Home / Urban / The Lupine code / THE SECOND PULSE
THE SECOND PULSE
last update2025-11-14 19:39:44

The city was holding its breath.

From our vantage atop the tower, I could see the streets below trembling with residual energy. Windows rattled, neon flickered, and the fog hung heavy, thick with static. The blackout zone was still unstable, the grid warping under the lingering influence of the tower’s pulse.

But the disturbance wasn’t just here.

I noticed it first in the alleyways, far from the tower’s reach. Small sparks, seemingly random, darted along cables, traffic signals, even the rails of the subway system. Then the hum began—a second, subtler vibration, faint but unmistakable.

Helena turned toward me, eyes narrowing.

“That’s… not me,” she said, her voice a mix of curiosity and alarm.

“I’m not generating that pulse.”

We scanned the city from our elevated position.

The anomaly emerged near the Eastline District—an area already compromised by ECHO Division experiments. Buildings twisted unnaturally, shadows moving against the laws of light. I could see static arcs crawling over
Continue to read this book for free
Scan the code to download the app

Latest Chapter

  • FRACTURED HORIZONS

    The world trembled.Not figuratively, but literally. Across continents, cities pulsed with unnatural energy, skyscrapers twisting, streets bending, and electrical grids sparking in unison. The anomaly was no longer contained—it had synchronized its attacks, spreading its pulse through multiple urban networks at once.Helena and I stood on the rooftop of a skyscraper in our city, watching distant flashes across the horizon. “It’s coordinating,” she whispered, her static flaring violently. “Every city it touches, it links them together. It’s no longer a single battlefield—we’re facing a network-wide assault.”I clenched my fists, feeling the residual hum of the tower and our node vibrating through me. “Then every pulse we send here must count. One wrong move, and it could cascade through all the cities.”The anomaly struck first in the financial district. Streets twisted into jagged spires, vehicles lifted midair, streetlights arced violently. Semi-forms emerged, targeting the nodes Hel

  • SHADOWS ACROSS THE GRID

    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

  • BREACH BEYOND

    The anomaly had spread.At first, it was subtle—small flickers in power grids, brief surges in distant subways, unexplainable distortions in cityscapes half a continent away. But by dawn, reports began flooding in: skyscrapers in other metropolises twisting impossibly, neon signs bursting in arcs of white-hot energy, power lines erupting like lightning snakes. The anomaly wasn’t confined. It had breached the urban network, spreading like a virus into every connected system it could reach.Helena and I stood on the tower’s roof, overlooking our city, watching distant lights pulse in rhythm with the tower’s network. The anomaly’s influence was no longer local—it was global.“I’ve been monitoring the grids,” Helena said, her eyes glowing faintly with residual static. “It’s adapting to different infrastructures, different technologies. Every city it touches, it learns faster. The patterns aren’t random—it’s mapping the planet’s pulse, and each connection strengthens it.”I clenched my fis

  • ECHOES BEYOND

    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

  • SEALING THE PULSE

    The veins beneath the city pulsed like living arteries, white-hot energy coursing through conduits that stretched farther than I could see.Every flicker of light above, every hum of electricity, every tremor in the streets was now connected to this network—and to the anomaly.Helena’s eyes blazed. Static arced from her hands, reaching into every conduit, every vein, every pulse. She wasn’t just fighting the anomaly—she was becoming one with the network.“We have to seal it,” she said, teeth clenched. “If we fail… the entire city becomes its body.”I nodded, feeling my pulse intertwine with hers, the tower’s energy flowing into our veins, anchoring us to the network. Every heartbeat, every thought, every movement counted. One misstep, and the anomaly could break free completely.The anomaly surged ahead. Its semi-forms twisted and reformed, bending the corridors of the network like paper. It pulsed violently, arcs of energy lashing out at every junction. Sparks flew, walls quaked, con

  • INTO THE VEINS

    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

More Chapter
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on MegaNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
Scan code to read on App