The slushie machine was still running when Lisa opened her eyes.
Strawberry syrup dripped onto her combat boots—*same boots from the first heist*—as the 7-Eleven security camera beeped 3:17 AM. Her hands shook. Not from fear. From *deja vu*.
The burner phone in her pocket buzzed:
**[UNKNOWN NUMBER]**
*Welcome to Loop #2. Try not to die this time.*
Outside, a news report blared from a passing car:
**"—another 404 sighting at the Kronos Tower—"**
Lisa spun—just in time to see *herself* in the black-and-white hoodie vault across rooftops.
*Wrong.*
She was *right here.*
---
### **THE NEW RULES**
Rabbit's hacker den now occupied a *different* sewer tunnel. Same energy drinks. Different graffiti.
*"Okay, *wild* theory,"* he said, pulling up a fractal map of the city. *"We're not in a time loop. We're in a *save file*."*
The screen showed thousands of overlapping heists—every 404 job Lisa ever ran, but with *microscopic variations*. A bank vault left open here. A guard spared there.
Lora traced a golden scar that hadn't existed last loop. *"So we *died* in the Arctic?"*
*"Nah."* Rabbit grinned. *"We *won*. Now the system's *resetting* to balance the scales