BOOM!!!The blast came without sirens. No warning. No sound, until it was too late.At precisely 9:03 a.m., every screen in Nathan’s headquarters blinked white. Then, a high-pitched oscillation filled the air, like nails dragged across metal inside the brain. People screamed and dropped to their knees, clutching their ears. Even reinforced windows cracked under the pressure.Nathan collapsed against the railing outside the conference room, the ring on his finger flaring once—then dimming.Like a candle blown out by a breath.He blinked, stunned.Nothing.The mental chatter he’d grown used to—the low static of thoughts around him—was gone. The ring didn’t glow. No warmth, no whisper of power, no pulse.Just silence.---Two floors down, Miko grabbed her earpiece. “Harper, status?”“We’re fine in the sub-basement,” Harper replied, voice clipped. “But something’s jamming everything. Nathan?”“I’m heading to him now,” Miko said, rushing past a lab tech who had collapsed on the ground, nos

The sun gleamed high above the glass canopy of the Capitol Atrium, bathing the polished floor in golden warmth. Journalists buzzed in corners. Government aides whispered into earpieces. Cameras clicked with the urgency of vultures circling fresh meat.Nathan Cole stood in the center of it all—tailored suit, unshaken posture, calm expression. But inside, he felt a tight coil of wariness unspooling with each breath.They said the official wanted to meet privately, to “set the record straight.” It was supposed to be the beginning of Nathan’s public redemption—a quiet gesture of goodwill to an influential committee head who claimed to believe in his innocence.But as the glass doors slid open and Nathan stepped into the side chamber, his senses prickled.No guards.No aides.Just one man waiting inside.Tall. Composed. Pale blue eyes that gleamed with intellect devoid of empathy.Alexei Volkov.The door hissed shut behind Nathan before he could turn. Instinct rose—but the ring remained co

The wind moved gently through the pines, carrying the scent of resin and damp earth. Nathan sat alone by the fire pit outside the cabin, hands resting on his knees, the glow of the low flames dancing across the angular lines of his face. The ring on his finger had dulled since Volkov’s attack—its once vibrant energy now had a quiet, resting pulse beneath his skin. Powerless but not broken, it seemed to slumber like he did: with one eye open.Inside the cabin, Harper was a silent blur of motion, methodically cleaning and sharpening her combat knives. Her movements were precise, not out of necessity but habit—an anchor in a world that had spun too far off the axis.Miko, in the adjacent room, sat cross-legged on the floor with three tablets open in front of her. Diagrams and digital schematics glowed in dim blue light, showing fragmented data from Volkov’s artifact. There were no breakthroughs yet, just clues wrapped in encryption and theories built from ancestral whispers.But tonight

That night, after Harper had finally fallen into a restful sleep and Miko’s sensors confirmed no further Syndicate presence nearby, Nathan stood alone outside the cabin. The stars shimmered overhead, cold and patient, indifferent to his fractured thoughts. The ring was quiet again, but not dead. He could still feel that faint echo, like a heartbeat far away. The warmth hadn’t come from force. It hadn’t come from strategy or battle or ambition. It had come from something softer, something deeper… a connection. And yet, he didn’t understand it, not fully and definitely not enough to control it. Miko stood beside him before he realized she had exited the cabin. She didn’t speak right away. Instead, she watched the stars with him. Then she said, “It’s time I teach you what my grandfather taught me.” _____ Nathan sat cross-legged on the moss-covered stone floor inside the shielded meditation dome that Miko had rigged together from composite panels and frequency-canceling alloys. Ou

Nathan’s gaze hadn’t left the screen for a full minute. The glowing text still burned in his mind: NEXT TARGET IDENTIFIED – HARPER VALENTE. Harper stood stiffly beside him, her jaw clenched but unreadable. Miko, on the other hand, was already moving—pulling up encryption logs, scrubbing the message’s path, hunting down its origin.Nathan gripped the edge of the table. The fire inside him had returned, but it wasn’t wild or chaotic this time. It was cold. Focused.“They’ve shifted their strategy,” he murmured.“No,” Harper said, finally. “They’ve escalated it.”That night, none of them slept.By morning, Miko was hunched over her schematic boards, sketches and sound maps spread like wings across the cabin walls. A single phrase circled in red ink:“Inversion Pulse Sequence – harmonic disruption at root?”Nathan stepped in quietly, his voice low.“You said if we had time, you’d break it.”Miko didn’t look up. “Then it’s a good thing we’re officially out of time.”_____Three days later,