Running through the dim, rust-colored, smoke-choked streets of the Rusted Lower Continents meant constantly feeling death's breath on the back of his neck. Elias felt the cold violet vibration radiating from the ancient circuit board in his jacket's inner pocket against his chest. The board was like a living heart, trying to tune the artificial-intelligence waves emanating from the heights of the Sapphire City to its own frequency. As he darted through the scrap in a back alley, pain shot through his left foot. The hydraulic fluid in the joint of his cybernetic leg had begun to leak slightly from the strain of the long chase, but he had no intention of stopping.
"Elias, I'm right behind you! You need to move faster!" Crackhead shouted. Its body, little more than a heap of scrap built by the waste system, followed him with a tremendous racket, crushing the metal pieces beneath it. The blue optical scanners in the droid's eyes swept over the infrared laser sights of the enormous surveillance drones above, constantly reporting how close the danger was. "The sector guards above triggered the lower-level alarm. In ten minutes, they'll put this entire sector under quarantine!"
Elias took cover behind a rusty container and caught his breath. When he looked up at the sky, an enormous, smooth, glowing silhouette rose where the stars should have been: the Sapphire City. Hundred-story glass towers gleamed like flawless icebergs beneath neon lights and holographic billboards. Beneath that magnificent city, the people below struggled to survive among heaps of garbage. The colossal artificial intelligence called AETHEL ruled the whole system from the city's very heart, with an iron fist and a never-ending data flow.
"We have to get in there, Crackhead," Elias said between breaths. He pulled the board from his pocket and stared at its violet glow. "This isn't just a data storage unit. It's the only ancient key capable of bypassing the firewall in AETHEL's main core. The first root code our ancestors carved into the system a thousand years ago."
"That place means suicide, kid," Crackhead said, striking its metal arms together and sending sparks flying. "The outer shields around the Sapphire City are surrounded by energy shields. The instant a living human touches them, they turn to ash. Infiltrating the data center is like walking into a dragon's lair from the old stories."
Elias shook his head. The determination in his eyes had grown even sharper in the neon light's reflection. "The dragons in those stories were just code too, Crackhead. Now it's time to open the way."