Elias left his apartment before sunrise.
The eastern district was already awake, though the light was still thin and gray. Vendors arranged goods with practiced motions. Generators rumbled behind shuttered storefronts. Somewhere nearby, a child laughed, sharp and bright, the sound carrying farther than it should have.
Elias pulled his hood up and kept moving.
The image from the file would not leave his mind. The market square. The timestamp. Himself standing there like a marker waiting to be erased.
He did not know how long the vision extended. Minutes. Seconds. Long enough to matter.
He checked the private drive again as he walked, keeping it shielded inside his jacket. The file had not changed. No new data. No additional warnings. That worried him more than constant noise would have.
The city did not believe in coincidences anymore. Everything that went wrong had a reason, even if the reason was hidden behind sealed reports and quiet disappearances.
Elias reached the edge of the market square just as the first wave of morning traffic flowed in. The space was wide and open, ringed by aging buildings with cracked facades and patched windows. Fabric awnings stretched between poles, flapping gently in the breeze.
People moved in loose currents, bartering, greeting one another, arguing over prices.
Normal life.
Elias slowed, scanning faces, searching for anything out of place. He did not know what he was looking for. A weapon. A device. Someone watching too closely.
Every instinct told him this was a mistake.
He stepped into the square.
Nothing happened.
He exhaled a breath he had not realized he was holding. The tension in his shoulders eased slightly, though it did not disappear. He moved toward the center, staying alert, senses stretched thin.
He stopped where the image had placed him.
The ground beneath his boots was uneven stone, worn smooth by decades of foot traffic. A water seller passed by, calling out prices. A pair of guards stood near the north entrance, relaxed but watchful.
Elias checked the time.
Still early.
The image had not shown the exact moment. Just tomorrow. Just enough information to pull him here and leave him exposed.
A familiar pressure began to build at the base of his skull.
Static.
Not audible. Internal.
Elias closed his eyes briefly and focused on his breathing. He had always been good at tuning things out when he needed to. Noise. Distraction. Fear.
When he opened his eyes, the world looked sharper.
Edges stood out. Movements felt exaggerated, like everything was happening a fraction of a second slower than it should have.
He turned slowly.
A man stood near one of the fabric stalls, pretending to examine a crate of spare parts. His posture was casual, but his eyes tracked Elias too precisely. When Elias looked directly at him, the man did not glance away.
That was mistake number one.
Elias shifted his weight and took a step to the left.
The man mirrored him.
Elias felt the cold certainty settle in his gut.
He was not alone.
Another pressure flared behind his eyes. The static sharpened, resolving into something like intuition, but heavier. More deliberate.
The city noise dimmed.
A faint shimmer passed through the air to Elias's right, so subtle he might have missed it if he had not already been strained to the limit. His gaze snapped toward it.
A woman stood there, mid thirties perhaps, dressed plainly. Nothing remarkable about her face. Nothing threatening in her stance.
But the space around her felt wrong.
Elias felt it the same way he had felt the static bend in the tower. The same wrongness. The same violation of expectation.
She smiled at him.
"Elias Rowe," she said. "You look tired."
He did not respond.
The man by the stall took a step closer.
That was mistake number two.
Elias's pulse roared in his ears. His mind raced, pulling fragments from the file, the corridor, the warning.
You were warned first.
He realized something then, with terrifying clarity.
The signal was not just showing him danger.
It was preparing him.
The static surged.
Elias raised his hand, palm open, not touching anything, not signaling surrender. He focused on the pressure, on the sense of flow beneath his thoughts.
The world lurched.
Time did not stop. It twisted.
The man by the stall stumbled as if the ground had shifted under his feet. Crates toppled. Someone shouted. The guards turned, startled.
Elias felt a sharp pain lance through his temple. Blood trickled warm and sticky down the side of his face.
He ignored it.
The woman's smile faded.
"That is new," she said softly.
Elias backed away, slow and deliberate. His legs felt heavy, like he was moving through water. The static screamed now, overwhelming, clawing at the edges of his thoughts.
The woman took a step toward him.
"Do not do that again," she said. "You are not ready."
Elias laughed, breathless. "Neither are you."
She tilted her head, studying him with open curiosity now. "You felt it, didn't you. The resistance."
"Yes," Elias said. "And I do not like being pushed."
The man recovered quickly, regaining his balance with unnatural ease. His eyes flicked to the woman, awaiting instruction.
"Enough," she said.
She looked back at Elias. "You are causing unnecessary attention."
"Funny," Elias replied. "That is exactly what I was thinking about you."
The guards were moving now, alerted by the disturbance. People backed away, murmuring. The square's easy rhythm fractured into nervous energy.
The woman sighed. "You are early. That complicates things."
"What things," Elias asked.
"Your education."
The static pulsed again, weaker this time. Elias felt something slip inside him. A fragment of clarity. A glimpse of structure beneath the chaos.
He understood, dimly, that what he had just done was not an attack.
It was alignment.
He had nudged probability. Bent the smallest possible outcome just enough to throw his pursuer off balance.
And it had cost him.
His vision blurred. His knees buckled slightly. He caught himself on a nearby post.
The woman's eyes sharpened. "You cannot sustain that yet."
"Yet," Elias repeated. "So you admit I will."
She smiled again, slower this time. "If you live long enough."
The guards shouted, pushing through the crowd.
The woman stepped back, already fading into the mass of people. Her voice reached him one last time.
"We will speak again, Elias Rowe. You are too valuable to waste."
She was gone.
The man followed her without another glance at Elias, disappearing between stalls as if he had never been there.
The guards reached Elias seconds later.
"Hey," one barked. "You. What happened here."
Elias wiped the blood from his temple with his sleeve and forced his breathing to steady. He felt hollowed out, like something essential had been scraped away.
"I slipped," he said. "Ground shifted."
The guard frowned, unconvinced, but the crowd was already dispersing. No one wanted trouble. Not after the rail.
"Move along," the guard said. "And get that looked at."
Elias did not argue.
He left the square on shaking legs, blending into side streets, putting distance between himself and the open space where he had almost died.
When he finally stopped, leaning against a wall in a narrow alley, his whole body sagged.
The static was gone.
In its place was something worse.
Understanding.
The signal was not external anymore. Not entirely. It had left residue inside him, threads of probability he could sense if he focused hard enough.
It terrified him.
It thrilled him.
His private drive vibrated in his pocket.
Elias pulled it out with trembling hands and connected it to his handheld.
A new line of text appeared.
YOU TOUCHED IT.
"Yes," Elias whispered. "And it hurt."
GOOD.
The word sat there, cold and final.
PAIN IS FEEDBACK.
Elias closed his eyes.
"So what happens now," he asked.
The response came slowly, as if measured.
NOW YOU LEARN THE COST.
Elias straightened, jaw tightening.
"Then teach me," he said.