The tunnel walls still trembled from the collapse of the harmonic chamber. Dust drifted like ash around them as Rina pushed herself to her feet, her pulse out of sync, jittering with nerves she couldn’t settle.Maya steadied herself against the wall. “Rina… someone is disrupting the harmonics. Someone the Signal can’t reach. That means they’re “Unaffected,” Viktor finished. “Immune.”Rina shook her head. “Not immune. Opposed.”A faint buzz echoed down the tunnel, not harmonic, not organic. Mechanical. Footsteps. Multiple pairs. Rina snapped into motion. “Move. Now.”They ducked into a maintenance alcove just before beams of light sliced through the darkness. Three figures emerged from the far end of the tunnel, moving with rigid precision.Their boots struck the concrete in perfect rhythm, but not the city’s rhythm. A forced one. Cold. Measured. Stability Commission operatives.The lead officer lifted a scanning device that emitted a thin, sickly blue glow. The light flickered wheneve

Caleb’s voice echoed down the tunnel long after he’d vanished, carried on a metallic resonance that scraped against the walls like a warning carved in air.Rina felt every vibration in her bones, not harmonic, not human, but something twisted in between. Maya tightened her grip on Rina’s sleeve. “He wants us to follow him.”“No,” Viktor muttered. “He wants us cornered.”Rina shook her head. “He could’ve trapped us already. He’s choosing the path. Which means whatever he wants us to see… it isn’t behind us.”It was ahead. Deep in the dark. She felt it, a numb, hollow absence in the air. A space where harmonics tried to rise and died immediately. A void. A wound.The place where the Signal could not reach. “Move,” Rina whispered.They followed Caleb’s trail through a series of descending passages, each colder and narrower than the last. The deeper they went, the more the warmth of the harmonics receded, thinning like breath in winter.Rina kept her hand on the wall, searching for even

For a moment, Rina couldn’t move. Malik’s eyes, hollow, disoriented, but unmistakably alive, locked onto hers. The weak harmonic tremor between them fluttered like a dying flame struggling to catch air.Maya whispered, “Oh my God… he’s really”“Malik,” Rina breathed, stepping closer.He flinched. Not from fear, but from the counterharmonic restraints coiled around his arms and chest. Each flicker of blue static tightened, suppressing the resonance fighting to rise from within him.“Don’t,” he rasped.Rina froze. “Malik… it’s me. You’re safe.”“No.” His voice was raw, like every word tore at his throat.“You shouldn’t be here, Rina.”Viktor scanned the restraints. “He’s been dampened for days, maybe longer. The device is keyed to his emotional output.”Maya frowned. “So if he feels anything the Signal reacts to, it constricts?”Malik gave a pained, humorless breath. “Smart girl.”Rina knelt beside him. “Who did this? Caleb?”Malik’s jaw tightened. A flicker of grief crossed his eyes. “

The passage fell into an eerie stillness. The golden silhouettes at the far end didn’t advance. They hovered, silent, waiting, like guardians at the edge of a threshold only Malik could cross.Rina knelt beside him, brushing damp hair from his forehead. His breathing was shallow, each inhale a tremor, each exhale a battle. “Malik,” she whispered, “talk to me.”His eyes cracked open, gold flickering weakly beneath the surface. “It’s not… trying to hurt me,” he rasped.“It’s trying to finish what it started.”Maya stiffened. “Merge with you?”Malik winced, turning his head slightly toward the silhouettes. “No. Not merge.”A breath. “A r eclaim.”Rina’s blood chilled. “You’re not something to reclaim.”He gave a bitter, ghostlike smile. “I’m its unfinished equation, Rina. Its fracture. Its… flaw.”Viktor crouched, holding up his analog reader. The needle was pinned at maximum, trembling violently. “The harmonics are stabilizing around us. It’s forming a convergence pathway.”Maya swallow

For a heartbeat, everything was silent, Rina’s breath. Maya’s trembling hands. Viktor’s prayer under his breath. Even the humming of Caleb’s dampener faltered.Only Malik moved. Slowly. Weakly. His hand lifting toward the golden version of himself like it weighed a thousand pounds. “Malik” Rina whispered, throat tight. “Please… stay here. Stay with me.”His gaze flickered between her and the imprint, fear and longing tearing him in opposite directions. The golden Malik tilted its head, expressionless and yet undeniably his, radiating a calm he didn’t possess anymore.A promise of a version of Malik untouched by pain. “Rina…” His voice trembled. “I don’t know which one is real.”“You are,” she whispered fiercely. “You. Right now. In my hands.”But the imprint extended its hand again, and the harmonic pull spiked. Malik’s body jerked, like someone hooked steel cables through his ribs and yanked.“NO, Malik, stay with me!” Rina grabbed both sides of his face, anchoring him, pulling him i