There's a smell to old tunnels—wet metal, cold concrete, and the ghosts of trains that haven't run in years. That's what we'd been breathing for two nights straight.
Melanie and I had made camp in a forgotten spur under Market Street, using flickering maintenance lamps and the echo of dripping water for company. Above us, Sentinel's citywide lockdown hummed like distant thunder.
Every few minutes, the static in the air shifted, and the Nexus inside me twitched, reacting to something unseen—search pulses, maybe, sweeping the grid for me again.
I could almost hear them looking.
Melanie sat cross-legged on the other side of the tunnel, staring at a tablet whose cracked screen glowed faintly blue against her face. She looked tired in a way makeup couldn't hide—eyes rimmed red, hands shaking just enough to make the light tremble.
"They moved another Echelon array online," she murmured."Downtown's sealed. Harbor's next."
"How many arrays do they need to catch one person?" I asked.
"Depends on the person."She gave me a small, crooked smile that didn't reach her eyes."On you? All of them."
I tried to laugh, but it came out dry. The Nexus hummed under my skin again, sharper this time, like a warning sting. "They're close," I said.
She looked up. "You sure?"
"The Nexus never lies."
That was when the overhead lights flickered once… twice… then steadied. A sound followed—low, electric, spreading through the concrete like a heartbeat.
"They've got us," Melanie whispered. "Kaleb—"
"I know."
I stood, brushing grit from my hands. "They were always going to find us. The signal doesn't stop."
"It could have if you'd let me—"
"—turn it off? You can't turn off what I am."
She stared at me, jaw tight. "Then promise you won't fight them. If they hit you with Echelon again—"
"—I'll handle it."
I said it like I believed it.
The first drone arrived without sound. It simply appeared at the end of the tunnel, hovering in place like an insect with too many eyes. Its searchlight found us and widened, and the air snapped cold. Then came the rest—dozens, forming a perfect circle, every lens fixed on me.
Behind them, armored boots hit the floor in rhythm. The light cut through the smoke, and I saw him.
Joe Wann.
Even from thirty feet away, I could tell he'd been awake for days. His uniform was immaculate, but his eyes… not so much. He stopped a few paces short of the drones, hand raised like a priest at an altar.
"Kaleb Young," he said. "Step away from the civilian."
Melanie stepped forward anyway. "You call this a civilian extraction? You're pointing an army at a sixteen-year-old!"
Joe didn't even look at her. "You know the protocol."
"She's not part of this," I said.
"You're right," he said quietly. "She shouldn't be."
The drones began to hum in unison, harmonizing into a single vibrating note that made my teeth ache. The Nexus stirred, recognizing the sound—the same frequency that had tried to cage me before.
"Don't do this," I warned.
"Containment," Joe said.
The light hit like a tidal wave. Blue circles erupted around me, each one spinning in the opposite direction of the last. Every molecule of air felt electrified, pulling at the edges of me like static fingers.
I braced for it—pushed back—but the Nexus flared on its own, wild and desperate, meeting the Echelon field head-on. The tunnel became a storm of color: blue versus violet, order versus chaos. Every clash sent shocks up my spine until I couldn't tell where the pain stopped and I began.
Melanie screamed my name somewhere inside the noise. Her voice sounded far away, stretched thin by distortion.
Joe's command cut through: "Deploy the core!"
A mechanical groan echoed overhead. Panels in the ceiling peeled open, and something descended—an orb, crystalline, ringed with rotating coils of plasma. It glowed with the same sterile blue I'd come to hate.
The Echelon Cell.
I felt the pull instantly. Not physical—deeper. It was as if invisible hooks had latched onto the energy inside me and started to reel it out.
"Stop!" I shouted. "You don't understand what you're doing!"
Joe's voice came steady, practiced. "You're destabilizing, Kaleb. This will save you."
"No," I hissed. "It'll hollow me."
The Nexus fought back—veins of violet fire crawling up my arms, across my chest, burning without heat. Every pulse tore at me and the field alike, warping the air in shockwaves. Concrete cracked. Steel screamed.
"Joe!" Melanie's voice, closer now. "Shut it down!"
He hesitated—just for a second—but the techs behind him increased power. The coils around the sphere spun faster.
The pull became unbearable.
I dropped to my knees, every breath a knife. The light in my hands grew blinding, leaking from my fingertips in ribbons. It felt like being pulled apart by light itself, each strand of energy dragging a memory with it.
The lake party—sunlight on water. Mom's laugh. Sariya's hand on mine. Dasaysng, "You're stronger than you think."
Each image tore loose and vanished into the swirling core above.
Melanie reached me, fighting the current, clutching my shoulders. Her eyes were wide, terrified. "Kaleb, you have to let go!"
"I can't!"
"It's killing you!"
"It is me!"
The last word ripped out of my throat and dissolved into the roar.
And then everything stopped.
For one breath, the world went utterly silent. No color. No time. Just me, hanging in the air like gravity had forgotten I existed.
The Nexus poured out in silence—a flood of violet light twisting upward, threads spiraling gracefully into the containment cell. It wasn't rage or violence anymore. It was a surrender. Beautiful. Terrifying.
I watched pieces of myself leave, helpless to stop it. When the last thread slipped free, a single tear rolled down my cheek, catching the fading glow.
The tunnel went dark. And I fell.
I came to in fragments. First sound: faint beeping, soft mechanical breathing. Then smell: antiseptic, metal, recycled air. Then pain—deep, hollow, echoing through my ribs like something missing.
My eyelids felt heavy. When I forced them open, I saw glass. Everywhere.
I was inside a containment chamber, suspended by invisible restraints. Outside, through the distortion of reinforced glass, figures in white coats moved around consoles, their faces blurred by the glare.
Sentinel.
For a moment, I thought I was still dreaming. Then I looked to my right.
Beyond a second wall of glass hung a sphere—the Nexus Core—suspended in a cradle of silver coils. It glowed softly, pulsing in perfect rhythm with the monitor beside my bed.
My pulse. Its pulse. Still synchronized.
"Kaleb Young," a voice said through the intercom.
Joe.
He stepped into view, suit immaculate again, expression unreadable. For the first time, I noticed the dark circles under his eyes. He looked older. Smaller.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
I stared at him. "Empty."
He nodded slightly, like he expected that answer. "The extraction was successful. The Nexus energy is stable, contained, and your vitals are human again."
"Human."The word tasted like dust. "So that's what I am now."
"You're alive," he said. "That's what matters."
"Alive?" I forced a laugh that came out broken. "You buried me under glass."
He didn't react. "You'll thank us someday."
"For what? Taking the only thing that made me different?"
He hesitated, then said softly, "Different isn't always safe."
"Neither is living in a box," I shot back.
Joe turned toward the containment sphere. The purple light reflected in his glasses."It's not gone, Kaleb. It's just… safer this way."
"For who?"
He didn't answer. When he finally looked at me again, there was something behind the professionalism—guilt, maybe. Regret. But he said nothing more.
He left, the door sealing behind him with a hiss.
Time blurred. Days—maybe weeks—passed in sterile monotony. They fed me, scanned me, tested, no matter what they did, nothing inside me ever responded. The hum that had always been there—the low, steady rhythm of the Nexus—was gone.
At night, I'd sit by the glass and watch the Core. Sometimes it flickered brighter when I did, as if it knew I was watching. Sometimes I'd speak to it under my breath, half-hoping it could hear me.
"I don't know if you're still you," I whispered once. "But if you are… I'm sorry."
The Core pulsed once, faintly, almost in reply.
One morning, Melanie appeared in the observation room. Her hair was shorter now, her uniform replaced with a plain Sentinel technician jacket—camouflage. She looked at me through the glass, her lips moving silently: I'm working on it.
I wanted to believe her.
When she left, Joe came back with two guards. He didn't speak at first. He just stood there, staring at the Core.
"You know what it's doing in there?" he asked finally.
"No," I said. "Do you?"
"It's changing," he said quietly. "The energy's reorganizing itself. It's learning the boundaries of the cell."
I swallowed. "You mean it's alive."
He looked at me then, really looked. "Maybe," he said. "Or maybe it's just remembering."
He left before I could ask what that meant.
That night, the lab lights dimmed again, and the hum of the machines faded to a whisper. I couldn't sleep. I sat against the wall of my glass cell, watching the Core glow in the dark.
The surface shifted—slow, deliberate. The light coalesced into a faint outline, vague at first… then unmistakable.
A hand.Pressed against the inside of the glass, mirroring mine.
My breath caught.
I lifted my own hand and pressed it to the wall. The glow brightened, aligning perfectly. For a moment, warmth spread through the cold glass, faint but real.
Then the light faded, sinking back into the sphere's depths.
The room fell silent again.
But I knew, without question, that it had reached for me.
They hadn't destroyed the Nexus. They'd only divided us.
And in the hollow that used to be my heartbeat, something new began to form—something that wasn't just power or light or energy.
It was s purpose.