Chapter 7
The rain didn't just fall; it erased. It turned the city’s neon-slicked streets into a smear of gray, but the three Vespera enforcers blocking the alleyway were sharp-edged and absolute. They didn't care about the downpour. They were focused on the brass cylinder in Aris Thorne’s hand.
"The archive purge was just the opening act, Dr. Thorne," the lead enforcer said. His voice, synthesized by a collar-mic, stripped away any human inflection. He tapped a glass tablet. A live feed flickered into the air between them: Elias. She was suspended in a room where the floor didn't meet the walls, a geometric nightmare of shifting light. The air around her vibrated with a low-frequency hum that made Aris’s teeth ache. She was tethered to a central pillar by lines of light that mirrored the engravings on the relic.
"She’s the anchor," Aris whispered. The relic in his grip felt impossibly cold, pulsing in rhythm with the feed.
"The Folding Room requires a catalyst," the enforcer continued. "We’ve been patient with your academic curiosity, but the schedule has shifted. You have seventy-five minutes before the room collapses inward. Hand over the cylinder, and we allow you to walk away. Keep it, and the collapse happens with her inside."
Anya didn't wait for Aris to answer. She slammed her palm against a nearby utility box, overriding the external casing with a jagged piece of rebar. Sparks showered the alley, blinding the enforcers' thermal optics in a burst of white noise. "Run, Aris!" she shouted, grabbing his sleeve. As they bolted into the labyrinthine darkness of the subway tunnels, Aris glanced at the relic. The countdown had dropped to 01:12:00. It wasn't just a device; it was a drain, and it was feeding on his sister.
The lower tunnels tasted of ozone and ancient rust. Aris stumbled, his hand slick with the blood he’d spent at the archives, clutching the cylinder like a holy relic that had suddenly grown teeth. Beside him, Anya pulled up a holographic interface on her wrist-comm, her face illuminated by the flickering, sickly blue light of a system alert.
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