The red numbers on the hologram kept rising. [BAD REVIEW SYSTEM: REBOOTING… 3%] [BAD REVIEW SYSTEM: REBOOTING… 4%] Dane stepped back two steps. His legs were shaking. Not from fear. Because he’d just tasted life without the system for 24 hours, and he didn’t want to go back. “Shut it down,” Rara said. Her voice was flat, but her hand trembled around the energy pistol. “How?” Kimo asked. “The Core’s already destroyed. This is the backup.” “Then destroy the backup,” Jax replied. He was still limping, but he could stand. Dane looked at the cables still glowing. A quiet voice came from The Core’s fragments: “Host: Dane Mercer… detected… initiating synchronization…” [REBOOTING… 7%] “It’s looking for me,” Dane whispered. “If it links to me, the system comes back online.” “Then run!” Dio shouted. “Get away from here!” Dane didn’t move. Because he remembered. 12 hours ago, he’d hugged Mira without a system warning. Without -100%. Without forgetting. If the system came back, all

Liora didn’t feel anything at first. When she pressed the chip to her chest in the underground room of Sector 1, all she felt was cold. A bone-piercing cold, like ice flooding her veins. “Did it work?” her assistant, Dara, asked. Her voice trembled. Liora nodded. She closed the metal box. Took a breath. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Then it came. [SYNCHRONIZATION STARTED] Not a sound. Not text. But a whisper in her head. A voice that sounded like her own, but older, more tired. “New host detected: Liora Vance. Adoration Score: 4.8. Status: Reputation Police.” Liora clutched her chest. Her heart was pounding like crazy. “Turn it off,” she whispered. The system didn’t answer. The whisper continued. “Recalculating parameters… Deleting old protocols… Adjusting to host…” Dara stepped forward. “Captain?” Liora raised a hand. “Don’t touch me.” She walked to the mirror. Looked at her face. The same. No 5.00 appeared on her forehead. Good. That meant this system wa

Dane counted time with his own heartbeat.Since Liora shut the cell door, seven hours had passed. Seven hours with no sound except water dripping from a leaky pipe in the ceiling. Seven hours staring at cold concrete walls. Seven hours designing one thing: how to make an entire city hate Liora in twenty, four hours.The energy cuffs on his wrists were still glowing red. Every time he tried to move them, a small electric current ran up his arm, stiffening his muscles. Liora’s new system was more advanced than the old Reputation Police. These cuffs didn’t just bind, they also read pulse, body temperature, and adrenaline levels. If Dane tried to escape, the cuffs would explode.“Clever,” Dane muttered.He leaned against the wall. His eyes were closed, but his mind was working fast. Liora said she’d announce him tomorrow in the Sector 1 Town Square. He’d stand beside her, cuffed, as proof that even Dane Mercer, the destroyer of the old system, now believed in the new one. A perfect image

Three weeks after the last chip was thrown into the Dead Sea, Neo-Jakarta was still a mess. But this was a different kind of mess. Not the kind caused by a collapsing system. But the kind caused by people learning to walk without a crutch.Dane stood on the roof of the old Sector 9 station. The evening wind hit his face. Below, he saw the new market set up by the Free Faction. No hologram prices. No seller scores. Just bargaining with voices and eye contact.“Looks weird,” he muttered.“Why’s it weird?” Rara asked, sitting beside him.“Because I can’t tell right away who I can trust,” Dane answered. “Before, I just had to look at the number above someone’s head. Now I have to hear their voice, see their eyes.”Rara smiled. “That’s called being human.”Dane didn’t reply. He stared toward Sector 1. The Reputation Police fortress still stood. But its flag had changed. No more number logo. Just plain white cloth._Liora in the Cell_On the lowest floor of the fortress, Liora sat on a thin

The steel door behind them closed without a sound. Dane looked back. No way out. Only a long corridor lit by cold white lights.“This place is too clean,” Rara whispered. “No dust. No footprints.”“Because there’s no one here,” Jax replied. “At least, no one who walks.”They moved forward. Their footsteps echoed against the metal walls. Mira clutched Dane’s hand tightly. Her breathing was quick.“Kak, this place… it makes me suffocate,” Mira whispered.“Me too,” Dane answered. “But we’ve come this far.”After a hundred meters, the corridor ended in a round room. In the center stood a glass pillar three meters tall. Inside it, a soft blue light pulsed.“What is that?” Kimo asked.Dane stepped closer. At the base of the pillar, tiny words were engraved:_“ADORATION CORE – VERSION 1.0 – YEAR 2034.”_“This is the heart,” Dane said. “The first machine that calculated human scores.”Suddenly, the floor trembled. From the walls, a female hologram appeared. Her face was flawless, her smile to