Tanya tilted her head. "A glitch—like a video game?"

Ishita looked bewildered. "What's a glitch?"

"Normally it's like an error," Tanya said. "Like if an app shuts itself when it shouldn't." She turned to Olena. "Yeah?"

"Is that a form of Exploit?" Mrs Eceer interjected, her head snapping to look at Olena.

"Yes!" Olena yelled, pointing towards her.

Mrs Eceer leaned forward, clasping her hands together. "So what's the difference between an Exploit and a Glitch?"

"I have no idea what is going on," Ishita said, eyes dancing between them.

Tanya held a hand up. "Yeah, slow down guys. What's all this about?"

Mrs Eceer turned to face her, backing up until her legs hit the tattoo chair. She sat down. "Back when I was listening to the radio, I heard people talking about these Exploits—Classes or Abilities being used or unlocked in unintended ways. This group of police were tracking down a man who'd been hunting down people with powers. It turned out that he'd unlocked an Exploit that let him consume people's power when they died."

"Woah," Tanya said. That sounds terrifying.

Mrs Eceer nodded before turning to Olena. "They always used the word Exploit though, not Glitch."

"Glitch is like mistake and Exploit is what happen when System lets you keep it."

Tanya nodded slowly. "I suppose that makes sense. In speedrunnin' games, exploits are the things people use to quicken their time—but they are still glitches."

"My notebooks!" Mrs Eceer cried, staggering over to the sofa and picking up one to flick through. "Here, this is everything I have on glitches."

Olena looked first. "I not sure why I bother. Only thing worse than written English is having to read handwriting."

Tanya took it from her. The notes were concise and well thought out. It explained her theory for people getting them from finding a flaw in The System and how she suspected The System then couldn't go back on that use case without breaking its own previously established rules. The example she had didn't have a name, but she'd collected all sorts of quotes from the police radio, and knew that it gave him the powers of who he'd killed temporarily—like stealing their Interface.

She passed it on to Ishita, Fahad leaned over her shoulder to read it too.

"How did you hear about it?" Mrs Eceer asked. Her look darkened. "Is there anyone around here with one you know of?"

"No, no. I never met someone with one," Olena said. "I use Restricted Question to find out all of most powerful Abilities, and they were all custom Glitch ones. Like look at this!" She offered out her bracer canon and the little screen again flickered before settling on an image of an Ability.

• • •

New Worlder Unlocked by Achievement: Glitch You have been granted an external tether to the Hjokrtis System. You may now level and evolve through its interface, though it does not recognize you as authorized. [UNSUPPORTED ENTITY]: Minor glitches or irregular effects may occur during level progression.

• • •

"Holy—" Tanya started.

"Or this one!" Olena added. She thumped it on the side and the text changed.

• • •

Aspect Breach Unlocked by Achievement: Glitch You have broken the threshold of human Presence. You may now train and enhance Presence beyond its natural cap.

• • •

Tanya's head was reeling. She expanded her menu to look at her own Presence. It was a trackable stat option.

Why isn't this a core Attribute?

• • •

Presence

A measure of how the world perceives you — and how much it can't ignore you. Presence governs your ability to stand out or disappear, command attention, or pass unnoticed. It is not charisma, beauty, or reputation, but weight: how much space your soul seems to take up in a room.

• • •

So it wasn't included because it isnt a pool and both high and low Presence can impact you positively—it's just situation dependent.

She didn't even know how to react to the New Worlder Ability. It broke her brain to even think of it. That strange alien species had their own System and a human had gotten access to it.

"Wait," Tanya said, disrupting Mrs Eceer and Olena out of some chat about the monitor. She hadn't been listening. "Fahad has one of these really powerful Abilities?"

All eyes turned to Fahad.

"What's it say?" Ishita pressed, gently.

Fahad looked overwhelmed. He gulped and looked up at Ishita. "It's got lots of weird symbols and long words."

"I'll look for you, babu," Ishita said, pulling up the Interface.

Tanya wondered if they'd made a pact for that or if it had just given that to them. Then her mind drifted to how the Interfaces of smaller children worked—or even babies.

Ishita grabbed one of the papers from the pile that had been used to make the map and she wrote it out. "It has formatting," she said around the pen lid between her teeth. They all crowded round, watching the letters be written one by one. It felt like no one dared to breathe. Once she was done, she held it up.

• • •

Achievement: [GLITCH]

You have discovered a functional deviation from System-intended behavior. Per §7.14.3.b of the Core Operational Integrity Protocols, such deviations may be repaired, reabsorbed, or nullified, except in cases where the founder of the glitch has established self-cohesion prior to System recognition.

Fahad Sharma has successfully decoupled spatial re-entry tethering from Material-Origin Shadow Access, creating a persistent Verge-anchor untethered from fixed coordinates. This glitch is now registered to your soul-signature. No rollback will be applied.

• • •

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Tanya whistled slowly. "Sounds like he found some kind of liminal space—like another plane or somethin'."

"So how he get the cool Ability?" Olena demanded.

Mrs Eceer stroked her chin. "I suppose the same way we all get our Achievement based Abilities—Major Crossroads."

"What level are ya bud?" Tanya asked. He was even closer to Ishita now, leaning into her side with furrowed eyebrows.

"Two," he whispered.

"Then we must go level!" Olena declared.

Mrs Eceer walked closer to Fahad, her skirt flowing behind her. "It's scary isn't it? New things?"

He nodded.

"This is a very good thing. You like heroes yes? Your mother told me you like this Japanese animation. Who's your favourite hero?"

Fahad's quivering lip became a small smile. "Natsu from Fairy Tail. He can eat fire."

Mrs Eceer's eyebrows shot up. "Oh my word. Well don't do that."

"What she's tryin' to say," Tanya interjected. "Anime heroes wouldn't be heroes if they didn't get cool Abilities right? Goku has Super Saiyan and the One Piece kid has his stretchy fruit. Natsu's a like—dragon guy right?" Tanya was clutching at straws now. It had been a good decade since her anime phase.

Fahad sat up straighter. "I get shadow powers no one else has."

"Exactly, or, well, hopefully. We need to get you to Level 3 to see what it offers you. Sound good?"

"Yeah," he said, still thinking it through.

Olena leant down so they were face to face, exuding excitement. "I don't believe you! You get awesome shadow Ability and we need to go out there and find it!"

He jumped up. "Yeah!"

Tanya shook her head with a smile. Olena was many things, but a poor hype man was not one of them. She looked at the molten beans inside her very singed pot. A chef however…

"What did you even manage to do to this?" Tanya asked.

"Is no gas so I use flame thrower module," Olena said, as casually as she was discussing recipes.

Tanya's heart lurched. "You used a flame thrower in my kitchen?" She ran to the kitchen door and threw it open, ready for complete destruction. Smoke was escaping from the window above the door Olena had cracked. She coughed and wafted as she neared the stove. It wasn't too bad. Tanya was lucky Mrs Eceer had taken the doors off the cupboards, and that her smoke alarm was mains powered. A wailing siren was the last thing they needed right now.

"Good heavens," Mrs Eceer said, following and wafting smoke with her hand too. "I'll do the cooking next time," she said.

"Although I will say," Tanya said, looking over her shoulder. "Lava or not, I'm pretty buzzed for some warm food."

"I'm withholding judgment in case it's inedible," Mrs Eceer replied.

They both coughed their way further in to grab some bowls and then retreated back out, shutting the door for the smoke to escape outwards rather than within the shop. It was a speedy meal. Tanya had all sorts of questions for Olena about her cool screen, and she had so much theorising to do about these Exploits—but that could wait. Sunlight couldn't. The shop was filled with the noises of cutlery clinking against bowls and the first warm food they'd had in days.

They'd barely finished choking down Olena's "lava beans"—which, despite all odds, had a smoky richness that no one dared compliment out loud—when Tanya clapped her hands and stood up.

"Right," she said, nodding at the shop's cracked side door. "Let's see what the neighbours left us."

Fahad's eyes lit up, still hyped by the talk of anime and levelling. "We breaking in?"

"No," Ishita said. "We're tactically reclaiming resources from an abandoned unit that has no legal occupants and hasn't paid rent since the Corruption started."

"That's a lot of words for yes," Fahad said, rubbing his hands together.

Olena was already stretching her arms and cracking her knuckles like she was warming up for a workout. "If they have salon chairs, I take for waiting room. Mirrors—we take all. Make space look double size, is good for energy. Also those little shelves for shampoo, perfect for tattoo inks. Very classy, very modern. We make it look like place rich girl cries in."

"You've planned this," Tanya said, grabbing a splintering wooden plank from the reject pile. The plan before would have been to run, but with levelling Fahad, a simple fight would be perfect—they just needed to make sure it was simple enough.

"Obviously," Olena replied. "Who wants to tattoo in sad cave? Not me."

They filed into the street and up to the boarded-up door and windows of what had once been "Clip & Curl," a mid-range, slightly pink-themed salon that had closed in the middle of the night. Tanya hadn't realised for a while, because they'd been open stranger hours before they left anyway and she hadn't seen them move any of their things out.

Probably escapin' debt collectors or somethin'.

They paused before the window in a huddle, bracing for whatever was inside. The signage was sun-faded and spider webs covered the entrance. All windows were covered with the same metal shutters as Tanya's shop.

Mrs Eceer, holding her parasol like a war sceptre, gestured to the door. "Olena?"

"With pleasure," Olena grinned and aimed her cannon arm at the door.

"Gently," Mrs Eceer ordered.

It buzzed and glowed, the machine juddering side to side. She pressed it into the lock and with a loud thud, the orb hit the door. Then it swung open with a satisfying pop, revealing the stale air and shadowed guts of the salon.

Dust motes floated like lazy insects, catching what little light filtered through the broken blinds out back. Instead of a kitchen they had a little sink area, with a high up decorative window in the same style as Tanya's. Bottles of shampoo and hairspray lined one of the far walls, slightly melted but upright. Magazines were scattered across the cracked vinyl chairs. A fake plant in the corner drooped like it had given up long ago.

"Looks like they just left," Ishita murmured.

"I think they did," Tanya said. "Alright, safe sweep first. Everyone stay alert."

The group fanned out, their steps muffled by grime. Fahad flicked his fingers absently as he walked, pulling at little threads of shadow like he was practising sleight of hand. He seemed to relax more with each motion—like he was building muscle memory for something the world hadn't taught him yet.

"Look at this!" Olena yelled from one of the back rooms. She was cradling a wheeled salon trolley with drawers full of glittery clips and faded near-empty dye boxes. "We clean it, use it for aftercare packs!"

Mrs Eceer nodded approvingly. "Or bandages, antiseptic, and ink bottles."

"I love upcycling," Olena said, pushing it out like she was driving a luxury car.

Tanya grabbed a hand broom from the counter and used it to poke through some drawers. Most of it was junk—old receipts, hair extension samples, a still-chirping radio in battery death throes—but there were a few heavy hand mirrors, a full-body adjustable one on a stand, and some of those trendy wooden shelving units shaped like hexagons.

A dark patch on the counter marked where the till used to stand. Some of the decorations had been ripped off the walls, and all of the hair dye was gone. She guessed someone had robbed the place at some point.

"Yo, you can do some serious feng shui with this stuff," she said, stacking the mirrors. "We'll mount them in the front, maybe do a checkerboard look."

Fahad was now at the base of the stairs leading to the upper flats, standing so still he seemed to blend into the shadows pooling at the edges.

"You good, kid?" Tanya called.

He nodded. "I want to check up here."

Tanya raised an eyebrow, then looked at Mrs Eceer, who gave her a nod. "We go together."

The stairs creaked under their combined weight. Both flats they passed were ajar—probably already looted during earlier chaos—but they did a quick sweep of each.

One was completely empty, the wallpaper peeled in long strips. Another had furniture pushed against the windows and a blanket nest in the bathtub. Signs of a squatter, long gone.

"Clear," Tanya said after the second.

Then Fahad stopped outside the last unit, hand on the frame. "There's something weird here."

Olena had followed them up, now panting from dragging a steamer trunk of products she'd found behind a cracked panel. "If it is another ghost," she said, "I am not dealing with that today. My boots are not blessed."

"No ghosts," Fahad whispered. "Just… space."

He stepped inside and the shadows clustered around him like smoke curling toward a fire. The room was nearly empty, but the ceiling felt higher somehow, the walls a little too far apart. Tanya's skin prickled.

"It looks like the remnants of a portal," Mrs Eceer said, looking around. "Doesn't look like any monsters came in here though."

Fahad extended his hand, and a length of wooden beam fell out of the shadows behind him and into his hand. He stared down at it in awe.

"Did you just fetch that with shadow?" Ishita asked, staring.

He blinked. "Woahhhhh!"

Tanya smiled. "Keep practicing that. If we can get you to teleport stuff further, we're set for way easier lootin'."

By the time they climbed back down, they'd gathered a decent haul—shelves to repurpose, chairs and fold-out tables for barricades, and a pair of framed motivational quotes that Olena insisted would go in the bathroom for "maximum irony." Tanya rigged up a makeshift sled from a door they yanked off its hinges and they dragged it back through the street with effort, keen eyes, and a lot of swearing.

The shop already felt different when they returned. More alive. More full.

As they stashed their findings and swept the rest of the smoke out from Olena's culinary crimes, Fahad was still playing with the shadows under the counter. His control was getting stronger—more confident. Assistant clicked with each new success—it was the closest it could get to clapping. Tanya watched him with a mix of pride and dread. The more they discovered, the more it felt like they were building something serious here.

Mrs Eceer placed the salvaged salon sign against the wall and crossed her arms. "Tomorrow, we range further."

"For more loot?" Olena asked.

"For materials," Tanya said. "And maybe—" she glanced at Fahad "—a proper fight for our boy here. Level 3 won't wait forever."

Fahad looked up, face set. "I'm ready."

Ishita walked behind him, placing one hand on each shoulder and leaning close to one ear. "We've all got you, babu."

Tanya gave a small grin. "Good. Let's see what the rest of the block has to offer."

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