Chapter 6: Disturbance
The wind was quiet.
Too quiet.
Victor von Doom stood at the edge of an old train yard on the outskirts of the city, his boots crunching faintly against broken gravel and long-faded paint lines. The place had long been forgotten — left to rot after a corporate restructuring cut public transport in favor of newer, faster maglev corridors.
To most, it was just urban decay.
To Victor, it was useful.
Empty, quiet, isolated.
Perfect for testing things the world was not yet ready to see.
The morning haze was beginning to burn away, the sky just beginning to shift from gray to amber, but a strange stillness clung to the yard like frost. Victor stopped mid-step.
His instincts whispered.
It wasn't a sound or a movement — it was the absence of both. No chirping birds. No scuttling rats. Even the wind seemed to hesitate as it brushed past rusted freight cars, as though the air itself was cautious.
Victor narrowed his eyes and extended his senses.
His right hand curled slightly, palm toward the ground, and he closed his eyes. The System's ambient scan flickered softly at the edge of his perception.
> [System Notification – Passive Environmental Scan Engaged...]
Analyzing Local Parameters...
Environmental Integrity: 98.2%
Localized Anomaly Detected.
Nature: Low-Level Spatial Fluctuation
Origin: Unregistered. Type: Non-natural.
"Clarify," he murmured.
> [Access Denied – Higher System Access Required: Level 2+]
Recommend Observation and Caution.
He opened his eyes again, frowning.
That was the first time the System had denied him clarity. He hadn't even known there were levels to access. So far, he'd only been using what the System fed him — instinctively, intuitively — learning to channel kinetic force, manipulate small vectors, and enhance his body subtly.
But now it was holding something back.
He scanned the area again manually. Nothing. But there — something faint. A distortion in the air ahead, like the shimmer of heat above asphalt… only it wasn't hot.
He walked toward it slowly.
The tracks beneath his boots groaned ever so faintly. He stopped again.
Then placed his hand down on one of the rails.
Cold.
No — wrong.
The metal wasn't just cold. It throbbed. Not with motion or temperature. With resonance. A subtle vibration that didn't come from any physical movement.
Like something was brushing reality's surface from the other side.
> [Anomaly Pulse – Registered at 0.0027° Displacement]
Synchronization Drift: Passive. Mild.
Recommendation: Maintain distance. Observe.
Victor didn't move.
Not out of fear.
Out of calculation.
He tapped the ground with his foot, gently. Nothing shifted.
He reached inside his coat and pulled a small metal nut from his pocket — a remnant from one of his mechanical projects — and flicked it forward, gently, toward the shimmer.
The nut passed through without resistance.
But as it did, he felt the System tug at his awareness.
> [Foreign Field Interaction Detected – Object Shift: 0.0031°]
Then the nut hit the gravel beyond and skipped. It didn't bounce — it stuttered. Like time hesitated. A momentary jitter.
Victor stared.
Something was definitely here.
Not visible to the naked eye, not accessible through conventional means — but it was affecting the environment on a molecular level.
He stood there in silence for nearly a minute, eyes locked on the spot.
The anomaly didn't pulse again, but the pressure lingered.
Like a door cracked slightly ajar.
---
Meanwhile…
In Queens, a twelve-year-old boy named Riley was kicking a rock down the sidewalk.
He was bored. His tablet was dead. School wasn't for another hour. So he kicked the same rock all the way to the corner — then picked it up and hurled it into a sewer grate with a satisfying clack.
But no splash.
Instead, a soft thud came from behind him.
Riley turned around.
There, behind him on the pavement, was the same rock — cracked clean down the middle.
"What the…"
He bent to touch it — and recoiled. It was ice-cold.
He glanced around. Nobody else had seen it.
After a pause, he kicked it again — hard.
This time, it didn't move. It just sat there. Almost like it had dug itself into the sidewalk.
Riley frowned.
" Nope, no fking way. Not my job. I m just a kid."
And then he ran away.
---
Back at the train yard, Victor slowly stood and withdrew his hand from the rail.
The vibration had ceased.
But the impression remained. Something had pressed against this world. Just slightly.
Like a knuckle testing the surface of a mirror.
> [System Note – Fluctuation Dormant. Temporary. Continue Monitoring.]
He didn't like it.
He didn't like not knowing.
Victor took one last long look at the air distortion, then turned back toward the warehouse he'd been using for personal training.
There was no need to provoke this thing now.
But his thoughts burned.
It wasn't natural. And it wasn't human. Which meant it was either magical — or something else.
Either way, it had noticed the world.
And soon, it might notice him.