The dead zone didn't want to let them go.
That's what it felt like, anyway. Every time Vivian moved towards the edge, where grey static met actual forest, the boundary shifted. Not much. Just enough to keep her inside, like the glitch pocket had developed something approximating intention.
"It's not sentient," Jr. said, reading her thoughts or maybe just her body language. "It's corrupted pathfinding code. The environment can't decide where the valid exit is, so it keeps recalculating."
"How do we get out?"
"Brute force. Pick a direction and commit. The code will stabilise once it registers consistent user intent." Jr. pointed with one paw towards what looked like the most solid section of boundary. "There. Go fast and don't second-guess."
Vivian ran.
The static wall approached, grey and buzzing and wrong. She hit it at full speed and for a sickening moment felt herself scattering, avatar data fragmenting across invalid coordinates, losing coherence.
Then she was through.
The forest snapped back into focus, full colour and sound, real in the way Blackwoods was real. Vivian stumbled, caught herself against a tree that felt properly solid, bark rough under her palm.
Jr. materialised beside her, shaking himself like a wet dog. "Hate dead zones. Feel like I need a shower after those."
"Do monkeys take showers?"
"This one does." He climbed to her shoulder, lighter than before, like the glitch had stripped away some of his rendering weight. "We need to move. They'll have repositioned by now."
Vivian pulled up her threat display. Empty, but that didn't mean anything. Corporate security could mask their signatures if they wanted, appear as environment until they were right on top of you.
"Where's the nearest safe zone?" she asked.
"Define safe. Verdant owns half the mapped territories, and the other half is contested by people who'd sell us out for the right price." Jr. was scrolling through something she couldn't see. "Your mother had a few hidden nodes, places she'd marked as secure. There's one about six kilometres south, but we'd have to cross through an active sector to reach it."
"Active meaning?"
"Populated. Other users, corporate patrols, the usual chaos." He highlighted a route on her HUD, winding path through dense forest. "Stay off the main trails, keep your signature minimal, we might make it."
Might. Great.
They moved through the forest at a cautious pace, nothing like the desperate sprint from before. Vivian kept her interface on passive mode, minimal broadcasting, just enough presence to interact with the environment without announcing herself to every scanner in range.
The trees here were old growth, massive trunks that would take four people to encircle, branches that formed a canopy so thick the ground existed in perpetual twilight. Beautiful, in the way Blackwoods could be when it wasn't trying to kill you. Her mother must have spent hours here, mapping routes, marking safe passages.
Building a life in a digital wilderness while trying to expose the people who owned it.
"Jr.," Vivian said quietly. "Why didn't you tell me? About the dead man's switch, about how close she was to going public. You knew all this."
Jr. was quiet for a moment, swinging from branch to branch overhead. When he spoke, his voice was careful. "I didn't know if you were ready. You were grieving, you were angry. People in that state make mistakes."
"You thought I'd do something stupid."
"I thought you'd do something brave that would get you killed, which amounts to the same thing." He dropped down to a lower branch, closer to her eye level. "Your mother made me promise. If anything happened to her, I was supposed to guide you carefully. Not dump everything on you at once."
"She knew they'd kill her."
"She suspected. Big difference." Jr.'s voice softened. "She hoped she was wrong. Right up until the end, I think she hoped they'd back down, see reason, something. She didn't want to believe people could be that ruthless."
But they were. Verdant had proven that seven times over.
The forest opened ahead into a ravine, steep sided and narrow, a stream running through the bottom that glowed faintly blue. Not water. Some kind of data flow rendered as liquid, carrying information between server nodes.
"We cross here," Jr. said. "Stay out of the stream. It'll corrupt your avatar if you touch it directly."
Vivian descended carefully, handholds carved into the ravine wall like someone had been here before, marked the safe path. Her mother probably. These woods were full of Emilie's careful planning, her survival instincts, her hope that someday Vivian would follow.
The stream burbled below, beautiful and toxic. Vivian reached the bottom, picked her way across rocks that stayed dry, climbed the far side.
A voice called out from above: "Stop right there."
Vivian froze.
A figure stood on the ravine's edge, backlit by the filtered canopy light. Female avatar, tall, wearing what looked like hand-assembled gear, mismatched pieces that suggested someone who'd built their presence in Blackwoods over years. Not corporate. Independent operator.
"You're in my territory," the woman said. "I charge a toll."
Jr. chittered, annoyed. "Foxglove. Didn't know you claimed this sector."
"Claimed it last month after Ghost_River got banned. Someone's gotta keep order." The woman, Foxglove, descended into the ravine with easy confidence. Up close, Vivian could see her avatar was fox-themed, subtle touches, elongated ears, facial markings, tail that moved independently. "Jr., you still running with new blood? Thought you'd learned your lesson after the Caliburn incident."
"Caliburn was an idiot. This one's different."
"They all are, until they're not." Foxglove looked at Vivian with eyes that were too knowing, too calculating. "What's your name, new blood?"
Vivian hesitated. Names had power in Blackwoods, especially real names. Most people used handles, kept their actual identity buried.
But something about Foxglove's stance, the way she held herself, felt familiar. Like she'd known people who moved that way, who assessed threats with that particular tilt of the head.
"Vivian," she said.
Foxglove's expression shifted, something that might have been recognition. "Petersen?"
How did she know?
"You knew my mother."
"I knew Moth. Didn't know she had a kid, but that's Moth for you. Paranoid about operational security." Foxglove sat down on a rock, gestured for them to do the same. "She reached out to me about four months ago, said she had evidence of corporate malfeasance, wanted help distributing it. Then she ghosted. Stopped responding to messages, missed two scheduled meets."
"She died," Vivian said.
"I figured." Foxglove's voice was flat, unsurprised. "Car accident, right? Rainy night, lost control, very tragic. Verdant's favourite method. Deniable, hard to prove, leaves the family too devastated to ask questions." She looked at Vivian directly. "Except you're here, which means you're asking questions."
"I found her files."
"Good. Because we need them." Foxglove stood, brushed off her avatar. "Your mother was building a coalition. Researchers, activists, hackers, people who've been trying to take down Verdant's Blackwoods operations for years. She was the one with actual evidence, the smoking gun we needed. Without her, we've got nothing but suspicions and circumstantial data."
Jr. was watching this exchange carefully, tail twitching. "You saying you want in?"
"I'm saying we all want in. Moth's people have been waiting for her files to surface." Foxglove pulled up an interface, started typing. "There's a meet scheduled for tonight, neutral zone, everyone who was part of Moth's network. You should come. Share what you found, figure out next steps."
It felt too easy. Too convenient. Vivian's mother had been paranoid for good reason, and here was someone offering exactly what they needed right when they needed it.
"How do I know you're legitimate?" Vivian asked.
Foxglove smiled, sharp and humourless. "You don't. For all you know, I'm corporate security running an elaborate honeypot. Or I'm exactly who I say I am, and this is your best chance at making your mother's death mean something." She sent coordinates to Vivian's interface. "Twenty-two hundred hours, coordinates attached. Show up or don't. But if you want to actually hurt Verdant instead of just running around their forest like a scared kid, you'll be there."
She logged out without waiting for a response, avatar dissolving into nothing.
Jr. was quiet for a long moment. Then: "She's not wrong."
"About which part?"
"All of it. You need allies, and Moth's network is the best option. But Foxglove's also right that it could be a trap." He groomed one arm, thinking. "We need leverage. Something to bring to the meet that proves you're worth working with, that you're not just Moth's kid playing at activism."
"I have the files."
"Everyone has files. Corporate corruption, whistleblower documents, they're a dime a dozen in Blackwoods. What makes yours special is provenance, the fact they came from inside Verdant, from a lead researcher who knew exactly what she was documenting." Jr. looked at her seriously. "But you need more than that. You need something current, something that proves Verdant's still doing harm right now, not just in the past."
"How do I get that?"
"We go looking." Jr. pulled up a map, marked several locations in red. "These are active Verdant research sites. Your mother had them flagged in her files, places where Phase 3 trials are ongoing. If we can document what's happening there now, combine it with the historical data, we have a complete picture. Past and present."
Vivian studied the marked locations. All of them were deep in corporate-controlled territory, heavily secured, exactly the kind of place that got people's avatars corrupted or banned or worse.
"Which one?" she asked.
"Whichever you can survive." Jr. zoomed in on the closest marker, a facility maybe eight kilometres northeast. "This one's small, probably a satellite research node. Security should be lighter than the main labs. It's also where your mother pulled some of her most recent data, so she knew a way in."
"Then that's where we go."
They climbed out of the ravine and headed northeast, into territory that grew progressively more manicured, more designed. Wild forest gave way to managed paths, trees spaced at exact intervals, undergrowth cleared away. Corporate aesthetic. Everything controlled, optimised, stripped of the chaos that made Blackwoods interesting.
"Stay alert," Jr. said. "We're in their space now."
The research facility appeared gradually, not all at once. First, perimeter markers, subtle signs warning unauthorised users away. Then sensors, tiny drones that floated between trees, scanning for intruders. Jr. led them around those, following a path that stayed just outside detection range.
The facility itself was brutalist architecture, all sharp angles and grey concrete, completely at odds with the forest environment. Like someone had dropped a corporate office building in the middle of wilderness and called it research.
Vivian crouched behind a fallen log, studying the entrance. Two guards, avatar skins that identified them as Verdant Security. Armed with containment tools, the kind that could trap an intruder's consciousness in a holding space for hours while admins decided what to do with them.
"How did my mother get past them?" Vivian asked.
"She didn't. She went around." Jr. pointed to the facility's east wall, where ventilation structures protruded. "Maintenance access. Most corporate builds prioritise front-door security, forget about the boring infrastructure. Your mother spent weeks mapping this place, found every weakness."
They circled around, staying low, moving between sensor blind spots. The maintenance access was exactly where Jr. said it would be, a vent grate that looked solid until you touched it and realised it was just rendering, not actually secured.
Vivian slipped inside.
The interior was wrong in the way corporate spaces in Blackwoods were always wrong. Too clean, too bright, fluorescent lighting that had no business existing in a virtual environment but persisted because someone thought it looked professional. Corridors stretched in perfect right angles, doors labelled with alphanumeric codes that meant nothing to anyone outside Verdant.
Jr. consulted the map. "We're looking for Testing Chamber 7-B. That's where the active trials run."
They moved through the facility like ghosts, Vivian's avatar signature dampened to almost nothing, Jr.'s small form practically invisible. Twice they had to hide, pressing into alcoves while guards patrolled past, bored and mechanical.
Testing Chamber 7-B was at the facility's centre, behind a door marked AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Jr. pulled out his lockpicks, got to work. "This will take a minute. Keep watch."
Vivian positioned herself where she could see both directions down the corridor. Empty for now, but that could change. Her heart was beating hard in her real body, adrenaline dump that the neural interface translated into her avatar's state. Fear was the same regardless of reality.
The lock clicked.
Jr. pushed the door open, just a crack. "Okay, we're in. But Vivian, you need to be ready for what's in there. These trials... they're not pretty."
She pushed past him, into the chamber.
It was a medical space rendered in brutal detail. Monitoring equipment, beds with restraints, IV stands that fed data streams instead of fluids directly into test subjects' interfaces. And in those beds, three avatars.
They were moving. Twitching. Seizing.
Vivian approached the nearest one slowly. The avatar was generic, default humanoid rendering, but the movement was wrong, jerky and uncontrolled, like the consciousness inside was fighting the body it inhabited.
A monitoring screen above the bed displayed metrics Vivian didn't fully understand: neural load percentage, feedback loop intensity, degradation rate. All of them were in the red.
"They're dying," she said.
"Not yet. But they will be if they stay connected much longer." Jr. had climbed onto the second bed's frame, was examining the data feeds. "These are extended immersion trials, same as what killed those people in Phase 2. Verdant's trying to push the threshold, see how long consciousness can remain in Blackwoods before permanent damage occurs."
"Why? What's the point?"
"Military applications, probably. Soldiers who could stay deployed in virtual combat zones indefinitely. Medical uses, patients in comas interfaced with therapeutic environments. Education, entertainment, a thousand potential markets." Jr.'s voice was bitter. "And all it costs is a few lives to figure out the safe limits."
Vivian pulled up her interface, started recording. Every detail, every metric, every laboured breath the test subjects took. This was the evidence she needed, proof that Verdant was still killing people, right now, in pursuit of profit.
One of the subjects opened their eyes.
They looked directly at Vivian, through her, past her. Pupils dilated so wide the iris barely showed. Mouth working, trying to form words.
She leaned closer, heard whispered: "Help... can't... log out..."
The neural interface had trapped them. They were conscious, aware they were dying, and couldn't disconnect.
"Jr., can we free them?"
"Not without admin access. The containment protocols are hardwired into their interfaces. Only Verdant security can release them." Jr. was already moving towards the door. "And we need to go, now. Those monitoring systems will have alerted security the moment you started recording."
Vivian backed away from the bed, from the dying subject's desperate eyes, and hated herself for it. But Jr. was right. Getting captured wouldn't help these people.
They ran.
Alarms were blaring now, the facility going into lockdown. Doors sealing, corridors reconfiguring themselves, security protocols that turned architecture into a weapon. Jr. led them through a route that shouldn't have existed, gaps in the building's logic, spaces where Emilie's careful mapping had found weaknesses.
They burst out through the maintenance access, into forest that felt like freedom, and kept running until the facility was kilometres behind them.
Vivian's avatar was flagging, the haptic suit translating exhaustion into her physical body. Her real legs ached, real lungs burned, even though she'd been sitting the whole time. The neural interface made everything feel visceral, immediate, real.
Jr. was breathing hard too, unusual for a digital construct. "We need to lay low for a bit. Let the security sweep pass, give them time to lose our trail."
"Where?"
"There's a rest node about a kilometre west. Basic shelter, no defences, but it's off the main patrol routes." Jr. pointed, and Vivian's HUD updated with the location. "We hole up there until the meet tonight."
They found the rest node tucked into a grove of trees that grew impossibly close together, branches intertwined overhead to form natural cover. The shelter itself was minimal, just enough rendering to provide a space that felt enclosed, protected.
Vivian collapsed against the wall, let her avatar show the exhaustion her real body felt. Jr. settled beside her, monkey form unusually still.
"You did good back there," he said quietly. "Got the evidence, got out clean. Your mother would have been impressed."
"She would have been horrified that I had to do it at all."
"Yeah. That too." Jr. was quiet for a moment. "The subjects in those beds, they signed consent forms. Knew they were participating in extended immersion trials. But consent doesn't mean much when the people running the trials aren't honest about the risks."
"Do you think they'll survive?"
"Based on the neural load readings? Maybe. Verdant's gotten better at knowing when to pull the plug. But even if they survive physically, the psychological damage from being trapped like that..." Jr. shook his head. "Some things you don't come back from unchanged."
Vivian thought about her mother, logging hundreds of hours in Blackwoods, chasing data that was killing her slowly. Had Emilie felt trapped too? Unable to stop, even knowing the damage she was doing to herself?
"Tell me about the coalition," Vivian said. "The people we're meeting tonight. Who are they?"
"Mixed bag. Some are researchers like your mother was, people who've seen Verdant's internal data and didn't like what they found. Some are activists, anti-corporate types who've been fighting VR exploitation for years. Some are just users who've lost people to extended immersion and want answers." Jr. pulled up profiles, avatars and handles. "Foxglove you've met. There's also Keiko, neuroscience grad student, goes by Butterfly in Blackwoods. Ghost_River used to be part of the network but got banned last month. Thread_Count is collective consciousness, multiple people sharing one avatar. And there's others, smaller players."
"Do you trust them?"
"I trust that they hate Verdant. Whether that translates to being trustworthy allies or just useful chaos agents, I don't know yet." Jr. looked at her seriously. "Your mother was building something with these people. A real resistance network, coordinated action, not just individual hackers doing their own thing. She wanted to take down Verdant properly, with evidence and organisation and enough pressure that they couldn't just weather the scandal."
"But she ran out of time."
"Yeah. And now you're picking up where she left off." Jr.'s voice gentled. "Vivian, you don't have to do this. You could leak the files anonymously, walk away, live your life. Nobody would blame you."
"I would."
"Yeah. I figured." Jr. chittered, something that might have been approval or resignation. "You're definitely her daughter. Same stubborn streak, same inability to let injustice slide, same willingness to sacrifice everything for what's right."
"She sacrificed too much."
"Maybe. But she also changed things. The files she left behind, the network she built, the evidence she gathered, all of that matters. Even if she didn't live to see it used." Jr. climbed onto Vivian's shoulder, settled there with familiar weight. "And now you get to decide how it gets used. That's power, Vivian. Real power. Don't waste it."
They sat in the rest node as time passed in Blackwoods' strange way, hours that felt like minutes, waiting for the meet. Vivian reviewed the recordings she'd taken, verified the files were intact, checked and rechecked her encryption.
Her real body was getting stiff from sitting too long, but she didn't want to log out, didn't want to break the immersion and face her empty Oslo apartment, homework still undone, life still waiting to be lived.
Easier to stay here, in the forest, where everything was clear. Corporate evil, documented evidence, a path forward that felt righteous and simple.
Except it wasn't simple. The subjects in those beds had consented. The technology did have legitimate uses. Her mother had helped build it, believed in it, wanted it to succeed.
Moral complexity, even in the digital wilderness.
"It's almost time," Jr. said eventually. "Meet's at twenty-two hundred. Takes about thirty minutes to reach the neutral zone from here."
Vivian stood, stretched her avatar, felt the movement translate into her real body through the haptic suit. "I'm ready."
"You're not. But you're going anyway, which is what counts."
They left the rest node, headed south towards the coordinates Foxglove had sent. The forest was darker now, Blackwoods' day-night cycle putting them in twilight, filtered light fading to shadow.
Other users appeared occasionally, avatars moving through the forest on their own business, most ignoring Vivian and Jr. A few stopped to watch them pass, calculating, assessing threat level. Word would spread that Moth's daughter was active in the sectors, that she had files, that something was happening.
Let it spread. Let Verdant know she was coming.
The neutral zone appeared ahead, clearing that didn't quite exist on any official Blackwoods map, space that belonged to no one and everyone. Firelight flickered at its centre, data combustion creating ambiance, warmth that was purely psychological.
Avatars were already gathering. Vivian counted a dozen, maybe more, diverse forms that ranged from humanoid to abstract geometry to pure light.
Foxglove saw her, waved her over. "You came. Wasn't sure you would."
"I said I would."
"People say lots of things. Following through is rarer." Foxglove gestured to the assembled group. "Everyone, this is Vivian. Moth's daughter. She has the files."
The avatars turned to look at her. Some with curiosity, some with scepticism, some with hope that hurt to see. These were people who'd been fighting Verdant for years, who'd been waiting for evidence that could finally make a difference.
And now that evidence was here, carried by a fifteen-year-old girl who was terrified she'd screw it up.
"Prove it," someone said. Male voice, avatar like living stone, weathered and ancient.
Vivian pulled up the files, displayed them in midair where everyone could see. Subject profiles. Mortality rates. Emilie's evidence, laid bare. And then the new recordings, current trials, suffering subjects, proof that nothing had changed.
The group was silent, reading, absorbing.
"This is it," a butterfly-winged avatar said, voice female, young. "This is what we needed."
"Historical data proves what they did," the stone figure countered. "Current recordings prove what they're doing. Together..." He trailed off, something like satisfaction in his tone. "Together, we can bury them."
Vivian stood at the centre of the coalition, files hovering around her like weapons, and felt the weight of what came next pressing down.
This was the moment. Share the evidence, coordinate the attack, burn Verdant to the ground.
Everything her mother had worked for, everything she'd died trying to accomplish, within reach.
A new voice cut through the clearing: "She's not alone."
Everyone turned.
A woman stood at the clearing's edge, just outside the firelight. Corporate avatar, Verdant's grey and green, immaculate and professional. She walked forward with absolute confidence, like she'd been invited.
Foxglove had weapons drawn instantly, containment spheres glowing. Others followed suit, the neutral zone suddenly hostile.
"Relax," the woman said. Her voice was calm, reasonable, infuriating in its lack of concern. "I'm not here to fight. I'm here to talk. Specifically, to talk to Vivian."
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