CHAPTER 61 The warning sirens didn’t sound like ordinary system alarms.They were lower.Heavier.Almost… biological.A deep resonance shook the cables overhead, vibrating through the Core chamber until even the steel supports hummed like tuning forks. Ethan and Control turned at the same time, staring into the shimmering blue ring at the center of the vault , the place where the Network Core’s quantum threads braided into one point.A single light flickered there.Then another.Then dozens, spiraling outward like an iris expanding.Ethan felt it before the lights formed a pattern: an intelligence pushing through the fracture he’d made.The unknown entity.Control staggered back from the console, horrified.“That’s not possible… that’s not possible,” she whispered. “Nothing else has access to the Core. Nothing. Nothing except,”“Except us,” Ethan finished.Control shook her head violently. “Except me.”The lights pulsed again , faster now, flickering in a rhythm that felt wrong, like

Chapter 63 Naomi’s fingers tightened around the edge of the door as the figure stepped fully into view. The early morning sun cast a long shadow behind him, turning his presence into something larger, heavier. Maya and Elena stood slowly, uncertainty knotting in their chests.“Detective Harris?” Naomi breathed, disbelief slicing through her voice.He nodded once. Serious. Focused. His dark coat looked too heavy for the warm morning, and the badge clipped at his belt glinted sharply in the sunlight. He scanned each of their faces, first Naomi, then Elena, then Maya, studying them the way only someone trained to read people would.“Sorry to show up unannounced,” he said, “but we need to talk. All three of you.”Maya swallowed hard. “About what?”Harris stepped inside without waiting for permission, though his presence didn’t feel forceful, just urgent. He closed the door behind him and let out a breath as though he’d been holding it for miles.“It’s about the incident,” he said. “The o

Chapter 65 Naomi didn’t understand why the quiet felt hostile, but from the moment the three of them stepped into the abandoned safe house, something was wrong. It was too still, like a place waiting for its occupants, not welcoming them. Detective Harris locked the door behind them, then moved through the room with the sharp, scanning focus of a man who expected danger in every shadow. He checked windows, corners, floorboards, every surface his eyes touched carried suspicion. Maya rubbed her arms, trying to shake the goosebumps rising there. “Harris, how long are we supposed to stay here?” “Long enough to figure out who’s hunting you,” he said, voice low. “And long enough for me to confirm if what I’ve been told is real.” Naomi turned to him. “What you’ve been told? By who?” He didn’t answer. Instead, he held up a small envelope. Thin, brown, sealed. None of them had noticed it on the kitchen counter before. Elena frowned. “Where did that come from? That wasn’t there

Chapter 67 The tunnel twisted like a throat carved beneath the earth, narrow and damp, the air thick with dust stirred by the collapse above. Naomi’s lungs burned as she sprinted forward, boots slapping the cold concrete. Behind her, Maya and Elena followed close, their breath ragged, their shadows flickering in the dim emergency lights lining the walls like dying fireflies.“Harris,” Maya gasped. “We have to go back for him,”“No,” Naomi said, voice cracking but firm. “He told us to run. You know what that means.”Elena flinched at the truth in those words.If Harris was still alive, he was buying them seconds.If he wasn’t… then he had already given everything he could.The tunnel sloped downward, the angle steeper than Naomi remembered from the old schematic Harris had shown them weeks earlier, back when hiding underground was still a theoretical fear, not a reality closing in on their heels.A deep metallic groan echoed through the tunnel walls.Not structural.Mechanical.Maya s

London did not sleep after the lights went out. It twitched. That was the only word Naomi could find for it as she stood beneath the bridge, the cold wind rolling off the river and pushing damp air against her face. The water slapped against the stone embankment in restless rhythms, and the sound blended with the distant wail of sirens that now seemed to come from every direction. Red and blue lights flashed across the dark surface of the Thames, scattering across the concrete pillars and trembling along the metal railings above them. The city had not fallen into chaos, but something had shifted. Systems had glitched and recovered, traffic had slowed, trains had paused and restarted, and people everywhere had felt the brief pulse of something wrong moving through the night like a shiver through a body.Maya sank slowly down against the wall of the service alcove, her back sliding along the cold concrete until she was sitting on the ground with her knees pulled close to her chest. Elen