8 Hours to Apex

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8 Hoursto Apex

Eight hours. Four fractured minds. One militarized corporate state.

A data courier carries a decaying cyber-weapon in her head. She has eight hours to reach the city's core and get it out.

Read on WEBTOON Start with the premise

Forcibly injected with a decaying, mind-splintering cyber-weapon, a cynical data courier has exactly eight hours to breach a sovereign corporate state and infiltrate its mainframe before her brain liquefies.

The Iron Expanse

Thirty years ago, corporate syndicates and rebel hacker coalitions tore the global network apart. One company, OmniNexus, walked out of the wreckage owning the grid, the automation, and the data. It poured concrete over the ruins and built a sovereign state on top, then called it the Iron Expanse.

Dean is a freelance data courier with one rule: never look at the payload. Then a dying syndicate boss injects hers straight into her skull, and starts the clock.

The code doesn't stay in one piece. It splits into three voices that all want the wheel. She has eight hours to cross six districts, one fortress bridge, and a corporation that will burn whole blocks to stop her.

Dean sits on a rooftop ledge in the rain with her back to us, looking out over the industrial sprawl of the Marrow.
Dean, above the Marrow.

The route

Six districts, one direction, and a clock that doesn't stop. Each hour takes Dean closer to the center.

  1. The Marrow

    Subterranean trenches and slums. Where the run begins.

  2. The Kiln

    Industrial deep refineries, toxic air, and droids that never stop working.

  3. The Concourse

    A subaquatic rail line under the bay. No signal, no eyes, and no way out if something goes wrong.

  4. The Flood

    A lawless basin of floating night markets, built over the crater the Data Wars left behind.

  5. The Span

    A fortress bridge bristling with automated guns, and the last wall before the capital.

  6. The Apex

    The central citadel and the OmniNexus mainframe. The clock runs out here.

Looking straight up between stacked slum towers, power cables strung across a narrow strip of rain-grey sky.
Looking up from the Marrow.
Close portrait of Dean in the rain, a circuit-trace marking running across the side of her face.
The circuit marking is where her implant meets bone, and where her HUD begins.

Dean

Freelance data courier, age 22

Hard-bitten, practical, and out of options. Dean has no cause and no interest in who rules the Iron Expanse. She's running because in eight hours the weapon in her skull will kill her.

Don't look at the payload. Don't ask who sent it. Never pick a side.

Dean's courier code

She isn't alone in there.

The weapon split itself into three. Each one has its own way of surviving, and each one changes how the world looks when it takes over.

Havoc

Offense

Aggression and kinetic threat-response. When Havoc surfaces, the world snaps to heavy black ink.

The Siren

Deception

Sensory misdirection and radar cloaking. When the Siren surfaces, light smears and the city blooms neon.

The Scholar

Analysis

Tactical pathfinding and hacking. When the Scholar surfaces, the world resolves into green phosphor lines.

Chapter 1 is in production.

Follow along for release news and the first look at every new chapter.