Novels by Duxtoscrib

Rain slashed sideways through the half-dead skyline. Sirens wailed, then stuttered and died.“Street sensors are looping,” Kael said, sprinting ahead. “She’s blind for maybe sixty seconds, go! Lina vaulted a wrecked bike. “Sixty’s enough if you don’t keep talking!”Richard stumbled after them, his pulse thrumming in sync with the flickering streetlights. “They’re watching through the power grid. She’s in the current itself!”Kael snapped, “Then don’t touch metal.” They ducked beneath a collapsed sign. Sparks spat from hanging cables. The tower loomed through the haze, black glass split with veins of red light.“That’s Genesis,” Lina muttered. “Looks alive.” “Almost there,” Kael said. He tapped his wrist pad; a distorted map blinked. “Maintenance corridor two blocks east leads straight into the sub-levels.”“Assuming it’s not a trap,” Richard said. “Everything’s a trap,” Lina shot back. “We just run faster than it closes.”A digital billboard above them flickered. Frost’s sigil replace

The hatch screeched open to wind and light. Lina climbed out first, boots crunching on broken glass.The city stretched before them, familiar yet wrong. Neon signs flickered in perfect rhythm, two blinks, pause, two blinks. Streetlamps pulsed together like a heartbeat. The skyline shimmered faintly, as if a film of static covered the air.Richard emerged next, squinting. “It’s… humming,” he whispered.Kael followed, scanning with his gauntlet. “No signal variance. She’s synchronized the grid. Every circuit’s running on the same pulse.”“Meaning?” Lina asked. “Meaning the city’s breathing Frost’s pattern.”A tram glided past, sparks spilling from its rails. The passengers inside stared straight ahead, motionless, eyes reflecting the same rhythm as the streetlights.Richard took a step forward. “They’re linked.” Lina caught his arm. “Don’t. You touch that system, she’ll know exactly where we are.” Kael looked around. “We need cover. Now.”They darted into a narrow alley between two hig

Darkness pressed against them like weight.Only the echo of dripping water broke the silence.Lina flicked the manual flashlight on her rifle. A cone of light carved a tunnel through the dust corrugated steel, torn cables, rusted signage that once read Sub-Transit Line 12. Everything beyond the beam felt alive, listening.“Keep quiet,” Kael murmured. His breath made small clouds. “Sound carries down here.” Behind them Richard stumbled. “Where … are we?”“The old maintenance levels,” Lina answered softly. “No sensors, no power grid. Genesis abandoned them decades ago.”Kael checked his wrist scanner nothing but static. “They didn’t abandon them,” he said. “Frost mapped every tunnel that could carry a Qi current. She wanted redundancy.”Richard rubbed his temples. “She’s whispering again. Faint. Like she’s under the floor.”“Block her out.” Lina caught his arm. “Focus on my voice.” Kael kept walking, boots scraping metal. “Talking won’t help if she’s inside the resonance field. The more

The first detonation of light threw everyone to the floor.The air went molten, humming with a frequency that seemed to vibrate inside bone.“Get down!” Lina shouted. She caught Kael’s arm, dragging him behind a half-collapsed cabinet as shards of glass rained from the ceiling.Richard stood in the center of the room, haloed in white and black energy. It rippled from his skin like heat off metal, every pulse bending the lights around him. Blood trickled from his nose; his eyes glowed twin amber fires.Kael pushed up onto one knee, squinting through the radiance. “Containment field activate it!”“It’s fried!” Lina yelled back. “His Qi surge burned the circuits!”A table lifted from the floor, twisted in mid-air, and exploded against the wall. A wave of force rolled outward; metal screamed, pipes ruptured, steam filled the chamber.Kael covered his mouth. “Then improvise.” Lina grabbed the nearest injector from a med-tray, thumbed the dial. “Stabilizer dose. If I can reach him”“Don’t,”

Rain softened to mist as Richard and Lina reached the old quarter. The narrow streets here looked abandoned shuttered windows, neon signs half-dead, the faint hum of forgotten power lines overhead.A flickering sign read: “Harlow’s Remedies Open 24/7.” The front display was nothing but dust and cobwebs. A plastic skeleton grinned from behind cracked glass.Richard frowned. “This is your idea of safe?” Lina’s voice was steady, but her eyes scanned the street like a soldier checking exits. “Safety isn’t about walls. It’s about who’s watching the doors.”He followed her in. The bell above the door didn’t ring, it had been gutted. Inside, the smell of antiseptic cut through mildew.“Don’t talk,” she whispered. “The walls have ears.” They passed through the dim front room to a back corridor lined with medical posters curling at the edges. A rusted cart held syringes that didn’t belong in any legal hospital.Richard stopped. “You sure this isn’t another Genesis lab?” Lina didn’t answer. She

Dr. Evelyn Frost stood before the observation glass, her reflection rippling across the tank. Inside, a body floated half-machine, half-man, veins glowing with the faint shimmer of residual energy.Behind her, the chamber hummed like a slumbering beast.“Subject Thirteen expired forty-two minutes ago,” said the technician, voice shaking. “Heart rate spiked, then flatlined. His cells couldn’t stabilize the Qi flux.”“Couldn’t?” Frost’s voice was precise, not angry. “Or wouldn’t?” The technician hesitated. “We… we don’t know.”Frost turned, her white coat swaying like a blade drawn from its sheath. “Then find out. Failure is not a data point I accept.”She walked into the adjoining corridor walls lined with screens showing live surveillance. On one of them: Richard Walter. Blurry, rain-soaked, pulse racing.“Still alive,” she murmured.A man in a tailored suit approached, his shoes silent on the steel floor. Director Hawthorne, military liaison, Genesis’s financier.“You told me Subject