Dylan didn’t sleep that night.He sat in the darkened lab, the shard blooming quietly under its containment field. It no longer pulsed with just light, but with fragments of time — dreamlike scenes coalescing for moments before dispersing again. Vivian’s presence wasn’t static. It moved. Shifted. Lived.By morning, the entire research team was in a frenzy. Analysts, physicists, dimensional theorists — all pulled from sleep or called in from satellite facilities. But Dylan never left the room. Not even to eat. Not even to rest. His eyes remained locked on the slowly unfurling mystery.Day FiveMendez arrived, hair unkempt, still in a field jacket. “We ran a full spectral density matrix. That thing’s not just alive — it’s responding. Emitting counter-frequencies when we scan it, adapting to the analysis. It’s like it’s… aware.”“Not like,” Dylan murmured. “It is.”He stepped up to the containment field. The shard shimmered, almost brighter when he approached. A whorl of holographic memo

Dylan’s Apartment – Perimeter Block 12, Outer WardsThe windows were shielded, the morning light barely seeping in through aged smartglass. The air hung still. Vivian sat on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a long sweater that nearly swallowed her. Her bare feet touched the cold tiles, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was staring at the steam rising from the tea on the nightstand — as if the cup were something foreign. Something unreal.She was still learning how to be. How to hold. How to exist without splintering.In the kitchen, Dylan moved quietly, his back turned but his eyes glancing toward her in every reflection. Watching her without watching her.“You didn’t cook,” she murmured, her voice still echoing with faint static, the remnants of a voice that once wasn’t hers. “You microwaved that.”A small smile tugged at his mouth. “Busted.”She raised the cup, sipped carefully, then made a face. “It’s terrible.”“You’re welcome.” He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “How

Smoke. Fire. A High-Pitched Ringing.The blast sent Dylan hurtling backwards through a tangle of wires and shattered monitors. His back slammed against a metal pillar with enough force to knock the air clean out of his lungs. Sparks rained down from the ceiling like fireflies on steroids.His vision blurred. The world spun.For a second, all he could hear was a high-pitched tone. No voices. No footsteps. No Jace.No—Dylan coughed hard, choking on the thick dust coating his throat. He forced himself upright, one palm bracing against the scorched floor. Blood dripped from his temple. His cloak was half-torn, parts of his armor scorched black, but he was alive.“Jace,” he rasped.He scrambled to his feet, limping toward the corner where Jace had been.The hacker was buried under a collapsed section of the server rig, pinned and motionless. Dylan gritted his teeth, heaving a scorched beam off the man with a surge of panic-driven strength.“Come on, Jace, come on—don’t you do this to me.”

The truck screeched to a halt, tires skidding over wet asphalt. Dylan braced himself against the dash, groaning as pain spiked through his shoulder.Vivian twisted the comm dial. “Say again—who is this? Sandvault’s what?”Static.Then a faint reply, warped but unmistakable:“…repeat, Tier Nine activated… all agents, initiate containment…”Dylan’s blood ran cold.Tier Nine had already started.“No,” he muttered. “It’s too soon.”Vivian stared at him. “I thought you told me to activate it—”“I told you to give it to Reed!” Dylan snapped. “Tier Nine isn’t a warning. It’s a purge protocol. No survivors. No second chances.”The comm hissed again, then died completely.Vivian paled. “Then who triggered it?”Dylan didn’t answer. He already knew.Viktor.He grit his teeth and yanked the glove off his good hand. Embedded in his wrist was a subdermal implant—a tracker, a relic from his time in the Vanguard Initiative. Long dead, long obsolete… or so he thought.He stabbed a finger against it.I

The corridor seemed to shudder under the weight of silence.Then—A body hit the floor with a wet thud.Razor collapsed to his knees, clutching his abdomen where a jagged cavity had been torn open. The glow in his eyes flickered—first confusion, then pain, then a dawning horror.“You…” he rasped, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. “You’re not just some runner…”Dylan didn’t answer.He didn’t need to.The low hum in the corridor deepened. The lights overhead buzzed erratically. Shadows twisted along the metal walls.His arm—soaked in oil and flecked with blood—tensed at his side. Mechanical joints hissed and whirred. Beneath the torn fabric of his jacket, synthetic muscle fibers twitched like black, coiled cables. The air around him pulsed with heat. Something in the wiring groaned. Power surged.And at Razor’s side, the small, grim object that Dylan had ripped from his own body clinked against the floor—a tracker, blinking once before dying, rolling to a stop beside Razor’s t