Chapter 9: The Final Transaction
By B.T. Knox · Helstalgia Volume 1
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“I don’t know what to say. You could’ve done anything with this,” I said, closing my windows and looking at Dante. “You gave me ownership of this entire bazaar. Where’s the catch?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want it. All you need to do is promise to use it to get the data fragment as far away as possible. That’s the only thing that matters. That’s my payment.”
That was the only thing on my mind since I held the data fragment in my hands: the feeling of power pulsing through my veins, the strength I seemed to gain even though my stats didn’t reflect it. I was only level 4 when I decapitated that Flux Jackal, and I hadn’t even distributed my attribute points yet. My level was technically still at 1 when it happened. I felt more powerful, but my displayed stats didn’t change. That seemed to be a power all its own.
“There’s something off about this fragment. When I looted it from—”
Dante raised a hand quickly, cutting me off mid-sentence. “The less I know, the better. Especially considering what I’m walking into.”
He was right, but I wasn’t finished. The fragment had twisted every step of my journey and somehow led me here. I’d learned more in the past few hours than I had uncovered the entire week before, and I wasn’t about to stop now, not with what was happening to me.
I pressed forward, ignoring his warning. “When I crushed that man’s throat, it was raw strength that I’d never had before. The longer I hold this fragment, the stronger I’m becoming. Something isn’t right, Dante.”
Dante shook his head sharply. “I don’t care what it does or how strong it makes you. The longer it’s here, the more damage it could—”
His words cut off abruptly. His eyes darted rapidly through multiple HUD windows at once. I observed his jaw tighten and his lips press into a firm, tense line. Whatever he was seeing, it was enough to make him uneasy.
“Well, shit. Chatter on the Grid is blowing up—it didn’t take long for word of what happened to the Jackals to spread. Feeds are flooded. There’s no direct footage from inside yet, but someone always manages to leak something.”
I opened the Grid app, and as soon as I searched “Flux Jackals,” my feed was instantly filled with memes roasting them and clips of influencers tearing them apart for clout. It wouldn’t take long for something more serious to emerge.
“They’re already a joke,” I said, scrolling through endless mockery. “But it won’t stay funny for long. You can bet more Jackals or even influencers won’t be far behind once they know the location. Everyone loves fresh chaos for views.” I set alerts for “Flux Jackals,” “Cybercobras,” and “data fragment” before minimizing the app into a condensed version in my HUD.
“I reckon we have about ten minutes before the first ones come through the door,” Dante said, glancing back at the gaping hole in the wall. “I recommend fixing that entryway. It’ll buy you some time to get organized and make your exit.”
He extended his hand, waiting for a handshake. I took it.
“I’m sorry about Milo,” Dante continued, his grip firm but sincere. “And sorry if I’ve been blunt with instructions. That’s just me, that’s how I do business, and Milo understood that. You’re welcome to keep that arrangement going, but I genuinely hope we won’t cross paths again anytime soon. At least, not in Helstalgia.”
“Thanks for your help, Dante,” I replied, my voice steady despite everything. “I’m sorry too, for Milo and for the mess here. Good luck with your next moves.”
Dante nodded once, turned, and walked away through the shattered bazaar. His footsteps crunched over broken glass and scattered debris, each step sounding like brittle bones snapping beneath his boots. I watched until he vanished through the broken entryway.
The neon-lit darkness of Helstalgia engulfed another shadow.
I’d continue doing business with Dante if the chance arose again. My days of netrunning may have ended along with my ties to the Flux Jackals, but the metaverse always presented other opportunities.
Now, with the bazaar under my control, I wouldn’t need to chase opportunities anymore. They’d come knocking at my door.
I opened the Bazaar Manager, and a brand-new window unfolded before me, something I’d never seen before. The interface featured a column of categories down the left side. Meanwhile, the central panel on the right displayed an overview: the Bazaar’s current location, item count, today’s sales, recent patrons, and more. I skimmed the patron list and spotted my name along with Dante’s, Veyla’s, and a string of anonymous IDs—probably placeholders for all the Flux Jackals. Their cloaking devices must’ve also prevented Kalen from identifying who they were. Good to know.
Near the bottom of the list, I found “Security” and selected it—the central panel filled with a dizzying array of toggles, options, and sub-settings. My head spun as I tried to understand everything: the Surveillance System, Alarm Activation, and Automated Defence Turrets. Each setting appeared more advanced than the last.
Eventually, my eyes landed on precisely what I needed. At least, I hoped so.
I mentally clicked the small question mark beside it, and a description bubble popped up:
When I activated it, a loud hiss was followed by a resounding metallic thud that echoed through the bazaar. I turned toward the entryway as massive ballistic plates, thick and reinforced with synth-weave steel, descended smoothly from hidden compartments in the ceiling. Their surfaces were matte black, heavy with visible rivets along the edges, designed to withstand sustained blaster fire and explosives. They slammed into place against the ground, sending vibrations through the floor and sealing the entrance completely.
That took care of the gaping entryway.
I scanned the list a bit further and spotted another setting that would be useful right now:
The moment I flipped the toggle to “On,” the bazaar shifted and distorted around me. Every surface, including the walls, flickered translucent cyan for a split second before snapping back into place. A system message flashed across the main panel:
This was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. With just a few quick selections, I’d secured the bazaar tighter than anything I’d seen before. Currently, the chances of someone infiltrating this place are virtually zero. As far as I knew, no Flux Jackal had the skills to crack encryption this deep. Hell, there probably wasn’t anyone in Helstalgia who could manage it.
Satisfied, I opened my notifications. I was surprised to find I had reached level 5, now with 25 attribute points and five skill points to distribute. The strength I’d gained from the fragment still fascinated me, and at that moment, it felt like there was only one real choice regarding stats: Strength.
What a massive Strength stat combined with the power of the fragment could truly achieve remained unknown. However, given my new situation, I was more than willing to take the risk and see what the outcome would be.
The stat screen shimmered into view. Milo’s equipment still boosted dexterity, and everything else looked about right. My Strength sat at 6, and Charisma was debuffed. Or so I thought. I blinked, then blinked again. Last I checked, my Charisma had been nearly zero. The base was still 9, but now it read 221. I had never seen it that high before, anywhere, on anyone. It had to be some kind of error. Even with the Flux Jackals’ insignia, my Charisma had never been that high.
After completing the stat screen, I opened the Bazaar Manager and navigated to the Perks and Benefits section. A long list of options populated the main panel, most of which I didn’t recognize and would need to explore later. However, three of them stood out immediately:
“Gone in a Glitch” was the quantum exploit I witnessed live, and it was foolishly my fault. Now, I had the opportunity to practise the skill myself. “Talk is Cheat” was a new one I had never encountered before.
Huh. I wondered if Kalen had been using this on me. Most likely. He was probably running that skill as a background process, quietly cheating at every moment he could to squeeze more from the unsuspecting patrons drifting through this place like data packets through an unsecured network.
That explains a lot of why I felt so compelled. I knew it wasn’t natural.
I made a mental note to delve deeper into the Bazaar Manager once I was in a truly safe location. The manager window blinked out of view like a deal gone cold.
Without hesitation, I allocated all 25 attribute points to Strength and then closed the stats window.
I brought the fragment back out, and a surge of raw energy lit up my body like Samus charging a full Power Beam. Strength rippled through my arms, denser and more volatile than before. It felt as if I could crush not just a throat now; anything seemed bendable or breakable beneath me.
The blue glow of the fragment drew me in. Streams of unreadable data flowed across its surface like rivers of alien code, shimmering and dancing in a pattern just out of reach. Everything slowed. Sounds dulled. Movements became syrup-thick. Even breathing felt delayed, as if the world were caught in a stuttering frame.
It felt like slipping into a Matrix sequence: a vision that stretched, bent, and refracted. Each line of code twisted through my mind, untranslatable yet familiar in some strange, magnetic way. Time didn’t merely slow—it melted, and I embraced it.
The alert chime and sudden flash of the Grid app in my sight pulled me back to the present moment.
The comments section was filled with desperate wallet addresses or just an ‘F’ to pay respect to the Flux Jackals. A meme was attached to the post.
The 404 Bazaar resembled a scribble of glowing blue lines and orange blobs intended to represent “fire.” A Flux Jackal lay face down, his body resembling a melted action figure, and the cracked helmet had “UNPLUGGED” scrawled on the visor. He was bent over with his legs comically wide apart.
In the corner, a shaky “404” sign hung at an angle as if it were about to fall off the page. Smoke was represented by three curling lines labelled “smoke” in tiny text. The whole thing looked like a 12-year-old’s homework had been possessed by a memelord.
Well, son of a bitch.
Synthbringer was already posting about the situation, as lewd as ever, and naming the location. Damn, good thing I activated the security measures when I did. Cleaning up this mess and tightening defences just shot to the top of my priority list.
With housekeeping done, I needed to find that exit I’d been chasing to somewhere far away, where no one could locate me—the 404 Bazaar or the fragment. If this blew up, and it very well could, it would take some time for the word to ripple through the metaverse, but not much time at all. Synthbringer’s reach and influence were unparalleled. He could easily send a lot of trouble my way, even if unintentional.
Dante had mentioned metagating the Bazaar out of here. That was the best, and possibly the only, option I had. I reopened the Bazaar Manager and searched for “metagate.”
“Emergency Metagate Jump” appeared as the top result.
For a brief moment, I couldn’t believe my eyes. That is precisely what I was searching for.
I hit Activate. The LOCATION COORDINATES field exploded before my eyes, numbers randomizing at a blinding speed. I assumed it would stop on something truly arbitrary, and it did. The result meant nothing to me—just raw numbers, even more cryptic than the fragment code.
As the countdown ticked away, I reflected on the road that brought me here: the friends like Milo, who’d done everything they could to help—even if I hadn’t realized it at the time. Then some pretended to be friends, only to stab me in the back when I wasn’t looking. It had been a long journey to reach the Undernet, and until I arrived here, I hadn’t truly grasped the significance of my past actions, nor the weight of what I carried, or the butterfly effect it could unleash.
Dez had no clue what happened here, at least not directly from me. As the timer entered its final seconds, I quickly opened my DMs and sent him a thank-you message. Wherever I ended up, I wasn’t sure I would still have access to the Grid.
The countdown reached zero just as I noticed that my vision recorder had been running the whole time. I’d activated it earlier and forgotten about it.
The final transaction was initiated.
The world around me vanished in a fragmented burst of pixels and static. Wherever in the metaverse I reappeared, I was certain the data fragment wasn’t finished with me yet—not by a long shot.
The Final Transaction is complete.
Neon Rift is coming next.
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