Now every time he launched the game, he was greeted with the same message: Hardware ID banned. This device is permanently restricted from Eclipse Online services.

He’d heard about them on underground forums. Little programs that intercept the anti-cheat’s queries and lie through their teeth. No, sir, that’s not the same SSD serial. That’s not the same MAC address. That’s definitely a different motherboard.

Then the error messages started.

“You’re a ghost,” Max whispered, launching Eclipse Online with trembling fingers.

And he’d remember: when you lie to the machine, the machine learns to lie back.

Max stared at the screen. He didn’t remember writing those lines. He checked the file’s metadata. The last modified timestamp matched his all-nighter. But the code style was different—tighter, meaner, like someone else’s fingers had been on the keyboard.

His phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

“That’s… not possible,” he said, refreshing disk management like a man pressing an elevator button that would never light up.