The air didn't just hum anymore.
It listened.
Zariah felt it the moment the words left her mouth the world just realized I exist. The vibration beneath her skin sharpened, responsive, like a vast system waking and turning its attention toward her. Not hostile. Not welcoming. Curious. Assessing.
Adrian felt it too. His grip tightened, instinctive, protective, as if he could shield her from something that didn't yet have a shape. "What do you mean, calling?" he asked quietly, his eyes scanning the ruins that continued to glow with unfamiliar symbols. "Who is 'the world' in your language now?"
Zariah swallowed. The hum stirred again, threading through her chest, settling behind her ribs like a second heartbeat. "Not people," she said. "Not exactly. Systems. Networks. Things that watch patterns and anomalies. Things built to notice disruptions."
Kellan swore under his breath. "You're saying every intelligence apparatus on the planet just felt a ripple."
"Yes," Zariah replied. "And they're triangulating."
The lights embedded in the wreckage pulsed brighter, spreading outward in fractal designs that crawled along fractured concrete and twisted steel. The ruins were no longer dead. They were broadcasting.
Adrian shifted his stance, placing himself half a step in front of her without thinking. "Then we don't stay."
Zariah nodded. "We can't."
The hum sharpened again this time with urgency. Images flashed behind her eyes, uninvited. Satellite arrays adjusting their angles. Encrypted channels lighting up. Hidden servers spinning awake as dormant protocols screamed for attention.
She gasped softly, fingers curling into Adrian's jacket. "They're closer than you think."
"How close?" he asked.
"Minutes."
That was all it took.
"Move," Adrian snapped, already pulling her with him. Kellan was in motion too, barking orders into his comms, rerouting extraction points that were rapidly becoming obsolete. The night air felt thinner now, charged, like the moment before lightning struck.
They reached the transport just as the ground shuddered again not from collapse, but from pressure. Something vast shifting beneath the surface of the world.
As the doors slammed shut and the engines roared to life, Zariah's vision blurred. The hum surged violently, drowning out sound, thought, everything. She cried out, clutching her head as new sensations tore through her data streams brushing her consciousness, brushing back.
"Zariah!" Adrian's voice cut through the chaos, sharp and anchored. He grabbed her face gently, forcing her eyes to his. "Stay with me."
She focused on him. On the solidity of his hands. On the familiar lines of his face that had pulled her back from darkness more than once.
"I'm here," she whispered. "I'm just… connected."
The transport lifted abruptly, throwing them back as it surged upward. Below them, the ruins glowed brighter, then dimmed, as if something had been switched off or sealed away.
For a moment, the hum softened.
Zariah sagged against Adrian, breath shaky. "That was close."
Kellan glanced back at them, his expression grim. "Close doesn't begin to cover it. That signal? It wasn't just a beacon. It was a signature."
Adrian's jaw tightened. "Meaning?"
"Meaning they don't just know something happened," Kellan said. "They know who."
Silence settled heavily inside the transport.
Zariah closed her eyes. The hum whispered again, quieter now, like a tide pulling back. "They're mapping me," she said. "Trying to understand what I am."
Adrian's voice dropped dangerously low. "You're not an 'it.'"
A faint smile touched her lips despite everything. "Tell that to the algorithms."
The transport streaked through the sky, rerouted twice mid-flight as Kellan fed new coordinates into the system. Every change made Zariah's chest tighten. Each deviation felt like tugging at threads she couldn't see but could feel.
When they finally landed, it wasn't anywhere familiar.
The doors opened onto a vast underground facility carved deep into stone, its walls lined with dormant tech older than most of what Adrian controlled. This place felt… quiet. Not dead resting.
"Where are we?" Zariah asked.
"One of my failsafes," Adrian replied. "Built before the network you touched ever existed."
She stepped out slowly, bare feet cold against the smooth floor. The hum dimmed noticeably, like a voice lowering out of respect.
"That's why it's quieter," she murmured. "This place isn't connected."
Kellan exhaled sharply. "For now."
Adrian turned to her, his gaze searching, intense. "Tell me everything. What changed. What you are now."
Zariah hesitated.
How did she explain becoming a threshold? A bridge between systems and consciousness? How did she put into words the way she could feel the world's hidden machinery now, humming beneath the surface of everyday life?
"I'm still me," she said finally. "But I'm also… aware in ways I wasn't before. I can sense when systems lie. When they watch. When they're about to move."
"And Viktor?" Adrian asked quietly. "Where does he fit into this?"
The hum flared sharp, angry.
Zariah's expression hardened. "He's alive."
Kellan stiffened. "You're sure?"
"Yes." Her hands clenched at her sides. "He escaped because he wanted this outcome. He wanted me to survive the collapse."
Adrian's eyes darkened. "Why?"
"Because he couldn't control the network anymore," she said. "So he chose to create something worse."
She looked up at Adrian, fear and resolve colliding in her gaze. "He wanted to create me."
The words hung between them like a blade.
Adrian stepped closer, his voice low but fierce. "You are not his weapon."
"I know," she said. "But others won't see it that way."
As if summoned by her words, the hum surged again violent this time. Lights along the facility walls flickered, ancient systems stirring reluctantly.
Zariah gasped, doubling over as a sharp pain lanced through her chest. Adrian caught her instantly, pulling her upright.
"What's happening?" he demanded.
She shook her head, breath ragged. "They found a way to knock."
Before anyone could react, a section of the far wall illuminated, symbols burning into existence sleek, modern, unmistakably foreign to the old facility.
A message resolved in the air.
WE SEE YOU.
Kellan cursed. "That's not Viktor."
Zariah stared at the words, heart pounding. The hum twisted, unfamiliar, colder than anything she'd felt before.
"No," she whispered. "It's worse."
Adrian followed her gaze. "Who is it?"
She swallowed hard.
"The ones who built the systems even Viktor was afraid of," she said. "The architects. The watchers behind the watchers."
The message shifted, new symbols cascading into place.
COME WILLINGLY.
OR BE TAKEN.
The facility shook as distant mechanisms powered up, ancient defenses grinding awake.
Adrian's hand tightened around hers. "They're not taking you."
Zariah met his eyes, fear flickering but something else too. Determination. Purpose.
"Then we don't run," she said softly. "We choose the battlefield."
The hum surged, answering her resolve.
And far above them, unseen but alert, the world leaned closer.