The machine was a monstrosity, a testament to Forge's genius and utter disregard for aesthetics. It was a skeletal throne of scavenged alloys and exposed wiring, cobbled together around a central, pulsating crystal suspended in a magnetic field. It looked less like a precision instrument and more like an instrument of torture.
For three days, Yin Lie had watched him build it, fueled by caffeine, nicotine, and a manic creative fire. Now, it was done.
"It's not a GPS, kid," Forge said, wiping grease from his hands onto an already filthy rag. He tapped a complex series of commands into a console. "Think of it as a tuning fork for your soul. You're going to sit in that chair, connect to the core, and listen. The city is full of variants—a whole damn choir of them, most singing off-key. You'll hear them all. Your job is to find the one voice that harmonizes with the Keystone echo inside you. Simple, right?"
He gave Yin Lie a grin that was all teeth and no humor. "Also, the moment you go active, you'll be the loudest voice in that choir. A damn opera singer in a library. Everyone who's looking for you? They'll get an engraved invitation to this address. You'll have minutes, maybe less, before the party starts."
Yin Lie looked at the chair, then back at Forge. There was no other way. "Let's begin."
He settled into the cold metal frame. Forge attached a series of nodes to his temples and wrists, the wires connecting him directly to the humming crystal.
"Alright. Don't fight it," Forge instructed, his voice now tight with focus as he stood over the console. "Don't try to control the flow. Just open the floodgates. Let the wolf hunt for the scent, and let the ice give you the clarity to see it. Going live in three… two… one…"
The world dissolved.
It wasn't a sound; it was a feeling. A billion threads of sensation slamming into his consciousness at once. The city wasn't a place of concrete and neon anymore; it was a living, breathing entity of intertwined energies. He felt the simmering rage of a pyrokinetic bouncer in a downtown club, the anxious hum of a technopath trying to crack a corporate server, the low, mournful thrum of something ancient and powerful sleeping deep beneath the city's foundations.
It was an ocean of noise, threatening to drown him.
Focus. The word was an anchor. He let the wolf's instinct take over, not as rage, but as a predator's single-minded purpose. The beast within didn't care about the thousand other scents in the forest; it cared only for its chosen prey. He began sifting through the cacophony, searching for a specific resonance, a familiar note of amplified, corrupted power.
The ice followed, a razor-sharp filter. It cut away the extraneous signals, encasing them in silence, allowing him to perceive the remaining threads with crystalline clarity. Heat and cold, instinct and logic, working in perfect, deadly harmony.
He pushed deeper. He felt the cold, disciplined network of the Directorate's agents, a web of chilling order. He felt a different kind of power, elegant and sharp as a shard of glass—Su Li's people, watching from the periphery.
And then he found it.
It was a discordant note in the city's symphony. A cold, hungry void that felt like the Keystone, but twisted, weaponized. It was a signal that didn't just radiate; it consumed, pulling at the energies around it. It was centered, deep underground, beneath a monolithic spear of black glass that stabbed the sky in the city's financial district.
Veridian Corp Tower.
The moment his consciousness locked onto the signal, a psychic shockwave erupted from him, a silent scream that every sensitive in Nocturnal Shadows felt in their bones.
---
In his sterile laboratory, the alarms blared. Qi Yan looked up from Specimen Zero's containment tank, a slow, cold smile spreading across his face. On a city-wide map, a single, brilliant point of light pulsed in the industrial sector.
"He's not running," Qi Yan murmured, his voice full of predatory delight. "He's knocking on my door." He turned to his lead security officer. "Deploy the Reavers. I want the asset contained. I want his power, and I want the echo he carries. Do not fail me."
---
In her penthouse, the wine in Su Li's glass vibrated, forming concentric rings on its surface. She looked toward the industrial sector, a flicker of genuine surprise in her eyes.
"Bold," she whispered to the empty room. "He's lit a bonfire to attract the moths."
Ling's hologram appeared. "Mistress Su, we have his exact location. Your orders?"
"Observe," she commanded, her expression unreadable. "The game has just become interesting. Let's see which wolf is the first to reach the bait."
---
"Lock acquired!" the technician shouted in the Directorate's command center. "Signal origin confirmed. Sector Gamma-7, subdivision four. It's him!"
Chief Inspector Valen stared at the glowing dot on the map. He didn't hesitate.
"All Specter units converge. Full containment protocol. Lethal force is authorized if the target resists. I want him in a cage by sunrise."
---
Yin Lie gasped, ripping the nodes from his head as the connection shattered. He stumbled out of the chair, his legs weak, his mind reeling from the psychic feedback. The room was spinning.
"Got it," he rasped. "Veridian Corp Tower. Sub-levels."
Forge was already shutting down his systems, his face grim. Red lights flashed on a nearby monitor, showing multiple armed groups approaching from all directions.
"Yeah, you got it," Forge said, shoving a sleek, black sidearm and several strange-looking grenades into Yin Lie's hands. "And now they've all got us. You have a ninety-second head start, maybe. Directorate from the east, and something big and ugly coming from the west—Qi Yan's dogs, I'd wager."
He hit a large red button on the wall. A section of the floor ground open, revealing a sewer access tunnel. "This will get you to the transit lines. After that, you're on your own."
Yin Lie nodded, his strength returning as the wolf's vitality surged to mend his mental exhaustion. He looked at Forge. "They'll come for you, too."
Forge just grinned, hefting a plasma rifle from a workbench. "I know. I've been wanting to test this new baby on some government-issue body armor anyway. Now get out of here."
Yin Lie didn't waste another second. He dropped into the tunnel just as the sound of the main door being torn from its hinges echoed from above.
The beacon was lit. And the wolves were coming.