CHAPTER 45: CORRUPTED SAVE

The drive back to Windhoek felt less like a road trip and more like driving through a GPU stress test that was failing badly.

Rin sat in the passenger seat, watching the world outside the dirty windshield stutter. A herd of gemsbok stood by the side of the road, but every few seconds they would flicker, shifting a few feet to the left then snapping back, like reality was having trouble tracking their position.

"The lag is real," Tayo muttered from the back seat, clutching his broken arm. "I feel sick just looking at it."

"It’s mana displacement," Nyx said, she was cleaning her nails with a combat knife she’d found in the glovebox, looking entirely too calm. "Thorne tried to merge two dimensions, he failed, now the seams are showing."

"Can it be fixed?" Joy asked.

"Sure," Nyx shrugged. "If you have admin access, which we don’t."

Rin looked at his hands. The gray static was gone, retreating back under his skin, but he could still feel it humming in his marrow, a cold, hungry vibration that made his fracture energy feel obsolete.

"We’re coming up on the perimeter," Tau said, his voice rough.

The S-rank Director looked bad. His golden armor was scrap metal, his face was gray, and he was driving the truck with one hand because the other was likely shattered.

Rin looked ahead.

Windhoek wasn’t the city they had left.

The skyline was there, but it was wrong. The Space Needle-esque Association tower was flickering, parts of it phasing in and out of existence. The barrier that usually protected the city from the surrounding wildlands was visible, a dome of blue light, but it was pulsing erratically, gaps opening and closing like breathing pores.

"The barrier is failing," Tau said. "Hold on."

He gunned the engine.

They hit the checkpoint at sixty miles an hour. The guards didn’t even try to stop them, they were too busy firing assault rifles at a pack of wolves that had seemingly spawned out of the asphalt itself.

"Since when do wolves spawn on the highway?" Joy asked, pressing her face to the glass.

"Since the spawn points got randomized," Rin said.

They blew past the chaos, entering the city proper. It was bedlam. Cars were abandoned in the streets, sirens wailed from every direction, and people were running, not away from a specific point, but just running.

"Where are we going?" Rin asked. "HQ is compromised."

"HQ is the only place with a stabilizer strong enough to keep the localized reality from dissolving," Tau said, swerving around a burning bus. "And it’s where I have to face the music."

"They’ll arrest you," Rin said. "You authorized an S-rank raid without Council approval, destroyed a research facility, and broke the sky."

"I know," Tau said, his grip tightening on the wheel. "That’s the point."

He looked at Rin, his eyes hard.

"I’m the scapegoat, Rin. I take the fall for the raid, for the destruction, for everything. I claim I went rogue, manipulated you into following me. That keeps you clear."

"We’re not letting you do that," Joy said from the back.

"You don’t have a choice," Tau snapped. "You are D-ranks. You are children in a war of gods. You need time to grow, and you can’t do that from a prison cell."

He slammed on the brakes.

They were at the rear entrance of the Association HQ. It was barricaded, heavy blast doors sealed shut, flanked by elite guards in heavy power armor.

"Out," Tau ordered.

They scrambled out of the truck. The air in the city tasted like ozone and burnt sugar—mana burn.

The guards raised their weapons.

"Stand down!" Tau roared, his voice carrying the weight of command even though he looked like a wreck. "Director Tau returning from operation. Medical emergency."

The guards hesitated, seeing the S-rank, then lowered their rifles.

"Director," one of them stepped forward. "The Council is in emergency session. We have orders to detain—"

"I know the orders," Tau interrupted, walking forward, limping but holding his head high. "I am surrendering myself."

He stopped and turned to Rin.

"Go," Tau said quietly. "Disappear. Don’t go to your mansion, don’t go to your apartments. Find a hole and stay in it until the heat dies down."

"Tau—" Rin started.

"This isn’t a request, Matsuda," Tau’s eyes flashed gold for a second. "Survive. That is your only mission now. Fix what we broke."

He turned back to the guards, holding out his hands.

"I assume full responsibility."

The guards moved in, cuffing the S-rank Director. It looked wrong, like putting a leash on a lion.

Rin wanted to fight, wanted to pulse his energy and break the cuffs, but Nyx grabbed his arm.

"Don’t," she whispered. "Don’t waste his sacrifice."

Rin grit his teeth, forcing himself to turn away.

"Move," Rin said to the team. "Alleyway, now."

They slipped into the shadows of the service alley just as more vehicles arrived, flashing blue lights painting the walls.

They ran.

They moved through the backstreets of Windhoek, avoiding the main roads where panic was setting in. The city was glitching hard. A fire hydrant they passed wasn’t spraying water, it was spraying sand. A street lamp was floating upside down.

"We need a safehouse," Joy said, breathless. "My dad’s places are out, he’ll be looking for me."

"My apartment is definitely watched," Tayo said.

"Sector 9," Nyx said. "The warehouse."

"Compromised," Rin said. "Thorne knows we use it."

They stopped in a narrow alley behind a Chinese restaurant that smelled amazing despite the apocalypse.

"I know a place," Rin said slowly. "But you’re not going to like it."

"Try me," Sable said. "I’m currently homeless and wanted by the government."

"Leo’s old safehouse," Rin said. "Not the mansion. The place he used before he got famous. It’s off the books, paid for in cash, under a fake name."

"Leo was paranoid?" Tayo asked.

"Leo watched too many spy movies," Rin corrected. "He thought it was cool to have a ’black site.’ It’s in Katutura, old industrial zone."

"Lead the way," Nyx said.

The trek to Katutura took two hours on foot because the public transit system had shut down. The ’glitch’ seemed worse here. The poverty-stricken district was already crumbling, but now it was literally falling apart.

Rin saw a house that was flickering in and out of existence like a bad render.

"Don’t look at it," Rin said, guiding them past. "Just keep moving."

They reached a row of storage units near the old meatpacking plant. It was gritty, dark, and smelled like rust.

Rin found Unit 404.

"Fitting," Nyx muttered.

Rin punched in the code—Leo’s birthday backwards—and the rusted shutter groaned open.

Inside wasn’t a storage unit. It was a small, fully furnished bunker. A cot, a desk, a mini-fridge, and walls lined with weapon racks that were mostly empty except for a few spare knives and a stack of comic books.

"Welcome to the Batcave," Rin said, flipping the light switch. The bulb flickered but stayed on.

Joy collapsed onto the cot. "It smells like boys."

"It’s safe," Rin said, locking the shutter from the inside. "No electronic locks, no network connection. We’re ghosts here."

Tayo slid down the wall, cradling his arm. "We need a healer. This bone isn’t setting right."

"I can set it," Nyx said, walking over. "I know anatomy."

"You know how to break anatomy," Tayo said nervously. "Do you know how to fix it?"

"Same process, reverse order." She knelt beside him. "Bite on something."

Rin turned away, not wanting to watch, and moved to the desk. There was an old laptop there, covered in dust.

He opened it. No password.

The background was a picture of Rin and Leo from college, eating pizza, looking stupid and young.

Rin felt a lump in his throat the size of a golf ball.

He sat down, staring at the screen.

"We’re fugitives," Rin said to the room. "Tau is gone. The Association is hunting us. The Architect is... somewhere. And the world is broken."

"Tuesday," Nyx said, wiping her hands on a rag after snapping Tayo’s arm back into place (he had screamed, but quietly).

"What’s the move?" Joy asked from the cot.

Rin looked at his hand. The gray energy was dormant, but he could feel it waiting. It wasn’t just a mix of powers anymore. It was something new. Something that ate reality.

"We need to find Indra," Rin said.

"Your evil shadow brother?" Joy asked.

"He’s not evil," Rin said. "He’s hungry. I fed him too much energy, woke him up, but he’s unstable. If Thorne finds him first, he’ll reprogram him. If the Association finds him, they’ll kill him."

"And if we find him?" Tayo asked, pale and sweating.

"We fix him," Rin said.

"How?" Nyx asked, leaning against the weapon rack. "You can’t patch a person, Rin."

"I have the System," Rin said. "The System manages mana, skills, everything. Leo... Indra... he’s made of mana now. If I can get close enough, if I can interface with him..."

[System Analysis: Theoretical possibility of entity integration: Non-Zero]

[Requirement: Physical Contact]

[Risk: Fatal System Crash]

’I’ll take those odds.’

"I can party him," Rin said. "Force him into my system as a summon or a companion. Stabilize his code."

"That sounds like slavery," Joy noted.

"It’s life support," Rin corrected.

Suddenly, the ground shook.

Not a tremor. A rhythmic thumping.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Dust fell from the ceiling.

"Earthquake?" Tayo asked.

"No," Rin stood up, moving to the shutter. "Footsteps."

He peered through the peephole.

Outside, in the industrial yard, something was walking.

It was twenty feet tall. It looked like a goblin, but distorted, elongated, its limbs stretching like taffy, its skin flashing with static. A Glitch Giant.

It picked up a dumpster and ate it. Metal screeched as it chewed.

"We have a neighbor," Rin whispered.

"Is it hostile?" Joy whispered back.

The giant turned its head. It didn’t have eyes, just white squares of light. It looked directly at the storage unit.

"Yes," Rin said. "Very."

He stepped back.

"Suit up," Rin ordered. "We’re not safe yet."

Nyx cracked her knuckles. "I was getting bored anyway."

Rin pulsed his energy. Gray sparks flew.

The grind didn’t stop just because the world ended. It just got harder.