A leaderboard flickered into his vision. There were only twelve names. At the very bottom, his own name pulsed in red. Above him were legends of the extreme sports world—people who had vanished, "retired," or died in freak accidents years ago.

Elias looked down at the 90-degree drop ahead of him. The file hadn't been a game; it was a recruitment tool for a digital underground where the stakes were biological.

"You didn't download a crack, Elias. You downloaded an invitation."

The progress bar didn’t crawl; it leaped. When it finished, there was no game folder. Instead, a single text file appeared: READ_ME_OR_ELSE.txt .