Running through a panicking crowd on a swaying skyway turned out to be harder than it looked in movies.
Kaelen shoved past a man clutching a briefcase, ducked under a flailing elbow, almost tripped on a dropped holo-tablet that was still glitching between a newsfeed and a rune-carved tree.
"Sorry—move—coming through—"
Above him, Syndicate crafts screamed through the haze, their engines whining with that signature tone that felt like someone scraping the inside of his skull.
Nine black wedges cut through the neon fog.
"Lira," Kaelen gasped. "Ideas?"
RUN FASTER.
"Tactical ideas!"
THAT IS A TACTICAL IDEA.
He spotted a service stairwell door as he sprinted past a vending machine covered in scales. The machine hissed. Something inside shifted like it had lungs.
"Not today," Kaelen muttered.
He wrenched at the stairwell handle — locked. He slammed both hands against it, frustration boiling up.
Something behind his eyes flared.
The door dissolved into a mesh of overlapping systems:
blue code crawling through its lock protocols,
gold runes etched beneath the metal like veins.
His hands tingled.
"Okay… let's break physics," he whispered.
He forced the two systems to overlap, pushing his will into both.
The lock snapped open.
Kaelen's pulse hammered. "I'm getting way too comfortable with impossible."
CORRECTION. IMPOSSIBLE IS A RECURRING PATTERN FOR YOU.
He dove inside and took the stairs three at a time.
The deeper he went, the more the stairwell changed. Moss lit the walls. Vines wrapped cables. Emergency lights flickered between neon and bioluminescence.
"Where are we even going?" Kaelen asked.
DOWN. AWAY. INTO TROUBLE. BUT SURVIVABLE TROUBLE.
He burst through another landing and froze.
Voices.
Ahead, in a maintenance corridor, three Syndicate Enforcers scanned a group of terrified passengers lined up to board a mag-rail shuttle.
Kaelen peeked around the edge of the hatch.
Enforcers paced with scanning staffs humming with mana-tech. Anyone flagged as "unstable" would be bagged, tied, and shipped to the Syndicate's "soft labs."
Kaelen very much didn't want to be bagged.
He scanned options. Run? Fight? Surrender?
None scored high.
Unless—
"Lira," Kaelen whispered, "can you trip the shuttle?"
YES. BUT IT WILL BE… DRAMATIC.
"When am I ever subtle?"
PROCEED.
Kaelen pushed the hatch open and stepped directly into the corridor.
The nearest Enforcer's helmet snapped toward him.
"Deck is closed," it said.
"Sorry," Kaelen replied. "Wrong turn. Whole world glitched, dragon talked to me. You get it."
All three helmets turned sharply.
"Kaelen Rhyx," one said. "Designation: K-017. You are classified as an active anomaly. Surrender for collection."
"Surrender is bad branding," Kaelen said. "I'm boycotting it."
INITIATING SHUTTLE CHAOS. Lira said.
The mag-rail lights flared.
A chime rang.
"Departure in three… two…"
"Override!" an Enforcer barked.
"Nope," Kaelen said, and sprinted.
A stun bolt shattered the floor behind him. He dove for the shrinking gap in the shuttle doors—
—and a pair of strong hands grabbed his jacket collar and yanked.
He slammed inside the car just as the doors sealed shut.
The shuttle rocketed forward.
Kaelen rolled onto his back, gasping.
Then he looked up…
…and saw her.
A young woman stood over him.
Mocha skin.
Dreadlocks threaded with silver wire and glowing crystal shards.
Binary tattoos running down her neck like vertical code waterfalls.
Tribal sigils inked across her arms and chest, glowing faintly like living circuitry.
Small circular audio-jack ports sat behind each ear, pulsing with blue and green light as they synced to the ambient grid.
She looked like the Wyrdlands and the Neon Spires had collaborated on a human being.
She raised an eyebrow.
"You picked an extremely loud time to enter the shuttle, glitch-boy."
Kaelen blinked. "Hi. Uh. Hi."
She extended a hand and pulled him to his feet effortlessly.
Passengers shrank away from him. The binary tattoos down her throat flickered as she scanned him with her eyes.
"You're the anomaly," she said, voice low, musical, dangerous.
"I really don't love that nickname," Kaelen muttered.
Her gaze locked on his mismatched eyes.
Her tattoos glowed brighter. The audio-jack ports clicked open like mechanical petals, syncing with the hum of the train.
"You're broadcasting two frequencies at once," she said. "Mana resonance and NexCode signal. That's not supposed to be possible."
Kaelen sighed. "Story of my day."
"My name's Beacon," she said.
She tapped her chest.
Binary tattoos rippled.
Crystals in her hair chimed like digital wind chimes.
"Beacon?" Kaelen asked. "Like… guiding light?"
"More like…" She smirked. "I amplify things. And you're loud, hybrid."
He froze. "How do you know that word?"
Beacon stepped closer, inspecting the air around him like she could see fields of invisible energy.
"Because I can hear both worlds," she said. "Tech. Magic. Data. Spirit. I'm a conduit. You're something else entirely."
"And that's… good?"
Beacon snorted. "Nothing about today is good. But you—" she poked his chest— "you're needed."
The train's overhead voice blared:
"Passengers, remain seated. Syndicate retrieval squads are inbound."
Beacon's jaw tightened.
"They're meeting us at the next station," she said. "And trust me—you don't want to meet them."
"I noticed."
She pulled aside her cloak, revealing a pin on her vest: a spiral symbol of circuit-lines woven into root-lines.
Kaelen's breath hitched.
"That's…" he whispered, "the symbol the dragon showed me."
Beacon's eyes widened. "So the visions were real."
"You've seen them?"
"I've felt them. I get flashes sometimes. Warnings."
"Your group," Kaelen said. "Who are you?"
"We call ourselves the Rootline," Beacon replied. "We protect the old power and monitor the grid for… changes."
"What kind of changes?"
"The kind that wake sleeping giants," she said softly. "The kind that crack the world open."
The train began to slow.
The lights flickered.
Beacon grabbed Kaelen's wrist. "You're about to make a choice. Come with me… or let the Syndicate put you on a dissection table."
"You really love that threat," Kaelen muttered.
"Motivation is an art," Beacon said.
The train coasted into a dim station lit by flickering neon and glowing moss.
JUNCTION 13 — LOWER ACCESS
Four Enforcers stood waiting.
Between them: a Prime of the Syndicate.
Beacon's grip tightened.
"Jump with me," she said. "Trust the dragon bones. Trust the Wyrd. Trust the code. Just don't trust them."
Kaelen swallowed hard.
The Enforcers moved.
Beacon moved faster.
She dragged Kaelen toward the opposite doors—
"Lira!" Kaelen shouted in his mind. "Open them!"
WITH PLEASURE.
The doors blew open with a shower of sparks.
Beacon and Kaelen sprinted onto a tiny maintenance ledge above a yawning abyss.
Stun bolts blasted the walls.
Beacon's crystals glowed violently. Binary tattoos flashed like warning lights.
She slammed a palm against a moss-covered hatch.
Nothing.
"Move!" she barked.
Kaelen pressed his hand against the hatch — code and runes flashing in his vision — and forced them together.
The hatch snapped open with a crack.
They dove inside.
Lira sealed the hatch behind them.
The Syndicate pounded on metal.
Beacon and Kaelen lay gasping in a tunnel carved of stone and glowing roots.
Then the dragon spoke.
Hybrid.
You bring the Conduit.
Good. The world accelerates.
The lock breaks.
The mind wakes.
Beacon's tattoos flared bright.
"You heard that too, right?" Kaelen asked.
"I didn't hear it," Beacon whispered.
"I felt it in my bones."
She stood, offered him her hand again, and smiled in a way that was both fierce and tired.
"Welcome to the Rootline, Kaelen Rhyx," she said. "Let's go meet the things waking under our world."
Lights pulsed in the tunnel like a heartbeat.
Kaelen took her hand.
The hybrid and the conduit stepped deeper into the dark.