The rain had stopped by dawn, but the city was still bleeding.Jayden stood at the edge of the canal, watching the crimson water twist between the rusted iron pillars. The river ran quiet, too quiet. For a city like this, silence never meant peace—it meant something had gone wrong deep inside its veins. Nova crouched a few feet away, fingertips tracing a strange pattern carved into the stone. It shimmered faintly in the half-light, pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat. “This symbol,” she said softly. “It’s old… but not dead. Someone’s been keeping it alive.”Jayden’s eyes followed the mark. The same spiral of wings from the metallic disc. “It’s connected,” he murmured. “Every one of them leads somewhere.”Nova looked up. “Beneath?”He nodded. “Always beneath.”For weeks, the signs had been leading them lower—through tunnels, forgotten train stations, and abandoned catacombs that predated even the earliest maps. The city above was alive with noise and neon, but down here… it was just

Jayden’s heartbeat.Her eyes burned.She’d watched him vanish in that blinding light, felt his hand slip away as the chamber imploded. For weeks, search teams combed the underground network — found nothing but collapsed tunnels and residual electromagnetic traces. The official report said he’d died saving the city.But she knew better.Jayden Knox didn’t die easily. And lately, she’d begun to hear him again.It started as whispers — faint transmissions buried in background frequencies, ghost signals repeating the same word: Nova.At first, she thought she was losing her mind. Then she started tracing them. Each signal led deeper underground, below the power grid, to a network that shouldn’t exist anymore.And now, standing before the ruins, she felt it again.A vibration under her palm. A heartbeat in the metal.Her comm clicked softly. “Benoit. Are you still at the site?” It was Commander Elise Tan from Central Command, her voice sharp but tired.Nova pressed her earpiece. “Affirmat