Chapter 4: The Predator's Arrival
While Stanley was transcending his mortal limits, Sarah McCain sat in her mother's living room, staring at a news report on her tablet. The headline read: "MILLER HEIGHTS SITE ACQUIRED IN MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR HOSTILE TAKEOVER; LOCAL LABORER NAMED CEO."
"It has to be a mistake," her mother hissed. "Elias? That pathetic man whose wife left him? How does he have the capital to buy the Sentinel Group?"
Sarah didn't answer. She was looking at a grainy photo of the man standing in the background of the press conference. The suit was perfect. The posture was regal.
"Mother," Sarah whispered, her voice trembling. "Look at the man standing next to Elias."
Her mother squinted at the screen. Her eyes widened as she recognized the silhouette of Stanley McCain. He wasn't hunched over a shovel. He looked like a king standing among his subjects.
"He... he signed the papers," her mother stammered. "He was supposed to be a nobody!"
Just then, her phone buzzed with a message from the bank: [NOTICE: YOUR JOINT ACCOUNT ACCESS HAS BEEN TERMINATED. THE DWELLING AT 42 MAPLE DRIVE IS CURRENTLY UNDER FORECLOSURE.]
Stanley hadn't just left. He had erased the foundation they stood on.
Back at the facility, the alarms suddenly blared. The lights turned a violent crimson.
"Something is overriding the perimeter," Amara shouted, her cold mask finally breaking into a look of genuine alarm. "Stanley, get back! It's a Collector!"
A section of the reinforced wall buckled inward as if hit by a freight train. Stepping through the dust was a figure that looked human but moved with the jagged, unnatural precision of a machine. Its skin was a dull, synthetic grey, and its eyes were glowing red apertures. It was a Synthetic Robot—a scout sent by the off-worlders to harvest the newly awakened Qi.
It didn't speak. It simply lunged, its arm transforming into a high-vibration blade.