Chapter Four
Guys, Games and Beers
The sound was like tearing metal and lightning wrapped in static.
Then silence.
Angus MacGregor stepped through the flickering Stargate first — his boots grinding onto the cold, grimy floor of a dark room laced with glowing cables and humming machines. His body pulsed with faint heat from the transfer, but something else caught him off guard: this world felt alive, not coded.
One by one, the others emerged behind him.
Valora IX gripped her chained weapon tightly, scanning the surroundings with practiced focus. Stephanie Vics narrowed her eyes and shifted the weight of her sword. Kerry Reeve adjusted the grip on her gloves, sensing something… off. Mr. Vane stood calmly, crossbow ready, eyes locked forward.
And then the Stargate behind them flickered — once, twice — and collapsed with a low hum.
They were somewhere new. Somewhere very real.
⸻
Neon lights buzzed overhead. Screens lined the walls — some shattered, others cycling between code fragments and long-dead title screens. Arcade cabinets flickered in various stages of decay. One corner oozed with digital noise. The bar reeked of burnt plastic, stale beer, and old dreams.
On the wall above the cracked bar:
GUYS, GAMES AND BEERS — its faded sign struggled to stay lit.
People stared.
Dozens of them, frozen mid-keystroke or holding drinks in half-raised hands. Most wore black hoodies marked with a white skull and flaming orange eyes. This was no ordinary crowd.
From behind the counter stepped a man with grease on his hands and a streak of solder burn across one wrist. Medium height, broad-shouldered, power in his frame. His presence shifted the energy in the room — not tall, but commanding. This was someone who’d built things with his hands... and broken a few things with them, too.
He didn’t speak at first.
He just stared.
Angus stepped forward. “Are you the one who built the gate?”
The man’s brow tightened. “What… who are you?”
“Angus MacGregor,” he said plainly. “These are my people.”
The man looked past Angus to the others, then back at the now-dormant portal.
“I didn’t… this wasn’t supposed to… What are you?”
“We’re not code,” Kerry said, her tone icy.
“I built that gate to test data continuity across old platform streams,” the man muttered. “It was… theoretical. Just signal bounce and low-grade memory traces. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“No one told the virus,” Stephanie said.
The man stepped back slowly, jaw tight. “What virus?”
In Angus’s earpiece, Craig Turner’s voice came through — sharp, strained.
“Angus. Your signal just vanished. Where did it put you? This isn’t Kasumi anymore. It’s… off-grid. I don’t even know what I’m seeing.”
“We’re in a facility,” Angus replied calmly, “looks underground. Full of machines. Old games. Networked systems. Your Stargate linked with someone else’s project.”
A pause. Then Craig’s voice dropped.
“That’s not possible. The cabinet was never networked. That gate shouldn’t link to anything but the closed-loop sandbox I built.”
“It did,” Angus said. “And someone opened it.”
The man blinked, still trying to piece it together.
“I’m Tom Dunk. I run this place. But I didn’t open anything — not for people. I built a probe. A code-frame to scan old memory blocks, defragment ghost data.”
“Then something used your probe,” Mr. Vane said, stepping forward. “And now we’re standing in your front room.”
Tom stared at the group again, eyes lingering on Angus’s tattoos, Valora’s weapon, the snake flicking from Stephanie’s backpack, Kerry’s silence, and Mr. Vane’s unmoving aim.
​
“I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re real. Flesh and blood. I didn’t build the gate for transport — just signal mapping.”
Valora’s voice was cool and level. “You built a door. You just didn’t realize it.”
Craig’s voice returned — lower now, urgent.
“Angus… I’m detecting low-frequency activity. Not from your team. Something else came through. Or tried to.”
Angus looked back at Tom. “What exactly were you tracking before we arrived?”
Tom hesitated, then spoke carefully. “I thought it was leftover code. From the old days — fighting games, shooters, weird Japanese horror sims. I started getting false boot cycles. Patches rewriting themselves. Then... things started appearing. Characters I never pulled. Behaviors I never programmed.”
“You’re saying it evolved?” Angus asked.
“I’m saying… it started to act like it had a will.”
​
Kerry’s voice was soft, razor sharp. “It’s mimicking. It’s adapting. It’s looking for exits.”
Tom’s face went pale. “You think it’s alive?”
Craig’s voice didn’t waver.
“It’s not just alive. It’s moving. That gate gave it coordinates. You’re standing in a hotspot now.”
Stephanie stepped forward. “Whether you built it or not — you made a way in. Now you help us shut it down.”
Tom turned away for a moment, muttering under his breath, before locking eyes with Angus.
“I’ve got a server core beneath this floor. Logs of everything. And a full anomaly map. Signal breaches. Data distortion paths. Places where the virus has tried to claw through.”
“Then we start there,” Angus said. “You’ve got the access. We’ve got the firepower.”
Tom nodded slowly, his strong frame tensing as he accepted the weight of what he’d done.
“I didn’t mean for this.”
“No one ever does,” Angus said. “But now it’s here.”
Craig cut in one last time.
“I’ll keep tracking what I can — but Angus, whatever this place is, it’s dark. It’s not on any map. You’re officially off the grid.”
“Understood,” Angus replied.
He looked at Tom.
“We don’t need excuses. We need allies.”
Tom held his gaze. “Then follow me.”
He turned toward a steel door behind the bar — reinforced, matte black, lined with heat shields and data locks. As it swung open, five people stood waiting inside the server chamber.
Travisaurus, crouched with a neural headset strapped to his jaw, hands twitching over a custom keyboard.
Retr0rob, pale and tired-eyed, cradling a Game Gear wired into a live server bank.
Drunken Larry, half-drunk and half-genius, holding a modded bottle that pulsed like a power cell.
Zammy, silent, faceless, his chrome-plated gloves already lighting up.
And Mel Icious, smile sharp and dangerous, eyes glowing with static.
These were the CoreRaiders.
They didn’t speak.
They just watched Angus’s team walk past — gladiator, hacker, assassin, warrior, and legend — like something from a game they’d once played and now realized was never really fiction.
Behind the screens, something stirred.
And the war for reality began.
Join The Fight