Rain hammered the pavement. Derrick lay there, breathing hard, chest rising and falling like he’d just clawed his way out of a grave.No blue screen. No system voice. No weight pressing against his thoughts. Just pain. Real pain.Mara crouched beside him. “Don’t move too fast,” she said. “Your body remembers what it lost, even if the System doesn’t.”Derrick pushed himself up anyway. His hands were shaking. “I can hear them,” he said hoarsely.Mara frowned. “Hear who?”“The world,” Derrick replied.Sirens screamed in the distance. Not one or two, hundreds. Car alarms wailed. People shouted. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered.Across the street, a giant screen flickered violently. Then stabilized. A blue interface appeared. Not one. Thousands. Millions. All over the city. All over the world.Derrick’s stomach dropped. Mara whispered, “It’s started.”On the screen, text scrolled rapidly. COMPATIBILITY TEST: SUBJECT #18,392,104 — PASSEDA man standing nearby froze. “What does that mean?”