Master of Lust-Chapter 337 - -

The interior of the stolen VTOL was silent, save for the rhythmic hum of the twin turbines and the soft groans of Agent Johnson, who was currently zip-tied to a support strut in the cargo hold.

Rick sat in the pilot’s seat, his hand hovering over the glowing, pulsing obsidian Cube. The holographic prompt hovered in his vision, a digital temptation that pulsed in time with his own heartbeat.

[SYSTEM UPDATE 2.0 READY.] [WARNING: Integration will be invasive. Neural rewiring required. Survival probability: 88%.] [Install?]

"Eighty-eight percent," Rick muttered. "I’ve played poker with worse odds." 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

He looked over his shoulder. Sharon was in the co-pilot seat, asleep. Her head lolled against the window, her mouth slightly open, a smear of soot still on her cheek. She looked exhausted, vulnerable, and dangerously beautiful. The sight of her, resting after fighting a war for him, sent a pang of something warm through his chest. He pushed it down. Emotions were for people who weren’t about to interface with alien technology.

"Sharon," Rick said softly.

She jerked awake, her hand instantly going to the SIG Sauer in her lap. "Contact! What? Where?"

"Relax," Rick said. "We’re cruising at thirty thousand feet. I need you to fly the plane for a minute."

"Fly the plane?" Sharon rubbed her eyes. "Rick, I drive a Harley. I don’t fly tilt-rotor assault crafts."

"It’s on autopilot," Rick lied. "Just... watch the dials. If anything beeps red, scream. I’m going offline for a bit."

"Offline? What does that mean?"

"It means I’m upgrading."

Rick turned back to the Cube. He placed his palm flat against the cold, etched stone.

"Install," he whispered.

The reaction was instantaneous.

The blue lines on the Cube flared white-hot. A jolt of energy, feeling less like electricity and more like liquid nitrogen, shot up Rick’s arm. It bypassed his nerves, slammed into his spine, and rocketed straight into his brain stem.

Rick gasped, his back arching off the leather seat. He couldn’t scream. His vocal cords were paralyzed.

His vision didn’t just go black; it went code.

Streams of data, fractals of light, and architectural blueprints of his own mind flashed before his eyes. He felt invisible fingers reaching into the grey matter of his brain, snipping connections, welding new ones, optimizing the hardware of his consciousness. It felt like someone was performing brain surgery with a soldering iron while he was wide awake.

[INSTALLING...] [Optimizing Neural Pathways...] [Expanding RAM...] [Downloading: TECHNOMANCY PROTOCOL v1.0]

The pain was a white noise that drowned out the universe. He saw memories—his father, the bar, Nadia, the container, the robot dog—fragment and reassemble into data packets. He saw the world not as matter, but as systems. Everything was a system. And systems could be hacked.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, it stopped.

Rick slumped forward, gasping for air, sweat dripping from his nose onto the console. The Cube sat dull and inert on the seat next to him.

He blinked.

The world looked... different.

He looked at the control panel of the VTOL. Before, he saw buttons and dials. Now, floating over the fuel gauge, he saw a translucent tag: [Fuel Level: 42%. Efficiency: 85%. Pump 3 exhibiting minor vibration.]

He looked at Sharon. A tag appeared over her head. [Status: Elevated Cortisol. Fatigue: High. Heart Rate: 88 BPM. Threat Level: Ally (Current).]

He looked at the autopilot navigation computer. He didn’t just see the screen. He felt the code running inside it. He could reach out with his mind and... nudge it.

He focused on the altitude setting. Go up.

The yoke moved on its own. The plane climbed five hundred feet.

Sharon yelped. "Rick! The plane is moving!"

Rick laughed. It was a dry, raspy sound. "I know."

He turned to her. His eyes, usually a dark brown, now had a faint, rhythmic pulse of blue light deep within the iris.

[System Update Complete.] [Level Up: Rick Smith - Level 20.] [New Class Trait: TECHNOMANCER.] [Ability: You can interface with, control, and override electronic systems via touch or short-range wireless connection.]

"I’m back," Rick said. "And I’m online."

He stood up, his legs shaky but strengthening by the second. He walked to the back of the plane where Johnson was tied up.

Johnson looked up. The agent looked tired, his suit rumpled, his dignity shredded. But when he saw Rick’s eyes, a flicker of genuine fear crossed his face.

"You used it," Johnson whispered. "The Cube. You actually installed it."

"It’s a hell of a patch," Rick said. He didn’t need to shout. He activated his Voice of Command, but now, mixed with Technomancy, it felt different. Heavier. "Tell me what I just put in my head, Johnson."

Johnson swallowed. "You don’t know what you’re playing with. Corporate Oversight... we aren’t the government. We aren’t a spy agency."

"Then what are you?"

"We’re the Moderators," Johnson said, his voice trembling. "Of the Game."

Rick crouched. "What Game?"

"The Succession," Johnson said. "There are twelve of them. Twelve Systems. Twelve Artifacts like that Cube. They were... found. Excavated. Thousands of years ago, or maybe yesterday, the timeline is messy. They seek out hosts. Users."

Rick’s mind raced. Twelve Systems.

"Marnus Warner?" Rick asked.

"He didn’t have one," Johnson said. "His grandfather, Silas... he was a User. Once. The ’Tycoon System’. But he got old. The System abandoned him. He’s been trying to build a technological replica ever since to hold onto his power. That’s why he wanted your laptop. He thought he could reverse-engineer the code."

"And Valerius?"

"Valerius is a User," Johnson nodded. "The ’Cyber-Link System’. That’s why he’s half machine. His System demands integration. He consumes tech."

"And The Huntsman?"

"The ’Predator System’. He hunts. He tracks. He never loses a target."

Johnson looked at Rick with a mix of pity and awe. "And you... you have the Chaos System. The wild card. It hasn’t been seen in a century. It’s the most dangerous one. Because it doesn’t have rules. It just... escalates."

Rick stood up. He paced the small cabin. He wasn’t a random guy who got lucky. He was a gladiator in a global arena he hadn’t even known existed.

"So the Conclave," Rick said. "It wasn’t just a business meeting."

"It was a PvP zone," Johnson said, using the gaming term naturally. "Silas called it to flush out rivals. He wanted to kill Valerius and steal his System core. You just... crashed the party."

Rick looked at the black laptop case sitting on the seat. The Warner Ledger.

"If Silas was a User," Rick said slowly, "then his ledger isn’t just bank accounts. It’s a player list."

"It’s the leaderboard," Johnson confirmed. "It has the locations, identities, and weaknesses of every known User. That’s why everyone wants it. It’s the cheat sheet to winning the Game."

Rick grinned. A cold, predatory grin.

"Winning the game," Rick mused. "And what’s the prize?"

Johnson hesitated. "Ascension. Or so the legend says. The last User standing gets to... rewrite the code. Rewrite reality."

Rick looked at the Cube. Rewrite reality.

"Sharon," Rick called out. "Find us a place to land. Somewhere with power, internet, and absolutely no people. I have some reading to do."