The rain didn’t fall, it slashed.Headlights blurred into white knives against the storm. The world tilted, metal screamed, and Richard Walter’s life ended in a second of glass and silence. Then, A sound. A heartbeat. His own?“Sir? Can you hear me?” a voice shouted through the chaos.Richard tried to speak, but his jaw felt unhinged. The paramedic’s flashlight stabbed his eyes. “I’ve got a pulse!” the paramedic yelled.Another voice answered, disbelieving. “No, you don’t. He’s gone. Time of death”Richard’s body spasmed. Air tore through his throat like fire. He gasped. The paramedics froze.“What the hell?”Richard’s hand shot up, trembling, and landed on the paramedic’s arm. The man jerked, clutching his wrist. A deep gash that had been pouring blood sealed itself , instantly.The other paramedic stepped forward, wide-eyed. “How did you”. A sudden crack. The second paramedic fell backward, lifeless. No wound. No sound. Just… gone.Richard’s hand was still raised. Steam drifted fro

The night swallowed him whole.Richard burst from the alley mouth and into the sleepless veins of the city. Sirens echoed somewhere behind him, thunder above.His hospital gown flapped against cold skin, the bandages on his arms already soaked through. He didn’t know how far he’d run. He only knew he had to.“Keep moving,” a voice whispered, not from the street, but inside his head. Richard froze. “Who said that?” You did. The words vibrated behind his eyes like a pulse.“No. No, not again.” He pressed a hand to his temple and stumbled into the shadow of a convenience store awning.A flicker in the glass door, his reflection stared back, eyes faintly glowing gold. A pair of headlights swept across the intersection. A black sedan slowed. Men in dark coats stepped out. One raised a comm-link.“Target sighted near block seven. Containment protocol” Richard didn’t wait. He bolted.Bullets tore the rain apart. He dove behind a delivery truck, breath ragged. His hand hit the wet pavement,

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

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

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