Sleep, when it came, was not an escape. It was a replay. He was back on the star-filled plain, the static-scream of the monolithic door scraping against the silence of his mind. This time, he was closer. He could see symbols flickering around the frame—not any code he recognized, but something older, more foundational. The primordial syntax of reality itself.
A voice, not a sound but a data-stream injected directly into his consciousness, whispered: //ERROR: SOUL_NOT_FOUND
He woke with a gasp, the phantom message echoing in his skull. The control room was still dark, the only light the faint glow of the shard on the floor. It was pulsing again, a slow, rhythmic violet beat, as if in time with a heart he couldn't hear.
//ERROR: SOUL_NOT_FOUND
The words chilled him. Was that what he was? Was that what the shard did? It didn't just hide him; it told the system he didn't have a soul to scan?
A new sound pierced his paranoia. Not a dream. Real.
Metal grinding against metal. Distant. From the main plant floor.
He was on his feet in an instant, his body protesting every movement. He killed the room's single light panel, plunging himself into absolute darkness save for the shard's ominous pulse. He scooped it up, its warmth a uncomfortable comfort against his palm.
He pressed his ear to the cold metal of the door. The sounds were clearer now. Not the organized, heavy tread of Enforcers. This was furtive. Sloppy. The sound of scavengers. Or worse, the Reaver gang Hemlock had mentioned.
He had two choices. Stay silent and hope they passed by. Or…
A new thought, cold and sharp. They aren't looking for me. They don't know I'm here.
This wasn't a Syntax Lord raid. This was an opportunity.
He could test his new ghosthood. Not against the city's sophisticated systems, but against the crude, biological sensors of other people.
He waited until the sounds were directly outside the control room—muffled voices, the clatter of someone kicking at scrap metal.
"…nothing here but rust and bad memories," a rough voice grumbled.
"Check the side rooms. The old control hubs sometimes have shielded wiring. Good copper," another replied.
Kaelen took a deep breath. He focused on the shard, on the feeling of being an error, a void. He poured his will into it, not to become invisible, but to become uninteresting. To be a piece of background static, a shadow in the corner of the eye that the brain automatically dismisses.
The door to the control room hissed open.
A large, hulking figure stood silhouetted in the doorway, a glow-globe in one hand, a heavy wrench in the other. He swept the light around the small room. The beam passed over Kaelen, standing motionless in the darkest corner.
The man's gaze slid right over him. He didn't startle. He didn't even pause. His eyes, adjusted to the darkness, simply failed to register Kaelen as a thing of consequence.
"Told you," the man called over his shoulder. "Empty. Just a cot and a busted reclaimer. Let's check the filter housings."
The door hissed shut.
Kaelen didn't move. He didn't breathe. He listened as the voices and footsteps receded, fading back into the cavernous belly of the plant.
A tremor ran through him, a cocktail of relief, exhilaration, and sheer, undiluted terror. It had worked. Not just on machines. On people.
He was more than a ghost. He was a cognitive blind spot.
The exhilaration was short-lived. As the adrenaline faded, the pain from his arm returned with a vengeance, a hot, sharp throb. The crude bandage was soaked through. He was weak from hunger and exhaustion. He couldn't stay here forever. Hemlock's rations wouldn't last. The water would run out.
The shard had given him a power, but it hadn't fixed his most immediate, human problems. He was still bleeding. He was still starving.
He looked at the pulsing crystal in his hand. It could make him a ghost, but it couldn't mend flesh. It could hide him from gods, but it couldn't find him food.
A grim resolve settled over him. The purification plant was no longer a sanctuary. It was a cage. He had to move. He needed supplies. Medicine. Information.
He needed to find out what happened to Zara. The guilt was a poison in his veins, as potent as the one from his wound.
He was a ghost. A null. An error.
But he was still a man. And a man had responsibilities.
Packing the meager supplies, he cast one last look around the dark control room. It had been a pause. A breath. Now, the hunt resumed. But this time, he wasn't just running.
He was the hunter, too.
To be continued...