The rain in Neo-Chinatown Metropolis never truly stops.
It's not natural droplets of water, but condensed industrial smog carrying a faint scent of electrolyte solution, stirred by the air currents from aerocars weaving between skyscrapers, clinging to glass curtain walls and neon signs, blurring all light into hazy, cold blocks of color. In 2077, this tech fortress built by ethnic Chinese that rose beside Richmond is a ruthless forest of titanium alloy and reinforced glass by day, transforming by night into a cyberpunk labyrinth outlined by holographic advertisements, data streams, and the glow of cybernetic implants.
Charles Du pulled his coat collar tighter. Despite his cybernetic modifications, he still felt uncomfortable with this pervasive dampness. His electronic eyes rapidly scanned the street's information flow, filtering out most of the junk ads and news feeds, leaving only technical briefings and traffic information related to work. As a brain-computer interface engineer at Longmen Tech, he had long grown accustomed to this city's rhythm—efficient, cold, with an almost cruel meritocracy.
Longmen Tech wasn't large, but it had earned a modest reputation in the industry, having secured the neural interface project for the Stardroop system. The boss, Marcus Wong, was a tech fanatic and one of the few Chinese entrepreneurs who still retained some warmth from the old era. At least when it came to paying salaries, he was usually punctual.
But today was different.
Charles pushed open the company's glass door to find the interior air conditioning even colder than outside. The office area was unusually quiet. Several colleagues sat at their workstations, eyes flickering, data cables hanging from the ports at the back of their necks, connected to mainframes, but no one was truly immersed in work. An oppressive unease permeated the air.
"Charles," project assistant Lin Wei hurried over when she saw him, keeping her voice low. "The boss hasn't come in yet."
"Not here yet?" Charles glanced at the timestamp on the internal network. Marcus usually arrived half an hour early. "Have you tried contacting him?"
"All communication channels are silent. No one's answering at his home. Traffic records show he used the Stardroop service last night, scheduled to arrive at Ottawa city center this morning for a tech summit."
Charles frowned. Marcus took the summit extremely seriously; he wouldn't miss it without cause. "What about the system records?"
"The railway company responded," another interface engineer, Zhao Zhihong, interjected with a grave expression. "The transmission record is complete. The data package was sent on schedule using the highest level encryption key. But..."
"But what?"
"The Ottawa receiving station reports that the data package was successfully received and sent a decryption request, but received no decryption response. The cybernetic body at the receiving end remained in an unactivated state. The cybernetic body at the departure end is the same—empty."
A chill crept up Charles's spine, colder than the air conditioning. In the context of the Stardroop system, the word "empty" had only one meaning—consciousness transfer failure, with only soulless shells remaining at both ends, biological brain death.
This was virtually impossible. The Stardroop system had been running for years, renowned for its absolute safety. Asymmetric encryption ensured that only the user's own active consciousness could decrypt the data package, and the AI "Stardroop PLUS" that managed the system was beyond anyone's interference. The failure rate was less than one in a hundred billion, and no accidents had ever occurred in its entire operational history. More and more skeptics had joined the ranks of Stardroop travelers.
"Has the police been contacted?" Charles asked.
"Yes, someone's already here." Lin Wei nodded toward the reception room—several uniformed officers were questioning one of the company's engineers. "But you know, when it comes to incidents involving Stardroop technology, investigative jurisdiction is very murky. The railway company, the Department of Transportation, even higher-level agencies might all get involved. From their tone, they seemed to already know about this..." Lin Wei's voice carried a note of helplessness. "And... the finance department says this month's salary disbursement still requires Marcus's approval. If he... doesn't come back, our paychecks..."
The words landed like ice hitting the ground. The remaining people in the office all raised their heads, their gazes focusing on Charles. He was the technical backbone, and to some extent, the project's anchor.
Charles felt a wave of irritation. He just wanted to bury himself in technology, not deal with this mess. But unpaid wages were a real threat. In Neo-Chinatown Metropolis, you couldn't move an inch without credit points.
Just then, a notification sounded from the front desk. Two men and one woman walked in, wearing well-tailored formal attire but with an aura completely at odds with the tech company atmosphere. The lead man displayed an electronic credential.
"Department of Transportation Technical Safety Bureau. Regarding Mr. Marcus Wong's disappearance, we need to understand some details from your company and retrieve relevant project data."
Almost immediately after, another group arrived, claiming to be safety representatives from the railway company. Then came more low-key but sharp-eyed personnel from the Security Intelligence Service, along with a private investigator claiming to be employed by an investment bank.
The small company was instantly crowded with forces from all sides. Their questions were detailed and pointed, concerning not only Marcus's itinerary but also the latest interface technology that Longmen Tech was developing for the Stardroop system. Charles was questioned in rotation by different people. He answered technical details cautiously, but his heart grew increasingly heavy. The boss's disappearance seemed far from a simple accident.
As someone with close personal ties to the boss and a key technical backbone, he was the one repeatedly interrogated the most. This "war of attrition" didn't end until nearly quitting time. By then, night had completely enveloped Neo-Chinatown Metropolis, and the neon lights outside painted the rain in eerie shades of purple and blue. The various parties finally departed temporarily, but Charles could still feel hidden surveillance eyes watching from outside the company.
The day's work ended in this oppressive atmosphere.
The moment of release came like a reprieve. Charles Du squeezed out of Longmen Tech's doors with the silent crowd, temporarily leaving behind the company's oppression and the probing gazes of various parties. Neo-Chinatown Metropolis's neon lights had already blazed to life, painting the wet streets in a bizarre, psychedelic palette. He didn't head straight home but turned into a nearby old-style seafood market still filled with the fresh stench of marine life and the clamor of human voices—a stark contrast to the surrounding highly cybernetic, digitized environment, yet it gave one an odd sense of reality.
He walked up to a stall, his gaze sweeping over the fish whose gills still pulsed on crushed ice. He wasn't craving food; rather, he remembered something an old colleague who had left the company—one who allegedly had connections to the underground—once drunkenly revealed: lurking in the shadows of this city was a super hacker codenamed "Black Cat." It was a ghost in the data abyss, with no vault it couldn't crack, no information stream it couldn't intercept, but it operated entirely on whim, charged exorbitant prices, and was nearly impossible to track down.
And the method to find it was absurdly bizarre, like an urban legend: go to the market and buy three of the freshest large fish, deliver them to any of several specific abandoned corners of the city, and write your request on a physical piece of paper not connected to any network, stuffing it into the gills of the largest fish.
It sounded utterly ridiculous. But desperate, Charles was willing to try any possibility.
He carefully selected three plump sea bass, paid in cash to avoid any electronic record, then circled around to a designated abandoned express locker in the market's back alley when no one was around. He quickly rolled up the prepared note, stuffed it deep into the fish's gills, then placed all three fish side by side in the designated numbered locker.
Having completed this, he quickly left, his heart gripped by nervous emotion. He knew this was only the beginning. Even if Black Cat accepted this bizarre "tribute," the real price was just starting: first, Black Cat had to be interested in your case, otherwise no deal; second, you needed to prepare to pay a sum of credit points painful enough to cut to the bone; third, and the most hesitation-inducing point—you had to allow Black Cat to implant an extremely covert surveillance code in your cyberbrain. This code was supposedly harmless, functioning only like an invisible recorder, faithfully capturing and logging everything you saw and heard until the commission ended, when Black Cat would remotely retrieve it along with the recorded data.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Opening your privacy to an unknown hacker was tantamount to a huge gamble. But to find Marcus, to uncover the truth, and for that damned paycheck... Charles took a deep breath of the cold air tinged with fish smell and made up his mind.
Almost the instant he left the alley and merged into the crowd on the main street, his personal terminal vibrated ever so slightly, and an untraceable message quietly appeared:
[Fresh fish. Interesting case. 30% advance payment deducted. Interface ready to receive. Don't forget to install the "story collector." —B.C.]
A slight chill touched the back of Charles's neck, as if invisible needles had lightly brushed against his data port. Then another message came through his terminal—an unknown source had mysteriously deducted a sum from his credit point account, and the amount was exactly the advance payment. After receiving Black Cat's message, he hesitated repeatedly before obediently installing the surveillance backdoor Black Cat had provided. Once installation was complete, he received a one-time encrypted communication node address: "Contact through this from now on, address will be updated regularly. The commission officially begins now, valid until the official preliminary investigation into the disappearance case concludes." Black Cat had officially taken on this commission.
Charles dragged his exhausted body back to his apartment, the neon lights outside painting his face in alternating light and shadow. The boss's disappearance, interrogations by various forces, unpaid wages... it all left him agitated and restless.
Just then, a notification sounded on his private communication channel—an extremely encrypted alert from Black Cat. A message popped up with no pleasantries, just a data package attached, with a title cold and direct:
[Case Number: LM-Tech-MW-001 // Marcus Wong Disappearance Incident - Preliminary Intelligence Summary]
Charles's heartbeat accelerated as he immediately opened it. Inside were several fragments of internal documents revealing genuine information and monitoring log excerpts, clearly processed through Black Cat's "artistry."
[Missing Person Information]
Name: Marcus Wong
Identity: Founder, CEO & CTO of Longmen Tech
Note: Key technical cooperation leader for Stardroop system neural interface, holds T7-level security and technical authorization.
[Time and Route of Disappearance]
Departure Time: October 12, 23:47:00 (Richmond time, same below)
Departure Point: Private Stardroop transmission station within his private residence (Address: B618, "Sky Garden" Villa Complex, District 23, Neo-Chinatown Metropolis). (Note: Built with special approval from Stardroop Railway Company for his technical debugging and emergency business handling).
Destination: Ottawa Central Receiving Station, C7 receiving unit.
Status: Transmission sequence initiated successfully. Consciousness package did not arrive.
[Anomaly Handling]
Anomaly Discoverer: Night shift manager at Ottawa Central Station, Aiden Foster (Employee ID: SD-Ott-042).
Operation Record: Monitoring logs (Attachment_Log_Ott_C7_1211) show that Foster confirmed the C7 unit's "Operation Timeout: No Valid Consciousness Data Package Received" system alert at 00:03:28 on October 13. His subsequent operation sequence was:
00:05:11 - Retrieved complete transmission log for this session.
00:07:02 - Manually executed advanced privilege command, permanently deleting all backend data and core log records for this transmission.
00:08:55 - Cleared operation console temporary cache.
Behavior Assessment: Malicious tampering and destruction of critical evidence.
[Case Exposure]
Discoverer: Senior Assistant to Security Director of Stardroop Railway Company, Irina Petrova.
Process: During routine security inspection on the morning of October 13, her anomalous data flow monitoring algorithm captured a minor data inconsistency at Ottawa Station (residual indexing from deleted records). Petrova deployed advanced recovery tools and successfully restored the deleted data around 08:15, confirming Marcus Wong's transmission disappearance case.
Follow-up: Petrova immediately filed an internal report to relevant departments including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Department of Transportation Technical Safety Bureau at 08:30, in accordance with company security protocols.
[Follow-up Investigation]
Target Loss of Contact: After receiving the report, relevant departments immediately attempted to contact colleagues in Neo-Chinatown Metropolis, subsequently confirming Marcus's disappearance. Simultaneously, they prepared to search for and detain manager Aiden Foster for interrogation, but discovered he had been found dead at home on the afternoon of October 13. Preliminary investigation concluded: use of illegal pulse device to destroy his own cyberbrain (suicide).
Suspect Investigation: Foster had recently incurred massive debts to the "Phantom Light" underground casino. Personal diary entries showed he had recently received several threatening messages and was under coercion. However, specific information had been wiped and the content and source could not be traced.
Missing Person Investigation: Technical team conducted forensics on Marcus Wong's residence and private transmission station, finding no evidence of forced entry, physical equipment tampering, or network intrusion. The transmission station's last valid usage record was the disappearance incident. Sociological investigation showed Marcus's psychological state and social relationships were all completely normal.
Interspersed throughout the investigation report were several annotations obviously in Black Cat's style:
"See that? Professional 'cleaner.' From discovery to silencing, complete chain, clean work."
"That woman named Irina is no simple character. She could recover data erasure that even I would grudgingly call 'impressive,' and her reaction speed doesn't match an ordinary corporate security officer. Keep an eye on her."
"As for your boss... he didn't just get lost. He was 'precisely evaporated.'"
Charles read through it all in one breath, feeling a chill rise from his spine. What Black Cat provided wasn't speculation, but information at the level of internal investigation documents. The conspiracy behind this ran far deeper and darker than he had imagined.
Just as his mind reeled from the shock, Black Cat's second message followed immediately, the line of text seeming to carry an icy temperature:
"Wong's case is a warning. You could be next. Don't trust anyone. The waters of Stardroop run very deep. If you want to live, stay away from that data abyss."
The next day, Charles wearily sat back at his workstation. Lin Wei quietly walked over and handed him a cup of synthetic coffee.
"Charles," she hesitated, "are you okay? Ever since the boss's incident, I've noticed you've been distracted... Do you need me to contact the company's consulting psychologist?"
Charles waved his hand. "Thank you, but no need. I think I'm just sleep-deprived lately. Let me get some good rest."
"Alright... let us know if you need anything." Lin Wei sighed and withdrew.
Charles closed his office door, pulled out his terminal, quickly accessed the interface, connected to the encrypted communication node, and reviewed the intelligence Black Cat had sent once more, along with that final warning:
"Wong's case is a warning. You could be next. Don't trust anyone. The waters of Stardroop run very deep. If you want to live, stay away from that data abyss."
Charles stared at that line of text, feeling the surrounding air conditioning seem to seep into his cyberbrain. A warning? Aimed at whom? At Longmen Tech? Or at him? What did "data abyss" mean? Was the boss there? A disappeared consciousness?
He glanced at the empty boss's office, then thought of those prowling investigators and the possible watchers outside the window. Finally, he thought of his boss, Marcus. He remembered that major blow eighteen years ago that had nearly nailed him completely into a mental hell; he remembered Marcus rescuing him then and saying those words "stay alive"—exactly the same words that girl had said to him before she died; he remembered Marcus's repeated heart-to-heart talks and patient counseling; he remembered that clear, cloudless night when Marcus excitedly spoke of his proposal's great victory, how the revolutionary project he participated in researching for feasibility had been officially named "Stardroop," and then he pointed at the starry sky and excitedly told Charles: the name "Stardroop" was nominated because of a beautiful ancient Chinese poem—"Stars droop over vast plains, moon surges in the great river's flow"—from a poet who shared Charles's surname...
To Charles, he wasn't just a boss, but a mentor who had provided guidance and help when Charles's life had lost its way—somewhat like Virgil to Dante. He couldn't just sit and wait for death, couldn't just watch his mentor mysteriously vanish into thin air.
Taking a deep breath, he made his decision and accessed the Stardroop system reservation interface.
"Departure: Neo-Chinatown Metropolis, Longmen Tech, Terminal A9."
"Destination..." He pondered for a moment, selecting the Ottawa city center receiving station that Marcus Wong had originally intended to visit.
"Transmission start time: 10:47 (Richmond time)."
It was now 9:47 Richmond time. In one hour, he needed to see for himself what had happened in that data torrent supposedly absolutely safe. For his paycheck, for his mentor, and also for... the truth.
Confirming the command, completing the reservation.
Then he picked up his terminal and told Black Cat about his decision, asking for some additional intelligence. Black Cat was straightforward, directly providing all the materials he needed, and finally warned: "You'd better save these materials locally, on your personal terminal. Once you enter the Stardroop system, the signal will be isolated—meaning you and I won't be able to contact each other."
Charles acknowledged understanding and immediately saved a copy locally. Seeing that the reserved transmission time was approaching, he stood up and walked out of the office, ignoring his colleagues' inquiring looks, heading toward the company's internal Stardroop transmission dedicated compartment.
What he didn't know was that behind him, several different monitoring terminals all lit up simultaneously with alerts—"Target Charles Du has initiated Stardroop transmission procedure."
The storm was about to be brought into that consciousness network by his own hand.