>Activate: Rapture Protocol
>Status: Initiated
The message hit the bazaar like a shockwave.
Every terminal, every neural implant, every vendor stall lit up with the same command.
Then something worse happened.
Silence.
A thousand people froze.
Their eyes rolled white.
Their heads snapped toward the same target.
Kai.
"Run," Mira whispered—too late.
The crowd lunged.
Bodies jerked like corrupted marionettes, propelled by invisible code. Stalls overturned, drones crashed, neon lanterns shattered in showers of sparks. Kai sprinted through the chaos, heart pounding, legs burning.
Behind him, the horde moved with terrifying synchrony, all breathing in perfect unison.
A sound like a hive exhaling.
Mira kept pace beside him, cloak flaring with each step. "He really did it…" she panted. "Archon pushed the failsafe."
Kai dodged a possessed security officer who swung a stun baton blindly. "Who's 'he'?!"
"Archon," Mira shot back. " The just hijacked the entire district. This is a forced retrieval protocol—anyone with a neural port becomes a hunter."
A vendor leapt at Kai with impossible strength. He ducked under the swing, sliding across the dust and broken circuitry. The man landed face-first, body twisting unnaturally as The Veil puppeted him back onto his feet.
Kai's chest tightened. "Why didn't I get the notification?"
Mira grabbed his wrist and yanked him behind a crashed delivery drone as an energy round sizzled overhead.
"That's what scares me," she said.
"You should have."
Kai blinked sweat out of his eyes. "Explain."
Mira hesitated. The first real crack in her composure.
"Kai… the Rapture Protocol broadcasts to all registered consciousnesses. Living or post-living. Original or cloned. They all get the recall."
He stared at her.
"Then why didn't I?"
She bit her lip. "Because… maybe you're not linked to The Veil at all."
"That's impossible," he said, voice shaking.
"Everybody's linked. Every birth. Every death. Every citizen is registered."
Mira shook her head.
"Not ghosts."
A beat.
"And those from the surface."
Kai's breath stopped.
Hard.
"You think I'm—"
A shriek cut the air.
Three hunters vaulted over the drone, nails scraping metal, faces blank.
"MOVE!" Mira shouted.
She threw a flare-sigil into the ground. It detonated into a fractal shockwave that sent the attackers flying. Smoke rolled through the alley as the horde reoriented.
Kai stumbled after her. "So you're saying that it's after me cuz it thinks I'm a ghost or a surface dweller" Which one is it?
"I don't know yet," she said.
"But the system does. And it's trying to drag you back."
They burst into a narrow street as lights flickered red overhead.
Far above the megacity towers, the sky shifted — a digital filament tightening around the clouds.
Mira grabbed Kai's face, forcing him to meet her gaze.
"Kai. Listen to me."
Her voice was low, fierce.
"If Archon initiated Rapture Protocol, it means one thing:
He's preparing to erase your existence you are a thorn to his side. When you help those crossover correctly he loses money and data.
Kai's stomach lurched.
"And every living mind in this district is now coded to help him do it."
A new notification pinged in the air like a death knell:
> Target Reacquisition Window: 04:59… 04:58…
The hunters turned the corner.
Dozens.
Maybe hundreds.
Mira pulled Kai into a sprint.
"Congratulations," she said, voice trembling.
"You just became the most valuable soul in the city."