Echoes of the Quantum Rift

Chapter 1: Glitch in the Dust

Neo-London smelled like ozone, oil, and regret.Kai Virek ducked beneath a low beam, his boots crunching across a floor caked in soot and shattered glass. The derelict lab was silent except for the hum of the city above, muffled through meters of abandoned concrete. Somewhere, a vent fan still whined weakly — the last breath of a forgotten building. He adjusted the scarf over his mouth and scanned the room with his cybernetic right eye. A soft blue glow flickered to life, bathing the dust in faint halos.Nothing.He stepped further into the lab.The job was simple: in, scan, grab, out. Anything with pre-crash tech was worth something on the black market. But this place — it felt different. Old, yes, but not dead. Like a room that had been waiting.His scanner beeped.Unstable neural core detected.Kai crouched beside a cracked console. Half-melted wiring spilled out like metal intestines. Buried in the wreckage was a black headgear — sleek, more advanced than anything he’d seen in yea