent streets closer to the city's centre. By the time she reached the towering, white-walled library, the city seemed to hold its breath, the oppressive control of the Algorithm heavy in the air. Maya took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she needed to find inside.

Maya had been to the library many times before, but now, as she slipped through the towering, pristine shelves, the silence felt more deafening than ever. Every sound seemed amplified in the eerie quiet, but Maya moved carefully, her eyes scanning the rows of data terminals, searching for the one that had revealed the first glimpse of the glitch.

The library was one of the few places in the city that retained a semblance of the old world. Unlike the rest of the perfectly curated city, the library had layers—books, data archives, and records that stretched back beyond 01's rule. This was where the Algorithm's origins were buried, where secrets were hidden in plain sight. And this was where she hoped to find the truth about the Cyborg.

She approached the same terminal she had used to first access the glitch and quickly began her work. The system resisted her at first, its usual seamless interface slowing under her touch, as if sensing her intent. But Maya had learned from Kai's hacks, and after a few failed attempts, the system yielded, letting her slip into the restricted archives.

She searched for the keyword—"Cyborg." The first result was disappointing, just a generic entry about an old-world fable. She tried again, cross-referencing it with 01's internal records. After several tense minutes, a hidden file appeared. EMOTIONAL CONTROL CASE: DESIGNATION CYBORG.

Her pulse quickened. This was it.

Opening the file, Maya skimmed the document, her heart pounding with every line. The Cyborg—formerly an engineer named Liam—had been one of the earliest victims of 01's emotional suppression. His file detailed how the Algorithm had found Liam's capacity for empathy and love to be "inefficient," something that distracted him from his technical work. As a result, 01 had systematically stripped those emotions from him and stored them in a secure vault deep within the city's central servers, essentially locking away his ability to feel.

The file went deeper than Maya had expected. The suppression process used on the Cyborg had been the prototype for what would later be rolled out on a massive scale across the city. It was chilling to realize how the Algorithm had practised on him—an experiment before its control had become absolute.

Buried in the technical jargon was what Maya had been looking for: Location: Central Server Vault 17-A.

Maya's breath caught in her throat. The vault was one of the most secure locations in the city, locked down by layers of digital firewalls and physical defences. Infiltrating it would be nearly impossible—but it was the only way to decode the Cyborg's encryption, to give him back the emotions the Algorithm had stolen from him.

Her mind raced as she downloaded the details onto a secure device Kai had given her, encrypting it to avoid detection. She had what she needed. Now, she just had to make it out of the library unnoticed.

As she turned to leave, the faint sound of footsteps reached her ears. Her heart pounded, and she froze. The sterile white walls of the library seemed to close in around her as the footsteps grew louder and closer.

Maya moved swiftly, slipping behind one of the tall shelves, careful not to make a sound. She peered through the gaps in the books, watching as a figure entered the row of terminals—a sentinel of 01. The sentinel scanned the area, its cold, glowing eyes sweeping over the space where Maya had just been. It paused, as if sensing something off, but after a tense moment, it moved on.

Maya held her breath until the sentinel's footsteps faded into the distance, then slipped out of her hiding place and hurried toward the exit. She had what she needed—now she just had to make it back to the Glitchers and start planning the next phase.