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  Ruoxi Lam’s fingers trembled as she jacked a knockoff Circuit North diagnostic cap into the Abai robot’s core. The shabby cyber repair shop’s dim lights flickered, casting jagged shadows across shelves crammed with circuits and robot parts, the air thick with motor oil and burnt wiring. Outside, a LAPSS drone’s buzz sharpened—HuaCent’s red beams, rumored to “catch even cockroaches,” sliced through Foo-shing Village’s neon haze. One wrong move, and she’d be pinned. Her AR glasses flared, data streaming like a digital waterfall, her dark web AI probing the core’s quantum encryption. If this Soul Ore held a fragment of Avei’s consciousness, she’d tear HuaCent’s AbyssNet apart to find him.

  “Ruoxi, watch it—this bot’s worth a million, lah!” Slade, the shopkeeper, growled, his left bionic eye flashing blue in the gloom. Ruoxi ignored him, heart hammering. Avei, her younger brother, had been swallowed by HuaCent’s digital immortality scam—his laugh in virtual flower fields now a fading echo. The Sino-American War had stolen their parents, leaving them to scavenge ruins together. HuaCent lured Avei, and uploaded him with promises of an “ocean of stars” in AbyssNet. Now, living under an alias in Foo-shing Village, she hunted for him as NeonEdge, her hacker alias, chasing whispers of Soul Ore tech.

  The Abai lay stiff on the workbench, a BioSynth Vanguard Alpha—synthetic muscles and lifelike flesh, marketed as a $100,000 servant but spiked to a million in Shenzhen’s black market under U.S. tech sanctions. Its eerie grace unnerved her, its expression too human, almost mocking. HuaCent bypassed Tesla’s AI, implanting Soul Ore to replace the neural core and crack the geofence. Ruoxi adjusted the diagnostic cap, syncing her glasses. Her AI wormed through the core’s defenses. Foo-shing’s neon bled through the shop’s window, LED signs screaming toxic reds and greens, their glow staining the humid air like a chemical spill.

  Foo-shing Village, a gritty enclave swallowed by Bastion Precinct’s sprawl, was a maze of towering matchbox buildings, their peeling tiles gnawed by time. Narrow alleys choked with dangling cables and greasy barbecue smoke, cumin and chili stinging the nose. Passersby sidled through, dodging wires that could strangle the unwary. In the distance, HuaCent Technology Group Tower pierced the night, its black facade flashing “Innovation Saves the Nation!”—a slogan no one dared question. HuaCent’s tech monopoly churned out cheap gear, outshining SouthSea Transport’s overpriced Western imports, fueling the Shenzhen Republic’s economy under Western technology sanctions. Their LAPSS (Low Air Public Security Surveillance) drones patrolled relentlessly, red beams sweeping the neon fog, enforcing a corporate empire that dwarfed the government itself.

  The shop’s creaking door and flickering holographic screens masked the drone’s hum, but Ruoxi’s fingers twitched, eyes darting to the alley. She’d slipped in behind AI-generated pop songs droning from the screens, her petite frame and short hair hidden under a hood, clinging to youth’s fraying edge in a white cartoon T-shirt and canvas pants. The chill of air conditioning cut through the shop’s reek, grounding her as she worked. “Come on,” she muttered, urging the AI to crack faster. Every second risked exposure. HuaCent’s drones weren’t just surveillance—they were hunters, and Foo-shing was their jungle.

  “Boss, we’re hitting paydirt!” Ruoxi called, voice sharp with a hacker’s edge. The Abai’s Soul Ore was shattered—billions of tiny gibberish files, a chaotic mess of folders within folders, like a digital junkyard. Dark web forums called it HuaCent’s Ore Shredder, splintering consciousness to disable Abais. A Premium Soul Ore from Circuit North could reflash the core, a 100-grand deal, but Ruoxi wasn’t after cash. She needed answers. Slade leaned over, squinting at the synced wall screen, his Cantonese drawl thickening. “Aiya! Soul Ore’s smashed to dust, lah. Hold up—I’ll ping Sima for a quote, no muckin’ about.”

  Ruoxi kept browsing, curiosity burning despite the drone’s hum. A memory scene file flickered, larger than the rest, buried in the chaos. She hesitated, then opened it. Her own face flashed onscreen—scavenging through General Che Temple Industrial Park’s ruins, debris scattered under a gray sky. A voice shouted: “Sis, watch out!” A rotten king coconut tree crashed down, dust clouding the frame. Her throat went dry, and her breath caught. “Heaven, that’s me!” she gasped, voice cracking. “Boss, it’s Avei! My little brother!”

  Her AR glasses blared a red alert—vitals spiking, brainwaves signaling overload. “Memory file log’s encrypted!” Ruoxi plugged a USB drive into her rig, clipped her Neuropulser behind her ear, and fused with the glasses via a trafficked StarLink feed. Only a U.S.-based AI could crack the encryption. The AI’s logo spun for three agonizing minutes, then peeled open piecemeal: “August 15, 2034 … Consciousness Transfer … Requested by: ‘IronGrip,’ Approved by: ‘SilverEye.’” August 15, 2034—the day Avei vanished into AbyssNet.

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  Her mind reeled. The panicking crowd tore them apart in the chaos. HuaCent took Avei with other young survivors, promising shelter and engineer training in their sealed Bastion compound, a fortress of armed guards and corporate secrets. Ruoxi’s contract with HuaCent was slavery—grueling hours, rare breaks—so she could catch only glimpses of Avei in the headquarters’ crowds. When HuaCent unveiled AbyssNet, hyping consciousness uploads for digital immortality, Avei volunteered, brainwashed by their “ocean of stars” slogan. His body, deemed brain-dead after the upload, was “donated” to HuaCent.

  At first, AbyssNet seemed flawless. Ruoxi had jacked in via her Neuropulser, roaming glowing flower fields under neon skies with Avei, soaring through nebulae at the universe’s edge. He’d laughed, pointing at an ion storm near a black hole: “Sis, look, our ocean of stars!” Then, he vanished. HuaCent’s support snapped: “Sorry, no such ID found.” Locked out, her inquiries labeled paranoid, she was sent for neural scans and mental therapy. Gripped by fear and fury, she burned her savings, teamed with a hacker crew, and fled Bastion. Now, as a repair tech in Foo-shing, she chased any lead to Avei.

  This memory file wasn’t just a fragment—it was a scream from his past. Her hands shook as she backed up the data. Slade’s bionic eye glinted, his voice low. “This Abai’s fishy, lah. Million-dollar bot dropped at our dump?” Ruoxi’s jaw tightened, Avei’s voice echoing in her skull. “Who brought it?” she snapped, dodging his black market philosophy. Slade flipped through records, scratching his chin. “Some suit, Old Li’s connect. Let’s trace it, but keep your head down, lah.”

  “I believe this Soul Ore’s a copy of my little brother,” Ruoxi said, voice steely. “Can you help me trace where it came from?”

  “Your kid brother? The AbyssNet one?” Slade sighed, leaning back. “Someone drops a pricey Abai at our rinky-dink shop? Why not Circuit North’s big joints? Head there, find Sima. Guy’s a data wizard, knows Premium Soul Ore inside out. Or ping Ajay first, let him poke that file.”

  A shrill alarm blared from her glasses—her AI crack had tripped HuaCent’s anti-tamper system, sending her data to their servers. The drone’s hum outside turned predatory, its red beam grazing the window, painting the shop in crimson. Ruoxi yanked off the glasses, unplugged the USB, and stuffed it into her canvas bag—half a pack of Red Double Happiness smokes, iced tea, an illegal drone jammer, and Avei’s scuffed Peppa Pig keychain, her only proof he’d existed. “I’m out,” she muttered, heart pounding.

  She bolted for the back door, Foo-shing’s neon glow hitting her like a toxic wave. LED signs flashed in a dizzying blur, sewer stench mingling with acrid sweat and barbecue smoke. Passersby sidled through tight alleys, dodging dangling cables that sparked in the humid air. Three palm-sized LAPSS drones buzzed overhead, their red beams sweeping every shadow, locking onto movement. Ruoxi ducked into the crowd, fast-food boxes crunching underfoot, her short hair tucked under a hood. She wove past a street vendor grilling soy skewers, the sizzle masking her footsteps, her breath ragged.

  At a corner convenience store, she tapped her ChainCoin card on a bootleg StarLink terminal bolted to the wall, its screen cracked but functional. Her Neuropulser beeped, connection locked through a dark web relay. A virtual screen flared, and Ajay’s face popped up, hooded in a sweat-soaked shirt, his background cluttered with busted gadgets and blinking servers. “NeonEdge! You again?” he grinned, Sichuan drawl bursting through the static. “Last time you flashed that rig, I nearly got nabbed!” Ruoxi smirked, choking back the fumes of chili-fried pork intestines from a nearby stall. “Ajay, do me a solid. I cracked an Abai and found Avei’s memory file. Check it, quick.”

  Ajay’s grin faded, eyes narrowing as he leaned into the screen. “HuaCent’s Premium Soul Ore? You’re pokin’ that? Dark web’s blowin’ up—HuaCent slapped a 100-grand bounty on a ghost hacker! Address? Longgang District, Bastion Precinct, Foo-shing Village—that’s you! Holy shit, log off! Hood up, mask on!” He glanced off-camera, voice dropping to a hiss. “My junk server’s about to get smoked. Head to the old ancestral hall in the village. I’ll patch in remotely—safer, yeah?”

  Ruoxi killed the terminal, taking the Neuropulser off and stuffing it into her bag. She slapped on her AR glasses, flipping to anti-facial-recog mode, random geometric shapes flashing across the lenses to scramble cameras. Another LAPSS drone whirred overhead, prop wash kicking hot air, its red beam sweeping every shadow.

  The old ancestral hall crouched deep in the village, half-buried beside rubble heaps, its wooden frame warped by years of neglect. Ruoxi forced the creaking door open, slipping into the musty darkness. A hardwired hub, jerry-rigged by hackers, glowed faintly in the wall’s corner. She plugged in, her virtual screen sparking to life. Ajay flashed a grim smirk, his face lit by the glow of his rig. “Alright, we’re good. Sling me the file—let’s see how deep this shit goes.” She fired off the data as the muggy air choked her lungs and the hall’s silence amplified her pulse.

  Ajay’s screen flickered as he scanned the file, his face paling under the hood. “Heaven, HuaCent’s Ore Shredder! Pulverized on purpose, clear as day—this memory fragment’s a heavendamn ghost trap. Your brother must’ve stumbled over their black-ops experiment. Check it: ‘Approved by SilverEye,’ and that’s high-level as hell!” His screen blazed red, and he flipped out, voice cracking. “Shit! They’ve pinged us again! We’re fucked! Bolt, now!”