[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-love-exe-surviving-a-cyberpunk-death-game":3,"chapter-love-exe-surviving-a-cyberpunk-death-game-love-exe-surviving-a-cyberpunk-death-game-chapter-54":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Love.exe: Surviving a Cyberpunk Death Game",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1878927,2492,"Chapter 54: Podium","love-exe-surviving-a-cyberpunk-death-game-chapter-54",54,"\u003Cp>Both trucks coasted through the finish arch and slowed to a stop inside the area beyond it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When his engine idled down to nothing, the first thing Proxy read was the leaderboard on the far wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>1 | NYX -- 47:23.441\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>2 | PROXY -- 47:23.442\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He read the second line twice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The number did not change on the second read, which confirmed the number was the problem and not his eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The finish area had been built with no instinct for restraint and no one around to suggest one.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Grandstands curved around the end of the rainbow road, luminous and tiered, while the finish arch still cycled its colors behind them and the podium ahead sat on a platform elevated to a height that existed only for effect.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The effect was working.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Her door opened before he had finished processing the board.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By the time he stepped out of his cab, she was already waiting at his door, and she had the beam on.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She held up one finger and let that sit between them for a moment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"One millisecond,\" she said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Proxy glanced at the road behind them, then back at her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The road narrowed at the end,\" he said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She did not lower the finger.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"One,\" she said, \"millisecond.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She bapped his shoulder playfully..\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I won the bet,\" she said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He looked at the board once more, then back at her. \"Your headlight was ahead of the chassis. That would change the board, which should account for-\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Proxy,\" she said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He stopped, then frowned at the board.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"That should account for a timer that does not accurately represent the-\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Proxy,\" she said again, warmer, and bapped him a second time.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"You have won.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She beamed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Mhm.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He exhaled through his nose and shifted his weight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"It’s fine. The timers are nearly identical anyway.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"There’s one millisecond,\" she said. \"Which I have, and you don’t.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She appeared to find that sentence extremely satisfying.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She said it once more, slower, to make sure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He adjusted his collar and redirected his attention to the grandstands, which had nothing useful to offer but were at least a direction that was not her face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"So,\" she said, and the sing-song lift appeared fully into her voice. \"I’ve been thinking about what I want.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Proxy kept looking at the grandstands.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"You’ll let me know,\" he said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"When I’m ready to tell you,\" she said. \"I have some ideas. Very good ones.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He glanced at her briefly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I’m sure they’re reasonable.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"They’re very reasonable,\" she said, looking at him with that wide, pale-eyed expression that had never been as innocent as it showed itself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She scrunched her shoulders toward her ears briefly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Maybe.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Maybe,\" he repeated, flat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Maybe something small,\" she said. \"Something you’d barely notice.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She tilted her head.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Or something very specific. Specific has a certain charm to it.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He looked at her, then away again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"You should just make your wish,\" he said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Not yet~! I want to think about it very thoroughly.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Headlights appeared through the finish arch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The third place came through at speed and braked inside the area. It was the drone hacker’s truck.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She parked, got out, read the board, noticed the two of them, and found a space near the arch wall and stood in it without comment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Six more trucks followed over the next several minutes, arriving in whatever order the rainbow road had sorted them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One had no hood at all, the engine running open in the air.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One had its rear turned into scrap metal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All of them were still working.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Nine finishers appeared into the space, and the finish area, which had been large and empty, stopped being empty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Nyx did not stop talking through any of it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She revisited the millisecond.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She mentioned the bet’s possibilities the way someone holds a wrapped thing up to the light to see the shape without opening it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"A general request has flexibility,\" she said, while the fifth truck came through.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"But a specific one, that’s a different kind of satisfying.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She said it with extreme focus.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Proxy rubbed his neck and glanced toward the growing line of finishers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Are you not curious about the other racers?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She gave him a look that communicated, without using any words, what she thought of that.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was then that Athena descended from above the finish area, in the unnecessary way as always.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Carmine dress.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Blue pulse at the collarbone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The wide, composed smile aimed at the nine of them below with the warmth of someone genuinely pleased to see guests she had been expecting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She announced the results.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First, Nyx.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Second, Proxy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Third, Watcher.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then the six remaining finishers in their order.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The virtual reality teleported the top three to the podium without warning.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Nyx on the first step, Proxy on the second, the drone hacker on the third.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first step was slightly taller than the second.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Athena announced the bonus for the next game.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The nature of it would be revealed at the moment of its use, because she found anticipation was one of the finer things she could offer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, she introduced the losers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She read the fifteen names from the roulette pool in order.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the last name was read the screens changed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Numbers appeared above each name and climbed in real time as the audience made their decisions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some climbed quickly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some barely moved.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the numbers stopped changing, twelve names had enough and three did not.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the island, three bodies lay in three separate locations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The drone feeds found each one. They were motionless in the specific slack way of people whose consciousness was elsewhere, faces unreachable, the quiet of absence rather than sleep.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Three feeds, three windows on the screen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The event would proceed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first skull exploded at the right temporal region, the detonation propagating left to back in under a tenth of a second.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The top of the cranium separated outward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Blood and grey matter expanded upward together and came down across the ground in a radius of two meters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The legs contracted once and stopped.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The second detonation held internally slightly longer before the skull gave way at the rear. The back of the head became the exit point.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Everything behind the body was covered by fleshy bits.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And as for the third, the face distorted first as pressure built, and then the forehead split outward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Everything above the jaw became a mangled mess.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The three feeds focused on the bodies after.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Proxy looked at the feeds until they cut.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had understood the brutality of the entertainment when the host first explained the game.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Athena returned above the podium.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Twenty-one remained, she said, and the Crucible had performed as intended.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What followed would be discussed when the time was appropriate, and the time was not yet appropriate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She said it with the warmth of someone who already knew what came next and found the not-knowing charming in everyone who did not.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Pantheon released them, and the light went out.\u003C\u002Fp>",1175,"2026-06-10T06:21:49.059Z",1,"novelbin.me","d55d2073e8d204a4904376b40f1da305ae5a984988e125aba47ec89f5040c89f","love-exe-surviving-a-cyberpunk-death-game-chapter-55","love-exe-surviving-a-cyberpunk-death-game-chapter-53",77,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Flove-exe-surviving-a-cyberpunk-death-game-cover.jpg"]