Chapter 4: The Ghost in the Machine

The corruption from the Green Line tunnels clung to Arthur's clothes like a second skin, making him acutely aware of how far he'd fallen from his old life of mundane problems and fluorescent lighting. Three hours after their ghoul encounter, he was sitting in Kael's office, watching the dwarf pace back and forth while muttering in what sounded like several different languages, none of them complimentary.

"The problem," Kael said, stopping to glare at a map of the city's underground infrastructure, "is that my methods are about as useful as a chocolate teapot when it comes to tracking magical corruption through a modern urban environment."

Arthur looked up from the sandwich he'd been attempting to eat—his divine energy reserves were slowly recovering, but apparently resurrection and combat magic burned through calories like a furnace. "What do you mean?"

"Traditional dwarven tracking methods work great in caves and forests. I can follow a trail through solid rock, tell you what someone had for breakfast three days ago just from their footprints." Kael gestured irritably at the city map. "But this isn't the old country. This is concrete and steel and electromagnetic interference. The corruption signature from those ghouls could be coming from anywhere within a fifty-block radius."

QUEST UPDATE: FOLLOW THE TRAIL CURRENT OBJECTIVE: Locate source of magical corruption HINDRANCE DETECTED: Technological interference RECOMMENDATION: Seek alternative tracking methods

Arthur was about to respond when Kael's expression suddenly shifted to something that might have been resignation mixed with mild dread.

"There is someone who might be able to help," the dwarf said slowly, as if each word tasted bad. "But you're not going to like her."

"Her?"

"Information broker. Goes by 'Glitch.' She's got... unique methods for finding things that don't want to be found." Kael moved to one of his filing cabinets and pulled out a business card that looked like it had been printed on some kind of metallic foil. "Fair warning, lad—she's not entirely human, she's definitely not sane, and she charges in ways that make loan sharks look reasonable."

Arthur studied the card. Instead of a normal address, it just had what looked like a series of random numbers and letters, plus a symbol that hurt to look at directly—like someone had tried to draw a WiFi signal while having a seizure.

"What exactly is she?"

"Gnome. Technomancer. And before you ask, yes, that's exactly as terrifying as it sounds." Kael grabbed his coat and gestured toward the door. "She's got a way of making technology and magic play nice together. In her hands, the city's entire digital infrastructure becomes one giant scrying bowl."

The address—if it could be called that—led them to a nondescript office building in the tech district, the kind of place that probably housed a dozen different startup companies with names like "Synergistic Solutions" and "Dynamic Digital Dynamics." But instead of taking the elevator up, Kael led Arthur down a maintenance staircase that descended far deeper than the building's blueprints would have suggested.

"Sub-basements," Kael explained as they passed floor after floor of humming servers and cable runs that glowed with more than just LED indicators. "The city's digital nervous system. And at the heart of it all..."

They stopped in front of a door marked only with the same eye-watering symbol from the business card. Kael knocked in what sounded like a complex pattern—three short, two long, one short, then something that might have been Morse code.

The door opened to reveal what Arthur could only describe as organized chaos given physical form.

The room beyond was a cavern of servers, monitors, and cable runs that seemed to extend in directions that didn't quite make sense architecturally. Holographic displays floated in mid-air, showing streams of data that moved like living things. And at the center of it all, perched on a chair that was probably worth more than Arthur's yearly salary, was the most hyperactive person he'd ever seen.

Zara "Glitch" Nimblefingers was exactly what would happen if someone crossed a computer hacker with a caffeinated hummingbird and then gave the result access to technology that probably shouldn't exist. Her neon-purple hair caught the light from a dozen different displays, her fingers danced across multiple keyboards simultaneously, and her emerald eyes behind AR goggles were tracking data streams faster than Arthur could follow.

"Kael!" she said without looking up from her work, her voice carrying a slight electronic distortion that suggested her vocal cords had been modified in interesting ways. "I was wondering when you'd show up. The magical signature from the Green Line tunnels has been pinging my sensors all morning."

"You were monitoring the tunnels?" Kael asked, settling into one of the few chairs that wasn't occupied by server equipment.

"I monitor everything, you grumpy fossil. It's what I do." Glitch finally looked up, and her gaze immediately fixed on Arthur with the intensity of a laser pointer. "But what I really want to know is what kind of divine code is running on this biological server."

Arthur blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You!" Glitch bounded out of her chair with more energy than should have been physically possible and began circling Arthur like he was the most fascinating thing she'd ever seen. "You're running active divine programming on an elvish platform! That should be impossible. The incompatibility issues alone should have caused fatal errors, but instead..." She waved her hands at him. "Instead you're walking around like a perfectly functional miracle."

SCAN DETECTED GNOME TECHNOMANCER ANALYZING DIVINE SYSTEMS RECOMMENDATION: Cooperation may yield useful information

"She's harmless," Kael said, though his tone suggested he wasn't entirely convinced. "Mostly."

"Harmless? I'm offended." Glitch had pulled out what looked like a tablet crossed with a tricorder, and it was making sounds that definitely weren't coming from any earthly technology. "I prefer 'selectively destructive.' Much more accurate."

Arthur found himself oddly fascinated despite his discomfort. "You can actually see the... the divine system? The interface?"

"See it? Honey, I can read it like source code." Glitch's grin was wide and slightly manic. "Though I've got to say, whoever wrote your operating system has a very interesting sense of humor. There are easter eggs in here that reference theological debates from before humans invented writing."

She turned to Kael, her expression becoming marginally more serious. "But you didn't come here for a technical consultation. You need me to trace something, don't you? Something that conventional tracking methods can't touch."

"The corruption from the tunnels," Kael confirmed. "It's industrial grade, but it's being disguised somehow. Hidden from normal magical detection."

"Ooh, a puzzle!" Glitch clapped her hands together, and several of her displays immediately shifted to show what looked like a three-dimensional map of the city. "Let me just..." Her fingers flew across multiple interfaces simultaneously. "Cross-reference the signature from Arthur's residual divine energy... filter out the background magical static... and..."

The displays suddenly exploded with information. Streams of data cascaded like digital waterfalls, and Arthur could see patterns forming—connections spreading across the city like a web.

"Oh," Glitch said, her voice losing its manic edge and becoming very quiet. "Oh, this is not good."

"What is it?" Arthur asked, though he had a sinking feeling he didn't want to know.

"The corruption isn't random industrial waste. It's deliberate. Someone's been using it as a... call it a magical virus. And the distribution pattern..." She gestured at the display, where red dots were spreading across a map of Calathon like a plague. "It's not just affecting the homeless population. It's targeting anyone the system considers 'expendable.'"

Kael leaned forward. "System?"

"Alchemax Incorporated." Glitch's expression had gone from manic to genuinely frightened. "Biotech corporation with a very interesting side business in applied thaumaturgy. According to this data, they've been developing what they call 'selective magical contamination' for the past two years."

Arthur felt his blood turn cold. "You mean they're deliberately turning people into ghouls?"

"Worse than that." Glitch pulled up another display, this one showing corporate organizational charts and research proposals. "They're not just creating ghouls. They're testing delivery methods. The Green Line tunnels were just a proof of concept."

She turned to face them both, her usual manic energy replaced by something that might have been terror.

"They're planning to deploy this city-wide. Everyone they consider 'undesirable'—the homeless, the mentally ill, the magically sensitive, anyone who doesn't fit their definition of normal humanity—gets infected with a virus that turns them into monsters. Then they can justify eliminating them as a 'public safety measure.'"

QUEST UPDATE: FOLLOW THE TRAIL MAJOR THREAT IDENTIFIED: Alchemax Corporation OBJECTIVE UPDATED: Investigate corporate conspiracy WARNING: Enemy capabilities significantly higher than anticipated

Arthur stared at the displays, at the patterns of infection spreading like cancer through the city's most vulnerable populations. He thought about the alpha ghoul's moment of recognition, its gratitude as the divine light freed it from corruption.

"How many people?" he asked quietly.

"Current estimates?" Glitch consulted her displays. "If they go to full deployment... maybe forty thousand in the first wave. Everyone the system flags as 'expendable.'"

The number hit Arthur like a physical blow. Forty thousand people. Forty thousand forgotten souls who would be transformed into monsters so that someone in a corporate boardroom could justify their elimination.

"We have to stop them," he said.

"Oh, we will," Kael growled, his hand moving instinctively to his rune-etched revolver. "But first we need proof. Something more concrete than hacked data files."

Glitch's manic grin suddenly returned, though it had a sharp edge that hadn't been there before. "Well then, boys, looks like we're going to need to pay Alchemax a visit. I've always wanted to see their servers from the inside."

Arthur looked at his two new companions—a disgraced ex-cop with a grudge against the system and a hyperactive technomancer with flexible ethics—and realized that somewhere along the way, his life had become very, very complicated.

NEW QUEST AVAILABLE: INFILTRATE THE ENEMY OBJECTIVE: Gather evidence of Alchemax's conspiracy PARTY MEMBERS: Kael Bronzebeard, Zara "Glitch" Nimblefingers DIFFICULTY: Extremely High

But as he thought about those forty thousand potential victims, Arthur found himself smiling for the first time since leaving the tunnels.

"When do we start?"