THE SEVENTH MINUTE

CHAPTER 3A – WOMAN IN CRIMSON

The rain had stopped, but the city hadn’t exhaled. Michael stood beneath the flickering streetlight, soaked and trembling.

The woman’s image burned behind his eyes, those same gold-red irises, that same impossible calm. For a heartbeat, he’d thought he was looking into a mirror that lied. “She saw me,” he whispered.

Then the power grid died. Every light in a two-block radius blinked out at once. The air went still, electric in its silence. A low voice from the shadows: “You shouldn’t have followed the signal.”

Michael spun. “Silas?”

But the alley behind him was empty. Something hummed overhead, a drone, sleek and silent, scanning with a narrow red beam.

Michael pressed against the wall, watching the beam drift past. Subject Johnson located. He froze. The voice wasn’t coming from the drone. It was inside his head. “Who’s there?” he hissed.

Don’t struggle. The link stabilizes faster if you’re calm. He clutched his temples. “Get out of my head!”

You invited me the moment you wore the ring.

Michael ripped the ring off and threw it, but it didn’t fall. It hung midair, spinning slowly, pulsing gold and red. From that pulse, light folded, and the woman appeared.

The same coat, the same eyes. Up close, she looked barely older than him, too composed, too quiet. Her voice was both inside his head and outside it. “Don’t be afraid, Michael.”

He took a step back. “You were on the roof.”

“Yes.” Her gaze flicked toward the ring, now floating between them. “You shouldn’t have trusted Silas.”

“You know him?”

“I trained him.” She tilted her head. “He doesn’t follow orders well.”

Michael frowned. “And you do?”

She almost smiled. “When it suits me.”

He glanced at the ring again. “You’re… in this thing?”

“Anchored to it,” she said softly. “The same resonance you use to heal and destroy, mine connects minds.”

Michael’s pulse quickened. “So you’re reading my thoughts?”

“I could,” she admitted. “But I prefer listening.”

“Then start listening,” he snapped. “Who are you?”

The woman stepped closer. The air around her shimmered faintly, the smell of ozone returning. “My name is Lyra Voss. You and I share the same anomaly.”

“Anomaly,” he repeated, bitterness creeping into the word. “That what you call it now?”

She nodded once. “You call it power. The Board calls it potential. I call it a sickness.”

Michael narrowed his eyes. “You’re with them.”

“Once,” she said. “Not anymore.”

“Convenient.”

Lyra studied him. “You’re angry. Good. You’ll need that.”

“Why?”

“Because the Board isn’t hunting you anymore.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “They’re preparing to use you.”

Michael’s throat tightened. “Use me for what?”

She reached into her coat and tossed something across the space between them, a small black device, like a glass card. Holographic static shimmered across its surface. “Play it,” she said.

Michael hesitated, then tapped it. The air in front of him filled with projected light, an image of Rhea standing before a Council of masked figures.

“Subject Johnson’s resonance proves stable under dual-phase testing,” Rhea’s voice said calmly.

“Phase Two begins at dawn. Extract him alive. Detonate if compromised.”

The projection faded. Michael’s knees almost gave out. “She… lied.”

Lyra’s tone softened, but there was no pity in it. “You were never a patient. You were a prototype.”

Michael’s hands shook. “Why show me this?”

“Because you need to see who’s really behind the Hunters,” she said. “And because if you don’t run, they’ll turn you into what they turned me.”

He looked up sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Lyra’s eyes glowed faintly. “A living weapon that can’t remember which side it’s on.”

Silence stretched between them, broken only by the hum of the dormant drone. Michael’s voice came out rough. “If you escaped, why come back?”

“Because,” she said quietly, “I heard your resonance. It’s identical to mine. And I need to know which one of us they copied.”

Michael swallowed hard. “Copied?”

She nodded. “They’ve been cloning resonance cores for years. Every ‘accident’ that triggers a new power? Engineered.”

He stared at her. “You’re saying this was planned?”

“Your crash. Your awakening. Kane finding you. All of it.”

Michael backed against the wall. “No. Kane saved me.”

Lyra’s voice hardened. “Kane works for whoever pays him. Don’t confuse rescue for mercy.”

Michael shook his head. “You don’t know him.”

“I know everyone they’ve touched,” she said. “And I know what happens when the Board decides a Resonant outlives their use.”

She stepped closer until their eyes met. “They harvest.”

Michael whispered, “You’re lying.”

Her expression didn’t change. “I wish I were.”

A gust of wind howled down the street, carrying the distant sound of sirens, dozens this time, converging fast. Lyra looked past him. “They found the frequency. We have to move.”

Michael didn’t move. “Why should I trust you?”

She gave him a thin smile. “Because, Michael Johnson, the only people who want you alive right now are me, and you.”

He hesitated. Then, in the faintest tremor of the night air, the hum in his chest answered hers, harmonizing for an instant, two notes that shouldn’t exist in the same song but did.

Michael clenched his fists. “Fine. Lead the way.”

Lyra’s eyes flared once. “Then keep up.”

She turned and walked straight into the wall of the nearest building, phasing through it as though it were water. Michael exhaled. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

A second later, the sound of rotor blades filled the sky. Drones swarmed overhead, spotlights slicing through the mist.

Michael looked at the wall she’d vanished through, then up at the lights. “Yeah,” he muttered. “No time to think.”

He ran, and dove straight after her.