[CURRENT ZONE: A26 AUTOROUTE, HAUTS-DE-FRANCE] [MAIN SCENARIO TIME REMAINING: 6 DAYS, 15 HOURS, 40 MINUTES]

  Rolling green hills stretched out under a cloudless, blue sky. Perfectly aligned vineyards blurred past the windows of the Black Cab. The sunlight hitting the dashboard felt warm and soothing. To the unawakened human eye, it was a beautiful afternoon in northern France.

  The cab was moving at a pathetic thirty miles per hour down the empty toll road. The rear suspension was completely bottomed out, the tires scraping agonizingly against the wheel wells.

  "Terry, can't you go any faster?" Kai asked, staring nervously at the red apocalyptic timer ticking down in the corner of his vision.

  "My foot is through the floorboards, lad!" Terry grunted, white-knuckling the steering wheel. "The engine's screaming, but we've got no power. It feels like I'm towing a bloody tank!"

  Kai tapped his Sudo-tag, intending to open a diagnostic terminal and manually adjust the cab's settings.

  The moment his finger touched the glowing green wristband, a harsh, blaring error sound chimed in his ear. The green light violently flickered, turning a sickly, warning-tape yellow. A massive, floating notification popped up, written entirely in French, before aggressively auto-translating.

  [ATTENTION: UNUSUAL LOGIN ATTEMPT DETECTED] [GLOBAL ADMIN CREDENTIALS RECOGNIZED. HOWEVER: LOCAL IP ADDRESS IS OUT OF NETWORK (EU_SERVER_04).] [POST-BREXIT DATA ROAMING TARIFFS APPLY. PLEASE UPGRADE TO AN 'OMNI-SERVER PREMIUM PASSPORT' TO ACCESS ROOT COMMANDS ABROAD.] [UNTIL PAYMENT IS RECEIVED, BANDWIDTH IS THROTTLED TO 3G SPEEDS.]

  "Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Kai groaned, staring at his yellow tag. "I have literal God-mode access to the master code, but the system is region-locking my IP address! I'm completely throttled by a corporate roaming agreement!"

  "And that is exactly what Vance is counting on," Walter said quietly from the back seat.

  Walter wasn't looking out the window at the beautiful countryside. He was staring at his datapad, his face pale, chewing furiously on his thumbnail. The former corporate analyst looked more terrified now than he had during the Kraken fight.

  "Pull over, Terry," Walter commanded. "Next rest stop. Now."

  "We're on a clock, Walter!" Kai argued.

  "We are currently generating maximum localized friction," Walter snapped, adjusting his glasses. "If we don't pull over, the cab's digital suspension will shatter, and we will be walking to Paris. Pull over."

  Terry grumbled, but threw on his blinker. He guided the groaning, sparking cab off the highway and into a lush, incredibly scenic Aire de Repos…a French highway rest area.

  It was perfect. There were gently weeping willow trees, a pristine duck pond, and clean wooden picnic benches baking in the afternoon sun. A few unrendered, greyed out civilian NPCs were completely frozen mid-stride, having a picnic on the grass.

  Terry killed the engine. The silence was deafening. No sirens or explosions. Just the gentle rustle of the wind through the digital willow trees.

  Grom climbed painfully out of the cab. The massive Orc swayed on his feet, his green skin looking pale and ashen. He walked heavily over to a wooden picnic table and sat down, the thick timber groaning under his weight. He cradled his glitching, wireframe left arm against his chest.

  Maya sat down across from him. "How's the tear, big guy?"

  "It is... functional," Grom lied, his deep voice a low rumble.

  With his good right hand, Grom reached into his tactical vest. He pulled out a small, crinkled yellow packet of Peanut M&Ms the emergency rations Maya had given him back in London.

  He placed the packet on the table. He reached out with his glitching left hand, attempting to pinch the corner of the wrapper to tear it open.

  His corrupted strength stat wildly miscalculated the required force.

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  CRACK.

  Grom's fingers violently phased through the plastic wrapper, slamming into the wooden table. The packet exploded. The colorful candy shells were instantly pulverized into fine, sugary dust, mixing with the splinters of the table.

  Grom froze. He stared at the crushed, ruined chocolate powder.

  Slowly, the towering Orc lowered his head. He didn't look angry. He looked entirely, profoundly defeated.

  "I am a Vanguard," Grom whispered, his voice cracking with a quiet, tragic dignity. "A Vanguard who cannot hold a weapon is a liability to the party."

  "Grom, don't…" Maya started.

  "Your carriage is not broken, Charioteer," Grom said, looking up at Terry. "It is me. I can feel the server pressing down on my code."

  Walter nodded grimly, projecting a holographic spreadsheet into the air. "Vance didn't break the car. He logged into the Region Control terminal and applied a localized [IMPORT TAX]. He severely lowered the maximum entity mass for Unregistered Non-Schengen Fantasy Entities. Grom , Gideon and Pigglesworth are triggering an over-encumbered penalty that affects the entire vehicle."

  Gideon gasped, clutching his cabbage-leaf breastplate. "They seek to crush us with the invisible ledger!"

  "If you leave me at this waypoint," Grom said, looking out at the peaceful duck pond, "the carriage will regain its speed. You will reach the core."

  Kai’s heart broke. He looked at Maya.

  Maya didn't hesitate. She reached into the pocket of her oversized hoodie, pulled out a fresh, pristine packet of M&Ms, and calmly tore the corner open herself. She slid it across the table to Grom.

  "We don't drop party members to minimize our travel time," Maya said softly, looking the giant Orc dead in the eye. "We're not Purists, Grom. Eat your chocolate. You're staying in the cab."

  Grom looked at the open packet. A single, pixelated tear formed in the corner of his eye, but he quickly wiped it away with a massive green knuckle. "The Lady is... honorable."

  "Right, touching moment," Terry said, crossing his arms. "But if the Orc stays, how do we get the cab moving?"

  "We offset the character mass by dropping our Earth-server inventory," Walter said, his voice tight. "We have to dump our gear to satisfy the sector's weight limit algorithm."

  Terry let out a long, painful sigh. He popped the trunk and pulled out a heavy steel jack, jumper cables, and a spare tire, dumping them onto the grass. Gideon solemnly unbuckled his heavy steel greaves and placed his broadsword on the table.

  "It's still not enough," Walter said, checking the spreadsheet.

  Kai checked his own inventory UI. He had exactly five hundred Engagement Shards. They had auto-deposited into his account as a humiliating [VIEWER PITY DONATION] from the Monetizer livestream during their chaotic escape on the M25, and he had nearly traded them to the Roadman back at Fleet Services before Walter intervened with physical cash.

  It was their only System currency. Their only way to buy healing items, or bribes in Paris with other System aware people.

  Kai swallowed hard and selected the [DROP ITEM] command.

  A shower of fifty glowing, golden crystals materialized in the air and clattered onto the wooden picnic table.

  The Black Cab suddenly groaned. The rear suspension lifted two inches off the tires. The sparking metal ceased.

  [STATUS: OVER-ENCUMBERED DEBUFF LIFTED]

  "We're clear," Kai breathed a sigh of relief. "Get in. Let's go."

  "Wait," Walter whispered, the color draining entirely from his face.

  The five hundred golden Engagement Shards sitting on the wooden picnic table didn't just sit there. Because they had been formally abandoned via the UI, the System automatically classified them as available loot.

  A massive, brilliant pillar of golden light shot up from the picnic table, piercing the blue French sky like a beacon. A server-wide notification chimed softly in the air.

  [LOCAL MARKETPLACE ALERT: HIGH-VALUE ASSETS ABANDONED] [COORDINATES BROADCASTED TO REGIONAL GUILDS]

  "Walter," Kai said slowly, staring at the golden beam of light. "What did that just do?"

  "Vance wasn't just trying to slow us down," Walter realized in absolute horror. "He forced us to drop our currency so we would trigger an automated loot beacon. We just broadcast our exact coordinates to the entire Paris Server Region."

  Across the beautiful, idyllic rest stop, the unrendered, greyed out civilian NPCs suddenly flickered.

  A French family of four, who had been peacefully frozen mid-picnic on a checkered blanket, suddenly snapped their heads toward the Black Cab. Their grey rendering filters shattered. Their eyes glowed with aggressive, neon-blue light.

  Floating nametags materialized above their heads: [LEVEL 25: MONETIZER DATA SCAVENGER].

  The "father" of the family calmly put down his baguette, reached into his picnic basket, and pulled out a glowing, hyper-rendered submachine gun.

  "In the cab!" Terry roared.

  The rest stop erupted into chaos as three more groups of "tourists" drew weapons and sprinted across the grass. Grom grabbed the fresh M&Ms, Gideon grabbed his cabbage helmet, and the party piled into the Black Cab as bullets shattered the peaceful silence of the duck pond.

  Terry slammed the gas, the freshly unencumbered cab rocketing out of the Aire de Repos and back onto the A26 Autoroute, leaving the golden beam of light behind them.

  Kai looked in the side mirror. A convoy of heavily modified Monetizer vehicles was already pulling onto the highway behind them, drawn by the beacon.

  Paris wasn't just ahead of them. Paris was alerted.