The silence did not last.
It never could. Not here, not in the Fork where silence was only the thin veil stretched over chaos. Sooner or later, something always burst through.
Kaito felt it before he heard it—a subtle vibration running through the shattered plaza beneath his feet, a rhythm that wasn't the Fork's cadences.
He rose slowly to his feet, his hand brushing the butt of his gun, eyes narrowing toward the horizon. Nyra stiffened beside him, her head jerking up as if she sensed the intrusion as well.
They were not alone.
The first shape disengaged from the misted filaments at the edge of the plaza. Another. Another. Dark shapes pulled away from the data-stream walls as though they had been waiting for this.
Their bodies shifted, humanoid at a glance, but off. Too long in the limbs. Too angular at the joints. They did not move like players, or even the native subroutines of the Fork. They were born of the facture, compelled through the rift and twisted to utility.
