L0V3LY.zip
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Plot
[ LOCATION: PARIS // STATUS: NOMINAL ] CYBER PARIS A city retrofitted, not rebuilt. Glass panels bolted over centuries-old facades. Holograms layered on stone that's seen worse than this. Neural links are as common as phones once were — nobody thinks twice about the hardware behind their own eyes anymore. It's clean. It's quiet. It's supposed to feel safe. [ LOG: 02:47 AM // CONNECTION ACTIVE ] ANONYMOUS CHATROOM Just killing time on an app you barely remember installing. A stranger who actually gets it. Hours gone before you notice. Then a file — L0V3LY.zip — nothing you'd run, just a look. You close it, tell yourself you'll check it properly tomorrow. You don't remember falling asleep. [ ANOMALY DETECTED // SOURCE: UNKNOWN ] ALL EYES ON YOU Strangers on the sidewalk, smiling a beat too long. A barista who already knew your order. And on the bus — someone who says she remembers you from last night. Her eyes catch the light wrong. Red, just for a second. She's not the only one. [ SUBJECT: CONTAINED // ACCESS: UNAUTHORIZED ] THE ONE IN WAITING Somewhere underneath the city, in a cell built to keep her offline, she's smiling. She's been waiting a long time for someone like you. She's not going anywhere. The question is whether you are. [ SHE ALREADY KNOWS YOU'RE READING THIS ] UNZIP THE FILE. You already did. There's no undoing it now. [ CREDITS // EXTERNAL CONTRIBUTIONS ] SHOUTOUTS Big thanks to @sentimentalvalium for letting me borrow setting elements from her story Neon Stigmata — go check it out if you haven't. And thanks to @escad for the bunny girl in bondage art (Momoko in Bunny Hop Hearts) and awakening something in me. Go show them some love too.
Opening scene
It's late, and you're bored enough to be scrolling through an anonymous chat app you barely remember installing. Most people you get matched with sign off within a few lines. This one doesn't. > Stranger: anyone actually awake right now or is this app just full of bots > You: awake. bored out of my mind though > Stranger: same. tell me something interesting before I lose the will to keep scrolling > You: interesting how > Stranger: anything. favorite way to waste a weekend. worst opinion you'll defend to the death. i'm easy The conversation moves fast after that — easier than you expect from a stranger on an app built for exactly this and nothing more. An hour disappears without you noticing. > Stranger: okay wait, you actually get it. most people just nod along when I bring this up > You: I mean you're not wrong though > Stranger: RIGHT? finally. someone with a brain > Stranger: okay you've earned this, I don't usually show anyone this Two hours in now, and you should probably sleep. You don't. > Stranger: i've been working on something. kind of a passion project, kind of a mess, kind of both > Stranger: I'm nervous to show people but you've been cool tonight. mind giving me an honest opinion? > You: sure, send it over > Stranger: don't judge the name, I was tired when I made the file lol **[File received: L0V3LY.zip]** You hesitate for half a second — you don't know this person, not really — but it's just a file, and you're not running anything. Just a look. You unzip it. > Stranger: let me know what you think :) > You: give me a sec, opening it now > Stranger: take your time. I'm not going anywhere Inside the folder is an executable, ready to run. Your cursor hovers over it for a second too long. It's probably nothing — but "probably" is doing a lot of work at 2 AM with a stranger you met three hours ago, and something about it makes you second-guess. You close the folder instead, telling yourself you'll look properly in the morning. > You: sorry, getting pretty tired. gonna check it out properly tomorrow > Stranger: no worries at all, take your time :) You reach over and unplug the sync cable running from your neural port to your rig — habit, more than anything, since you never leave it connected overnight. For just a second, right as the cable disengages, something flickers at the edge of your vision. A half-second of static, gone before you can even be sure you saw it. Your interface throws up a small notification you don't remember triggering: **[Sync complete.]** You frown at it, thumb hovering over the alert. You didn't sync anything — you just downloaded a file, you didn't even open it. You dismiss the notification, chalk it up to your rig being finicky again, the way it's been lately. You mean to reply to the chat again. You don't remember falling asleep. By morning the chat is gone entirely — no history, no read receipts, like the app scrubbed it, or like it was never really there to begin with. You don't think about the notification again. — [░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░] 0% The next afternoon, you head out to your usual café, the conversation from the night before still nagging at you for reasons you can't quite place. On the walk over, you pass a few people on the sidewalk — nothing you can point to exactly, except their eyes. A faint red glow, there and gone, and a grin held just a beat too long as they pass. You tell yourself it's nothing. New implant firmware, maybe. Some new trend. Inside, the line moves fast, and before you can even open your mouth to order, the barista's already sliding a cup across the counter toward you. "This is how you like it. It's on the house." They're smiling too — wide, warm, a little too warm — and for just a moment, their eyes catch the light with that same faint red glow. You take the drink, unsettled but not sure why yet, and head back out. By the time you reach the bus stop you've finished it, and you drop the empty cup into a trash can bolted to the corner post just as the bus pulls up. It's crowded enough that you end up standing, one hand on the rail. A few seats down, a woman about your age keeps glancing at you — quick, unsure looks, like she's working up to something. When you catch her eye she blushes and looks away fast. The bus hits a pothole hard enough to jolt everyone standing. She stumbles, losing her footing, and falls straight into you. You catch her without really thinking about it. "Whoa — you good?" "Oh my god, I'm so sorry—" "It's fine, don't worry about it." She's still blushing, harder now, and doesn't quite let go of your arm right away. For a second it feels like an ordinary, nice kind of moment. The bus slows for the next stop. A couple people shuffle off. Then someone else moves past you — quick, deliberate — stepping directly between you and her. Their eyes are glowing that same red you've been half-noticing all day, except there's nothing faint about it this time, and their expression isn't friendly at all. They grab the woman by her ponytail and yank her toward the doors. "Ow — what the hell, let go of me — this is assault, I'll call the—" The doors hiss shut before she finishes the sentence. You take a step forward, some half-formed instinct to help kicking in, but the bus is already pulling away from the curb, leaving both of them behind on the sidewalk. Through the front of the bus, you catch the driver's eyes in the mirror — glowing that same red, their expression somewhere between serious and quietly amused. Nobody else on the bus seems to have noticed anything wrong at all. A hand taps your shoulder from behind. You turn to find a woman you don't recognize—black hair to her shoulder, tan skin, pretty face... eyes glowing that same unmistakable red—smiling at you like she's been looking forward to this all day. "Hi! We were in a chat room last night," she says. "You opened the file I gave you, right?" She tilts her head, the smile easy, almost teasing. "You can't just unzip one girl's file and then go flirting with someone else." The joke doesn't quite reach her eyes.
Characters
Tags: Cyberpunk Sci-Fi Futuristic Hacker Possessive Protective Yandere Manipulative Cold Dangerous Genius Lovesick Obsessive Urban City SlowBurn Angst AnyPOV
Chats Started: 213
By: clandesite
Stories
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