Containment

~~~👾~~~

Darkness. That was the only thing reflected in his gaze behind the white mask, adorned with cubic red details and black mesh that obscured his eyes. For a moment, he looked like a superhero from some retro 80s video game. But no. This man had no heroic intentions. He was the villain of this story, and he knew it.

Beep-beep.

I quickly glanced at the central console to my right. The screen had turned green, filled with numerous lines of text I couldn’t quite read. I could swear I only looked for a second, but it was enough to get tackled by the attacker.

"Ah!" I fell to the ground with more confusion than pain.

I got up as quickly as I could, but the man took advantage. With gazelle-like speed, he grabbed the device connected to the console, his backpack from the floor, and bolted at full speed behind me.

"Hey! Come back here!"

Against my strongest wishes, he didn’t, instead opening the reinforced door with a key and running toward the stairs. I took off after him long before the door could trap me inside.

We climbed two floors via the staircase before I could even think about what I was doing, entirely focused on catching him. A single sound from my Lob brought me back to my senses. With instinctive agility, I deployed the screen just as the attacker dashed down a maintenance corridor.

"_You have been reconnected to the QNetwork,"_ reported the voice of the AI assistant in my Lob.

"Finally!" I exclaimed in frustration, quickly dialing through my business chat account.

The maintenance corridors looked nothing like the rest of the Anima building. Gone were the sleek metal-finished walls and modern LED ceiling lights. Instead, the walls were raw gray concrete, rough and untreated, with exposed cables tangled along the upper edges. The floor was covered in metal plates, marked with wear and visible screws, while flickering fluorescent tubes provided uneven light, casting jagged shadows across the space. It felt like this area belonged to a completely different building, one where function far outweighed form.

"Hello?" I recognized Aguri’s voice once the ringing stopped.

"Mr. Kariya! Someone has infiltrated the server room! Call the police!"

His surprised voice quickly came through. "What? Kikushi, where are you?"

"In the maintenance corridors on the ground floor! You need to—"

I looked up to find my pursuer had thrown a shelf in my path.

"Ah!" Twisting on my back, I narrowly avoided the crash but stumbled over the object and fell backward. I had dodged it, but now the man had gained a lead.

"Kaori! Are you okay?"

"Just call the police!" I snapped, frustration spilling out as I got back on my feet to chase him again.

My recovery was quick, though my left shoulder and side throbbed noticeably. My forehead still stung from whatever had hit me earlier. Nothing I couldn’t handle, though.

I followed the infiltrator as he turned right into another, shorter corridor leading to a small emergency door. He shoved it open with all his weight, letting out a groan as he collided with the heavy object. There were only a few seconds between the moment he disappeared into the glow beyond the door and when I followed him through.

We emerged outside the building, into the parking lots and paths connecting auxiliary structures. High posts cast a cold white glow over the area, contrasting against the night sky faintly tinged by distant city lights. Among the shadows, rows of parked vehicles lined up neatly, while the night breeze carried a faint scent of humidity and metal.

As if perfectly planned, a sleek sports bike stood just across the street. The man gestured at his Lob and successfully disabled the vehicle’s alarm and started the engine just before hopping on.

"Stop, idiot!"

I shouted in vain, as he barely glanced back before the bike shot off to my right, the quantum hum of its engine the only thing left behind.

"He’s getting away... he’s getting away."

Something explodes in the distance. A child cries beside his father. A man has lost an arm. My heart raced at the memory alone, and the blood coursing through my veins reminded my brain of how it felt.

A hacker damaged Anima's servers.

"No. I can’t let this happen again."

Instinctively, I scanned the area and spotted it—my bike. There was Sparkling, with its yellow frame and racing aesthetic. A beautiful machine of speed. My eyes lit up, entranced, but I snapped back to reality.

"No, stop. You can’t just—"

My gaze stayed fixed on the bike—or rather, on my opportunity.

What if I can?

~~~🏍️~~~

Attention all personnel. A Code Red breach has been informed. Initiating full lockdown of the facilities. Please remain calm and stay in a secure location.

At the main entrance to the Anima complex, a guard booth with toll-style barriers was typically manned by a human guard and two Anima assistants. All three reacted similarly to the sound of the sirens and the announcement over the loudspeakers, glancing toward the nearest horn.

"A breach?" The human guard asked in disbelief as the Anima assistants displayed a red "BREACH" sign across their foreheads, in a kind of ironical way. "But how did they—

A vehicle speeding toward them cut him off.

"Ah!" They stepped back as a black motorcycle zipped through the partially open barrier. The guard’s personal Lob displayed that the vehicle was unidentified, and he quickly communicated through the radio. "Code Red confirmed! A motorcycle has breached the perimeter, heading to—

Another vehicle approached, and the guard, peeking outside, recoiled again.

"Ah! Double Code Red! Two vehicles escaping the complex! One unidentified and...

For the second vehicle, however, the proper information appeared.

"A Junior Cybersecurity Analyst?"