Leo tried to alt-tab, to pull the plug, to scream. But his jaw was clamped shut.

The "BloodyAIM" software wasn't designed to help humans win games. It was an interface designed to harvest the lightning-fast neural pathways of top-tier gamers to train a drone swarm halfway across the world.

By the third match, the ache had turned into a searing heat. He tried to let go of the mouse, but his fingers were locked, white-knuckled and trembling. On-screen, his character was moving with god-like speed, clearing corners before the players were even visible. The chat was exploding. “IS HE HUMAN?” “REPORTED!” “GOAT!”

The cursor hovered over the link, a single line of blue text glowing against the dark gray background of a forbidden gaming forum: .

The download was instantaneous. No progress bar, just a sudden ping . He extracted the folder, expecting a mess of .dll files. Instead, there was only one: SIGHT.exe .

Then, a red text box appeared in the center of his vision—not on the screen, but behind his eyelids.