The air grew thick the moment we stepped into the sub-basement chamber.The glow from the etchings on the walls painted the space in sharp white light, casting jagged shadows that stretched across the warped floors. Static hummed in every corner, the tower itself thrumming like a living organism.“This… is it,” Helena whispered, eyes narrowing. “The network beneath the city. The veins connecting every pulse, every circuit, every building. The anomaly originated here, or at least—this is where it was waiting.”I nodded, heart hammering. The floors below us weren’t concrete—they were conduits, channels of energy pulsing beneath the surface, flowing like veins through the earth. Every flicker of light in the city above seemed to respond to it.We descended into a spiraling shaft, walls bending and twisting under the strain of the tower’s pulse. Sparks licked along the edges of the passage as the anomaly’s tendrils reached up toward us, probing, testing, searching. Each semi-form flickere

The city breathed in hesitant, uneven pulses.From the tower’s upper floors, the streets looked almost normal, but the pulse beneath the city whispered otherwise. Transformers hummed in quiet tension, streetlights flickered in subtle rhythms, and vehicles moved with a strange hesitancy, as though sensing something unseen.Helena and I stood over the central node, our pulses still intertwined with the network. The anomaly was sealed, yes—but it wasn’t gone. Its energy lingered in every vein beneath the city, subtle, patient, and learning.“I thought containment would calm the city,” Helena murmured, hands still glowing faintly with residual static. “But… it’s everywhere. Little pockets of energy, left behind, adapting to normal infrastructure. The anomaly left fragments.”I frowned. “Fragments? Like… dormant seeds?”“Yes,” she said, voice tense. “Dormant, but active. Every power line, every conduit, every networked system could be influenced over time. The city might seem stable… but i

The flight was tense.From above, the city we were approaching already flickered with unnatural light. Neon signs arced violently, some twisting midair, some frozen like shards of broken glass. Streets convulsed, power grids hummed erratically, and the skyline pulsed in rhythms that matched the anomaly’s distant influence.Helena leaned forward, eyes glowing faintly with residual static. “It’s here,” she whispered. “The anomaly has reached critical nodes. The city is feeding it. We can’t delay.”I tightened my grip on the railing of the transport. “How do we even fight it this far from the tower?”She didn’t answer immediately. Her fingers brushed along the control panel, arcs of white-hot static jumping between her and the vehicle’s systems. “We adapt. Like always. But this city… it’s different. The anomaly’s reach here is deeper—it’s already integrated itself into the infrastructure. Every street, every building, every conduit is part of its pulse.”We landed on the rooftop of a hig