Heartbeat.exe: Hidden Script

Chapter 5: Corporate Coffee Break

"Ketsana? You in there, man?"

The knocking persisted, three sharp wraps followed by a heavy pause.

Ketsana felt the strange, fluid rigidity of the system drain out of his limbs. It was as if the invisible puppet strings had been cut, leaving him to hold up his own skeleton for the first time in hours. He staggered, his knees nearly buckling.

"I’m coming! Hold on!" Ketsana shouted.

He didn't sound like a medieval knight. He sounded like a guy who hadn't slept or eaten properly, his voice gravelly and thin. He looked at his hand—it was shaking. He looked at the monitors—black and cold.

"Come on, open up! I saw the lights," Somphone called out again.

Ketsana walked toward the door. His gait was uneven. He misjudged the distance to the hallway corner and brushed his shoulder against the drywall, stumbling slightly. Without the system’s help, his depth perception felt like it was laggy, and the weight of his own body seemed doubled.

He reached the door and unlatched the deadbolt.

Somphone stood in the hallway. He was dressed in a sleek, dark grey windbreaker with the collar turned up. In his right hand, he carried a small, palm-sized device with a blinking blue LED. He held it up as the door opened, the device emitting a low-frequency hum.

"Hey, Somphone," Ketsana said, leaning against the doorframe to steady himself. "What’s with the urgency? It's late."

"Is it? I lost track of time," Somphone said, his eyes scanning the interior of the apartment before landing on Ketsana’s face. "You look like garbage, man. Have you been eating?"

"Just stressed. The tournament reset is coming up," Ketsana replied. "What's that in your hand?"

"Oh, this?" Somphone tilted the device. "Just some hardware. My job at the firm has been on my back about interference in the grid. I’ve been checking the blocks."

"In an apartment complex?"

"Signals travel, Ketsana. Can I come in? I really need to sit down for a second. My legs are killing me."

Ketsana hesitated. His internal vision was clear of health bars and prompts for the first time since the "sync," but the silence from The Villain was almost more unnerving than the medieval poetry.

"Sure," Ketsana said, stepping aside. "But don't look at the mess. I haven't had time to clean."

Somphone stepped into the living room, his boots making a heavy, deliberate sound on the laminate flooring. He didn't sit down immediately. Instead, he walked toward the center of the room, holding the device out like a compass.

"You been playing World-Zero tonight?" Somphone asked casually.

"A little," Ketsana said. "I got off early. My wrists were starting to cramp up."

"I heard about that gatekeeper fight," Somphone said, circling the small coffee table. "Xayavong. People are saying someone from this server instance cleared it in record time. Like, frame-perfect timing. You know anything about that?"

"I saw some chatter in the global chat," Ketsana lied. He tried to walk toward the kitchen to grab a glass of water, but his leg didn't extend as far as he expected. He lurched forward, nearly tripping.

"Whoa, easy there," Somphone said, reaching out to steady him. "You’re really twitchy today."

"I told you, I’m exhausted," Ketsana said, pulling away slightly. "My nerves are fried. I’ve been trying to learn some new macro rotations, and it’s just messing with my head."

"Macros, huh?" Somphone looked at the device in his palm. The blue LED flickered green for a second, then back to blue. "Some people are moving beyond macros. They're using neural shunts. Illegal stuff, Ketsana. Real dangerous."

"Sounds expensive," Ketsana said, his heart hammering against his ribs. "I can barely afford my rent, let alone brain tech."

"Fair point," Somphone chuckled, though his eyes remained fixed on the scanning device. "Why is your PC off? Usually, you've got three monitors lighting up the whole street."

"Screen burn," Ketsana said quickly. "And my power bill is high enough."

"Mind if I check the ports? I’m looking for a specific surge signature. It would save me a lot of paperwork if I could rule your unit out."

Ketsana felt a bead of sweat roll down his temple. "Check whatever you want. It’s just a standard rig."

Somphone walked over to the desk. He leaned over, his windbreaker crinkling. He didn't look at the screen; he scanned the underside of the desk and the back of the tower.

"You got a lot of items in the corner there," Somphone remarked, pointing at the heap of empty snack bags and spare cables.

"Yeah, my life is basically organized chaos," Ketsana said. He needed to do something. He needed to look more pathetic, more normal. He moved toward the couch, but purposefully stepped on the edge of the loose rug near his dresser.

With a loud grunt, he let his foot slide. He threw his arms out, knocked over a half-full bottle of warm soda on the side table, and collapsed onto the cushions in a tangle of limbs.

"Damn it!" Ketsana groaned, staying down.

Somphone turned around, the device still in his hand. "You okay?"

"My legs are like jelly," Ketsana muttered, rubbing his shin. "I think I have that... what do they call it? Digital exhaustion? I’ve been sitting in that chair for twelve hours straight. I think I forgot how to use my actual muscles."

"It happens to the best of us," Somphone said, walking over to stand over him. "But usually not to people who make top hundred."

"That's why I'm not in the top fifty," Ketsana said, looking up with a sheepish grin. "I’m all thumbs and bad knees."

Somphone stared at him for a long moment. He looked at Ketsana’s eyes, which were bloodshot but—thankfully—not glowing with any neon blue fire.

"Well," Somphone said, pocketing the device. "Everything seems clean here. No illegal signatures. No shunts. Just a tired guy with bad balance."

"Glad I could help your investigation," Ketsana said, pushing himself up into a sitting position.

"I’ll let you get to sleep," Somphone said, heading for the door. "But Ketsana? If you see anyone around the complex acting strange... moving too fast, not talking right... you give me a call, okay?"

"Sure thing, Somphone. Why?"

"Just a security thing," Somphone said, opening the door. "Glitches in the system. They tend to spread if they aren't caught early."

Ketsana watched him walk out into the hallway. "Goodnight."

"Night."

Ketsana waited until he heard the heavy click of the door. He sat there on the couch, his chest heaving. He waited another full minute, listening to the sounds of the hallway until the elevator hummed in the distance.

"Is he gone?" Ketsana whispered into the empty room.

The silence remained. No dialogue box. No floating status bar.

"Villain? You there?"

Nothing.

Ketsana stood up, his movements still jerky and uncoordinated. He walked over to the coffee table where Somphone had been standing. He felt a weird pressure in his lower back—a physical reminder that he was once again the sole pilot of his own skin.

As he reached down to pick up the bottle of soda he had knocked over, something caught his eye.

There was a small, gold-colored coin resting on the table. It hadn't been there before. It was shiny, minted with a strange circular pattern that resembled a series of circuit boards.

Ketsana picked it up. It felt warm.

Suddenly, a whisper—low and static-filled—came from the coin itself, vibration traveling through his fingertips directly into his ear.

"Current integration: eighty-eight percent," the coin whispered in a voice that sounded exactly like Somphone's, but colder. "Estimated time to full biological overwrite: six hours. User Ketsana: non-essential variable."

Ketsana dropped the coin onto the table as if it had turned into a burning coal.

"Oh no," he breathed, backing away.

His health bar flickered back into existence, glowing a bright, sickly orange.

[ STATUS: 62/100 HP ]

[ SYSTEM: Silent mode deactivated. We have a problem, slow-poke. ]

Ketsana grabbed the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning white. "You think? Somphone knows!"

[ SYSTEM: He doesn't just know. He left a tracker in the sub-routine. Pick up the coin. ]

"I'm not touching that thing again!"

[ SYSTEM: If you don't, I can't delete the scan data. Pick it up, or the van will be back with breakers in ten minutes. ]

Ketsana looked from the coin to the health bar, then back to the coin. He reached out his hand, his fingers beginning to twitch with the mechanical precision he was starting to fear.