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Silver Wolf understands that reality is just another game with shittier graphics.
The rules are more complicated, sure - permadeath is a real bitch, and the physics engine is way too detailed for its own good. But it all works the same way.
She learned this young, sitting in a cramped room with a stolen console and nowhere else to go. The real world was cold and tiring and full of people who looked through her like she was already gone.
But in games, she mattered. In games, she could be someone.
—
Hacking is just speedrunning reality.
Silver Wolf tells this to herself while she's elbow-deep in some corporation's security system, fingers flying across holographic keys faster than most people can think. It's not about destruction or chaos or whatever the hell the Stellaron Hunters' manifesto says. It's about finding the exploits, the glitches and the shortcuts that let you skip straight to the end.
Every system has weaknesses. Every program has bugs. You just have to know where to look.
She finds them everywhere once she learns to see them. After all, the universe is just a massive code all the way down, and Silver Wolf speaks its language fluently.
(But she also wonders what would happen if she found the exploit in herself. The bug in her own programming that makes her chase high scores and speedrun records and the approval of people who'll never understand why it matters.)
—
Games are honest in ways people never are.
They tell you the rules upfront. They show you exactly what you need to do to win. There's no hidden agenda, no lies, and no one pretending to care when they don't.
But real people are glitchy as hell. They say one thing and mean another. They smile when they're angry, lie when they're scared, they hurt you and call it love. Their code is a mess - contradictory and irrational and impossible to debug.
Silver Wolf prefers the logic of games. Prefers knowing that when she dies it's because she screwed up, not because someone decided arbitrarily that she didn't deserve to live. Prefers respawn points to funerals, health bars to hospital beds, save files to memories that won't stop replaying no matter how hard she tries to delete them.
(She knows normal people don't treat reality like a game they're trying to beat. But normal people also don't grow up alone with nothing but a controller and a screen for a company, so maybe she's allowed to be a little fucked up about it.)
—
Silver Wolf collects games the way some people collect trauma.
Shelves and shelves of them, digital and physical, old and new, completed and abandoned. RPGs where she can be the hero. Shooter games that let her turn off her brain. Horror games that make her feel something other than being numb. Fighting games where she can beat the shit out of something without real-world consequences.
Each one is a world she can escape to. A place where the rules make sense and effort equals reward and dying just means trying again. She's got save files scattered across a dozen different universes, lives she can step into whenever reality becomes boring and depressing.
(Well, she had more before Herta went on that deletion spree. Tch. Silver Wolf's still bitter about losing all those max level accounts. Petty old hag couldn't handle getting outplayed by someone a fraction of her age.)
People think it's sad, probably. Think she's wasting her life staring at screens instead of living in the real world. But those people have never had to choose between reality and survival, never had to build themselves a home out of pixels and code because nowhere else would take them.
She might be wasting her life. But at least in games, she knows how to win. At least in games, she's good at something.
At least in games, she's not alone.
—
Silver Wolf thinks the Stellaron Hunters only recruitted her because she's the best hacker in the whole universe.
Because that's what Elio's script said so. Because her role in their cosmic game needs her specific skill set at this specific time. That she's just another pawn moving across the board, another tool in their arsenal.
She accepted their offer anyway because they gave her the biggest challenge she's ever seen - destiny itself, invulnerable to her exploits. The ultimate game, the final boss, the last achievement that'll prove once and for all that she's the best.
(And maybe it's because Kafka calls her 'Wolfie' and actually talks to her like she's a living person instead of a player in Elio's script. Maybe because Blade reminds her that she's not the only one who's broken. Maybe because Firefly treats her as a precious friend. Maybe it's because she's actually part of a party instead of playing solo.)
—
Silver Wolf is eighteen and she still doesn't know how to talk to people without a screen between them.
Face to face conversations feels like playing a game without knowing the controls. She can't read the HUD, can't see the dialogue options, can't tell if she's making the right choices until it's too late and she's already said something wrong.
Online is easier. She can edit her messages before sending them. Can craft her persona pixel by pixel until it's exactly what she wants people to see. Can log off when things get too real, respawn tomorrow with a save file.
But sometimes - not often, but sometimes - she wonders what it would be like to be the kind of person who doesn't need the screen. Who can just exist in the world without constantly checking their stats, without treating every interaction like a quest objective, without needing the validation of high scores to know they matter.
(She's tried deleting that part of herself before. The part that wants connection, that aches with loneliness, that wishes someone would see past the player to the person underneath. But it keeps coming back, a bug she can't patch out, a glitch in her own code.)
—
Silver Wolf finds herself cornered in a collapsing server room, ice creeping up her legs and her systems failing one by one. She should be scared. Should be panicking. Should be doing something other than staring at her HUD and thinking about respawn points.
Except there are no respawn points in reality. Permadeath is permanent. Game over means game over.
The ice reaches her chest and Silver Wolf thinks, absurdly, about all the games she never finished. All the save files gathering dust. All the achievements she never unlocked because she skipped on to the next challenge before completing the last one.
She's been speedrunning life, skipping through the boring parts, always chasing the next highest score. But what if she missed something important in her rush to the end? What if there were side quests worth playing, conversations worth having, moments worth savoring instead of skipping?
(But Firefly finds her before the ice reaches her heart. Pulls her out with warm hands and worried eyes inside that mecha suit that Silver Wolf pretends not to see. She thinks this counts as a respawn after all. That someone cared enough to hit continue button for her.)
Maybe that's worth more than any high score.
—
Silver Wolf finds herself on the Astral Express more often than she'd like to admit.
Official business, she tells herself. Checking in on Elio's script, making sure the Trailblazer is hitting their marks, definitely not because she misses—
Stelle challenges her to a fighting game within five minutes of her arrival.
"I'll beat you this time," Stelle says, grey hair falling into her eyes as she grabs a controller. Her grin is wide and confident, the same one she used to wear back when they ran missions together.
Silver Wolf tries not to think about how Stelle doesn't remember any of those missions. Doesn't remember the Stellaron Hunters or the cramped safe houses where they'd kill time between jobs. Doesn't remember Silver Wolf teaching her combos and complicated techs at three in the morning because neither of them could sleep.
"You said that last time," Silver Wolf says, settling onto the couch. "And the time before that."
"Third time's the charm."
It isn't. Stelle loses spectacularly, the same way she always does - too aggressive, too impatient, going for flashy moves instead of practical ones. But she's grinning the whole time, cursing when Silver Wolf pulls off a perfect counter, immediately demanding a rematch.
The competitiveness is still there. That fire that makes Stelle throw herself at impossible challenges just to see if she can win. Silver Wolf had wondered if losing her memories would change that, sand down the edges that made Stelle who she was.
But here she is, mashing buttons and cursing at her and looking genuinely devastated when Silver Wolf's character lands the final blow.
"Again," Stelle demands.
"You're just going to lose again."
"So? Maybe I like losing to you."
Something cracks inside Silver Wolf's chest. Because Stelle doesn't remember saying almost the exact same line months ago in a different life.
They play seven more rounds. Stelle loses six of them, wins one through sheer dumb luck and immediately celebrates like she's won the world championship.
It's so painfully normal that Silver Wolf almost forgets this isn't how things are supposed to be. Forgets that Stelle should remember her and should understand why Silver Wolf keeps coming back.
But when Stelle throws her controller down after another loss and says, "You're still the best player I know," with that same gleam in her eyes and—
Silver Wolf realizes it doesn't matter that she doesn't remember. What matters is that she's still here, still challenging Silver Wolf to stupid games, still grinning like losing is just another reason to try harder.
"One more round," Silver Wolf says.
Stelle's grin could light up the entire room. "Hell yeah!"
Later, when Silver Wolf is back doing things for Elio's script and Stelle is off saving some planet or another, Silver Wolf adds this session to her collection. Another save file, another moment worth keeping. Another reminder that even when you lose everything, some parts of you stay the same.
She's glad the fire in Stelle's eyes survived. She's glad that she still plays the exact same like before, like winning is the only thing that matters, even when she knows she'll lose. She's glad that she's still 'her' despite losing her memories.
(She's glad that in some small way, she still gets to keep this.)
—
Silver Wolf understands that reality is just another game with shittier graphics.
But lately, she's starting to think that it's not such a bad thing after all. That the complicated rules are what make it interesting. That permadeath is what makes the choices matter. That the lack of a HUD means you have to actually pay attention to what's in front of you.
She still prefers games. Still retreats into digital worlds when the real one gets too heavy. Still treats every challenge like a boss fight to be exploited and beaten.
But sometimes, when Kafka smiles, when Firefly laughs at her memes, when Blade grudgingly accepts her help with something, when Stelle challenges her to another round even though she'll lose, when everything just clicks into place - Silver Wolf thinks maybe the real world has its own achievements worth unlocking.
Achievements you can't speedrun. Connections you can't exploit. Moments that matter because they can't be saved and replayed ever again.
Not that she'd ever say that. She's got a reputation to maintain, after all.
But whenever she's alone with her screens and her games, Silver Wolf saves her progress on the life she's building. Just in case. Just to see where this route leads.
—
Just to find out what happens when you stop speedrunning life and actually start living in it.