Arlin's footsteps echoed in the empty corridor, each one quieter than the hum still ringing in his skull. Outside the clinic, the air felt thinner, somehow drier than before. It was probably the same. But everything felt off now. The light, the temperature, even the way sound moved through the street. Like the world had been nudged slightly out of place.
He didn't wait around. Everyone else stood near the exit, checking their eyes, whispering about what they saw or didn't see. Arlin kept walking. He didn't want to talk. Didn't want to look uncertain.
Didn't want to admit he still felt the warm touch of that machine inside his head.
His building was six blocks away. The walk took twenty minutes if you weren't avoiding checkpoints. Arlin made it in twelve. Kept his hood low and stuck to the alleys. A patrol drone hovered by the marketplace, but it didn't follow him. Not this time.
He lived in a reclaimed shipping unit, the kind that used to be welded together into housing stacks back during the Third Reduction. Three rooms, one window, no heat. He'd painted over the identification numbers, but you could still see them if the light hit just right. The lock was physical. He trusted it more than his chip.
The moment the door shut behind him, he exhaled. The silence inside was different. It was personal.
He took off his coat and boots, sat on the crate he used as a bench, and stared at the ceiling. His head didn't hurt, but something still buzzed behind his eyes. A soft pressure. Almost like being underwater.
The implant was active.
But the system wouldn't unlock until next morning.
Arlin's apartment was silent, the kind of quiet that felt too deliberate. Like something was holding its breath.
He threw his coat over the back of a chair and glanced at the wall clock. 07:04. Morning light filtered through the slits of the window blinds, casting long, pale lines across the floor. He had nearly 24 hours before the implant would activate. He wasn't sure what to do with that time.
First, he showered—long and scalding. Tried to wash off the weight in his bones. He watched the steam curl and hang in the air, reluctant to rise, like it, too, felt the heaviness pressing in.
Then he made food. Tried to eat. Couldn't finish.
He paced. Sat. Stared out the window. The air felt different, charged. Not just paranoia. It was like the hum of power lines, but everywhere. In the walls. Under the floor. Beneath his skin.
By noon, he'd rechecked the implant spot in the mirror six times. No mark. No redness. Just a ghost of something beneath the skin. He tried reading, even picked up one of his mother's old books about pre-digital mythologies. His fingers moved the pages, but his eyes didn't hold the words.
At 3 PM, he went out for a walk. Nothing looked right. People were out, but they moved like shadows, whispering too quietly, glancing at the sky too often.
When he got home, he locked the door. Shut every window. Pushed the crate up against the entrance even though no one had knocked in years.
He glanced at the old watch hanging on the wall. Mechanical, hand-wound. He'd kept it for years. Trusted it more than anything with a battery. It was almost time. Less than twelve hours before the interface came online.
Outside, a distant siren wailed. Not a warning siren, but an industrial one. Metal striking metal, the call of an old factory shift. But it startled him anyway.
He got up and drew the curtain shut. A pale green tint spilled across the floor before the window went dark.
He hated that glow. Hated how it seemed to reach places it shouldn't. Even here, deep in the borough's spine, where no tower reached the sky, and no citizen reached the Council, the light found its way in.
He boiled water, poured it over dried roots, and let it steep. His mother used to say that bitter things helped clear the mind. He never liked the taste. But the ritual was something to hold onto.
When the tea was ready, he drank it in silence. No net feed. No calls. Not since last year. Not since she—
He shut that thought down before it could take root.
Instead, he tried to smile as he opened the small storage panel beneath the floor. Inside were a few ration packs, a cracked med kit, and the bundle wrapped in carbon cloth. He hadn't opened it since she passed but the rations and supplies could be useful soon. The bundle though…
His fingers hesitated before they moved.
The cloth unwrapped like a memory. Inside was a weathered box, no larger than a book. Steel frame, old weld lines along the edges. Not Council tech. Not government-issue. It was pre-Dominion. Handmade. Locked with a physical mechanism with two keyholes, one missing.
He had the other key around his neck.
He didn't open it.
Not yet.
Instead, he sat back down, hands folded, and waited. His thoughts drifted to the boy from the clinic line. The one who'd mentioned the royal families. Said they were in hiding. Said his brother worked near the wall.
Was that true? Or just more fear spreading through the cracks?
It didn't matter. What mattered was how fast things were changing. The streets were different. The sky was different. And tomorrow, he would be different too.
He would see the effects of the implant soon. The HUD.
The real one—not the one shown in training vids or public demos. The real one would peel back the surface. Let him see what his body was truly capable of. Let him track the changes. Measure the danger. Maybe even… wake him up.
No. He couldn't think like that.
But the thought was already there, flickering like a match before the wind.
If he really was who his mother said he was. If the blood in his veins did come from the first king, then the implant wouldn't just unlock a set of stats or reflex monitors. It might trigger something older. Something encoded.
Something not meant to be seen again.
The Moon's glow was still pulsing, even if the World Council pretended it was normal. Something ancient was humming beneath everything.
And whatever it was, Arlin could feel it now.
Waiting.