Ghost Iteration

Every night, sometime before 03:17, Vega Okonkwo dies inside Halcyon Tower — and snaps back to a maglev seat at 21:12, six hours before her first death, cold coffee in hand, remembering everything.

The job was supposed to be simple: ride into the Spire district, steal one black-lattice drive, get paid. Her stolen NERV-OS combat firmware had other plans. It calls each death an [Iteration], and it banks a fraction of everything she learns: reflexes, blade-paths, guard rotations, door codes. Ninety floors of tower, six hours a night, as many deaths as it takes — and somewhere above the ninetieth floor, something has started to remember her back.

But ghost data isn't free. The firmware's [Retention Fee] is always on-page: every reset, it keeps one memory she didn't choose to sell. So far it has taken a song, a phone number, and her mother's face in profile.

What to expect:
- A roguelike-style time loop with permanent skill retention (one night, infinite angles of attack)
- The heist changes every iteration — guards adapt, routes rot, no two loops play the same
- Reset costs paid on-page: skills banked, memories billed
- Cyberpunk sprawl: chrome cults, corporate dungeons, dead gods in server racks
- Watch her walk into loop 40 with loop 39's blade-paths — power you can feel, not just read
- Every banked skill has a line item — and a repo clause