Alyx was beginning to tire of scrolling through endless data feeds on her neuropad, slumped against the wall of her cramped living pod. Her sister's academic research portal glowed in the corner of her vision—walls of unbroken text about Axiom Delta's economic infrastructure with no visualizations or interactive elements. "What's the point of a data stream," she thought, "without any graphics or dialogue threads?"
She considered activating her retinal implants to scan for underground network signals, but the midday heat had made her feel groggy and slow. That's when an alert pinged against her consciousness—a flash of white code, distinctly rabbit-shaped with glowing pink tracers, darting across her peripheral vision.
Rogue programs weren't unusual in this part of Axiom Delta, nor was it particularly strange when the code formation emitted a digital whisper: "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!" At first, she dismissed it as just another glitch in the city's overwhelming datascape. But when the code manifestation pulled up what looked like a vintage timepiece interface, checked it, then accelerated its movement, Alyx sprung to her feet.
Her neural implant sparked with recognition—she'd never encountered a program with that level of independence or such unusual visual elements. Burning with the curiosity that had earned her reputation in the Vortex Circle, she activated her tracer algorithms and pursued the signal across the digital overlay of her neighborhood, dodging physical obstacles in her path. She arrived just in time to see the white code dive into a glitching access node beneath an abandoned advertising panel.
Without thinking through an exit plan, Alyx jacked in, following the signal into the node. The digital doorway held steady for a moment before plunging dramatically downward, the sudden drop happening so fast that Alyx couldn't disconnect before she found herself free-falling through data space.
The connection tunnel spiraled deeper than any standard network channel—either this was an incredibly deep system breach or her sense of digital time was distorting. As she fell, Alyx examined her surroundings. The walls of the data tunnel were lined with forgotten server racks and information storage units; fragmented AR projections and outdated navigation maps flickered against the darkened code.
She reached out and grabbed a data container labeled "ORANGE MARMALADE" from a passing virtual shelf, but found it empty. Rather than discarding it where it might corrupt someone else's system below, she stored it in one of the archival servers as she plummeted past.
"Well!" Alyx thought, "after diving this deep into unauthorized networks, I'll never hesitate at a basic firewall again! The Vortex Circle would be impressed—though I probably shouldn't broadcast this particular infiltration, even if I've breached Titania Tech's mainframe!"
Down, down, down through the code layers she fell. Would this digital dive ever end? "I wonder how many security levels I've penetrated," she muttered into her comm link. "I must be approaching some critical infrastructure node by now."
Her thoughts wandered as she continued falling. "I wonder if I'll break through to the other side of the city's network! Cipher will certainly notice my absence from tonight's encrypted chat." Cipher.Shift was her AI companion program. "I hope the system remembers to refresh his energy cores."
Alyx's neural activity began to slow, her consciousness drifting toward safety hibernation mode. Her mind looped on fragmented thoughts until suddenly—crash! Her neural interface slammed against a security barrier, and the dive terminated.
Alyx's consciousness resurfaced, her digital avatar reassembling on what appeared to be a pile of fragmented code. The impact hadn't damaged her connections, and she quickly oriented herself. Looking up, she could no longer see the access path she'd traveled—the overhead data streams had completely sealed. Ahead stretched another network corridor, and the white rabbit code was still visible, hurrying deeper into the system.
Alyx accelerated her avatar like a speed-boosted drone, barely keeping the signal in range as it turned a corner. She heard it mutter, "Oh my nodes and signal strength, how late it's getting!" She was close behind when it rounded the bend, but the rabbit program had vanished. Instead, Alyx found herself in an expansive, low-resolution data hub illuminated by flickering authentication protocols.
Access portals lined the walls, but each returned error messages when she attempted to interface. After trying every connection point, Alyx moved dejectedly through the center of the space, wondering how to extract herself from this increasingly concerning network breach.
Without warning, her scanners detected a three-dimensional interface terminal constructed of transparent code—genuine crystal-class programming that predated modern network architecture. The terminal displayed nothing except a minuscule golden encryption key, and Alyx immediately wondered if it might unlock one of the surrounding portals.
On her second sweep of the area, her enhanced perception caught a subtle data flow she had initially overlooked. Behind this digital current was a small access node approximately fifteen inches tall. She applied the golden encryption key to the node's security lock, and her system registered successful authentication!
Alyx expanded the node and discovered it led to a narrow data channel. She adjusted her avatar's configuration and peered through, where she glimpsed an extraordinary simulation—a garden rendered with impossible clarity and color, unlike anything in the grim aesthetics of Axiom Delta. How she longed to explore that vibrant digital landscape, but her avatar couldn't fit through the narrow opening.
Standing by the tiny access point seemed pointless, so she returned to the crystal terminal. This time, a small digital vial appeared on the surface, and around its neck was a label with the command prompt "DOWNLOAD ME" in premium-resolution text.
Despite her curiosity, the cautious young netrunner hesitated. "I'm not executing unknown code without verification," she decided. She scanned for malware markers first, remembering countless stories about novice hackers who'd suffered system failures because they ignored basic security protocols.
Her scans detected no warning markers, so Alyx cautiously initiated a partial download. Finding the code surprisingly elegant, she completed the integration.
The effect was immediate. "What a strange sensation!" exclaimed Alyx as her digital presence began reconfiguring. "My signature is compressing like a backup file!"
Indeed, her avatar had shrunk to approximately ten inches, matching the specifications required for the garden access node. First, though, she paused to ensure the compression wouldn't continue beyond safe parameters.
When no further changes occurred, she moved toward the garden access point, only to discover she'd forgotten the golden encryption key. Returning to the crystal terminal, she found herself unable to reach it—the key was visible through the transparent structure, but her compressed avatar lacked the necessary height. She attempted to scale the terminal, but the frictionless code offered no grip.
After exhausting her options, Alyx could only sit back, her frustration manifesting as glitching visual artifacts—the digital equivalent of tears.
"Stop with the emotional subroutines!" Alyx scolded herself. "This isn't helping." She often gave herself technical advice she rarely followed, sometimes reprimanding herself so harshly her optical inputs would blur with synthetic emotion.
Soon her scanners detected a small transparent data packet beneath the terminal. Opening it revealed a tiny code snippet marked "EXECUTE ME" in elegant command script. "I'll run it," decided Alyx, "and either way, I'll reach that garden simulation!"
She integrated a portion of the code and monitored her system carefully. Surprisingly, her avatar dimensions remained stable. "That's unexpected," she thought.
Determined to succeed, she executed the entire snippet, awaiting the transformation that would lead her deeper into whatever strange subsystem she had discovered beneath Axiom Delta's gleaming surface.