The moment Ashem stepped onto the central platform, something in the air shifted. The concentric stone circles surrounding the Stream Gate began to turn — slowly at first, then accelerating with a faint grinding sound that resonated through the soles of his feet. Sahira was crouched beside him, palm pressed flat to the cold stone.
"Keep your breath even," she muttered. "Sometimes the Gate listens."
Ashem opened his mouth to ask what that meant, but the question froze on his lips as the outer ring locked into place with a thunderous click. The inner circles followed in sequence, aligning glowing glyphs that shimmered to life — bright lines pulsing with a color that wasn't quite blue, wasn't quite real. At the center of the arch, reality buckled inward.
The air inside the arch twisted, shimmered, then peeled back like a curtain.
On the other side: a narrow alley drowned in night, its pavement caked in sludge and shredded plastic. Strange towers loomed past the mouth of the corridor — black, angular giants speckled with neon veins, all of it washed in the flickering pink light of a billboard high above. A dull electric hum filled the space beyond.
The Stream Gate was open.
Ashem took a step forward and felt his entire body twist. The sound of wind vanished, his limbs tingled — and then they were there, inside the alley, the portal showing stones and hills behind them.
He looked down. Gone were his traveling robes. In their place, a smooth black corporate suit clung tight to his frame, its material faintly humming with current. Sahira wore a similar getup, her sleeves rolled, her tie undone. Her hat was gone, but the playful glint in her eye remained as she tugged his arm forward.
"You'll get used to it," she said, just as a bunch of trash bags fell through a square maintenance chute, right to their side. "Just pretend we belong."
"Did it change our clothes?"
She didn't answer.
The alley opened into a dense city street. Synthetic lights spilled from towering structures, while buzzing hover-cars zipped through narrow air lanes above them. Giant signs, projected midair, advertised neural upgrades, memory restoration, and emotion filtering — whatever that was. People moved in hurried silence, faces lit by screens and eye-implants, all of them dressed like they were halfway through becoming machines.
"Welcome to Hal-Zarqon," Sahira muttered. "Now let's find the Shard and get the hell out."
They turned down a side street lined with what Ashem assumed were food vendors, though everything on display sizzled beneath glass or steamed behind containment fields. He struggled to keep up.
"Can you hear me?" Sahira's voice sounded — inside his head.
He jerked, nearly stumbling into a man with metal limbs and a blinking chest. "What — how — ?"
"The comm implants on the back of our ears," her voice continued. "It's tech, not sorcery. Well, sort of."
Ashem touched behind his ear and felt the cool ridge of something metallic embedded in his skin. He winced. "Is this safe?"
"Depends on your definition. Now shut up and use your mind. Say things without saying them. Like thinking loud."
He hesitated. "Can you hear me?"
"Loud and awkward. But it'll do."
They walked in silence for a while, weaving between pedestrian clusters and vendor drones, until a towering building came into view — sleek, faceless, with a logo hovering above the doors: a swirling glyph of interlocking rings. Sahira's eyes sharpened.
"That's our target. We slip in through the staff lobby."
Ashem didn't move. "Why aren't they stopping us? We're… not from here."
"Because I'm keeping us legally invisible. Electromagnetic inductance through Shaiven, or Resonance." She smirked. "I'm resonating with the internal security grid. Translating the protocols. Sending back what they expect to see."
Ashem stared blankly.
"I'm hacking it with vibes, okay?" She faked a soft laugh. "It's a song you'll learn to sing."
They slipped into the staff corridor unnoticed. Every few steps, a camera turned away. Every lock opened with a hum and blink. Ashem watched as Sahira ran her fingers across smooth wall panels, reading invisible data streams like braille. They moved deeper into the complex, neon lights giving way to sterile white corridors.
Then came the unexpected fluke in the Stream.
An elevator opened two floors too soon. A security agent stepped out, mid-conversation through a headset, almost crashing into them. Sahira pulled Ashem aside, placing her palm to a wall. For a second the hallway bent, light distorting as if someone had yanked the color from the air. The guard blinked — then walked past them as if they weren't there.
Ashem clutched his chest. "What did you just do?"
"I didn't know I could do that…"
"How — ?"
"I induced a false visual echo. Looks like we were part of the background."
"That's… That's ridiculous."
"That's selling your eyes to a corporation."
The final corridor was pitch black. No lights, no signs, just the low electric hum of sleeping machines. Sahira stepped up to a floating terminal and placed her hand on it. A pulse traveled through the floor.
Red lights ignited in sequence along the edges of the room. The hum deepened.
From the center of the chamber, a thick platform hissed upward. Steam vented from its seams.
And then it revealed itself.
Suspended above the dais, glowing in dim violet pulses, floated the shard: a small rectangular sliver of quantum circuitry, etched with lines of golden light that shifted as it spun slowly in the air.
Then Sahira blinked. "We need to move."
She grabbed the shard and sealed it inside a slim black case strapped beneath her coat. The moment the platform lowered, the red lights above began to pulse faster, and the hum in the floor thickened into a warning growl.
As they moved back through the dark corridor, Sahira's mind-voice returned.
"Hold steady. Just a little longer."
They reached the lobby without incident, their footsteps quick and precise. The check-up chamber was shaped like a funnel — thin hallways all narrowing into a glowing arch with two guards and a scanning monolith beside it. A column of red light swept up and down each person passing through.
Ashem's stomach turned. He stepped closer to Sahira.
"You've still got us hidden, right?"
No answer.
He turned. Her brow was furrowed, sweat beading on her temple.
The shard… it was too loud.
She inhaled through her nose, trying to stabilize her breath, but the air around them was already flickering.
The scanner chirped.
The guard's eyes widened. "Unregistered resonance spike! Hold — "
Alarms shattered the silence. Red strobes exploded across the lobby.
"Run!"
Sahira grabbed Ashem's hand and pulled him hard, away from the scanner, down a side hallway as security shutters began to close across every visible exit. An automated voice echoed through the walls: "Containment Protocol 7 — Active Intrusion Detected."
Doors slammed shut. Locks clanked into place.
They skidded to a halt in front of a thick steel bulkhead. No lock, no handle. Just metal and inertia.
Sahira pressed her palm to it and whispered a word Ashem couldn't catch.
Nothing happened.
She inhaled, planted both hands now, and began to hum — a deep, guttural frequency that felt like it came from her spine. The door pulsed. Groaned. The steel began to twist, its edges bubbling and melting like soft clay.
Ashem watched the impossible happen — metal becoming soft, obeying will.
But Sahira was shaking. Her knees buckled as the last of the energy transfer snapped the center open wide enough for them to slip through. She fell to one side, gasping, and he helped her up.
"I can't — can't shield us now," she wheezed.
Ashem supported her with one arm, helping her limp down the alley.
Behind them: a mechanical screech.
He turned.
Out of the building poured something tall and metal-skinned, spider-limbed, with a glowing scanner for a face. No voice, just the click of its arms against the floor.
Ashem tightened his grip on Sahira and ran.
The city became a blur of light and shadow. Neon signs hissed past overhead, synthetic rain starting to fall in oily drops. They darted through open markets, weaving between confused vendors and crates of artificial fruit.
Another screech.
Another drone. Flying this time, with a rifle embedded in its chest.
A bolt of light exploded beside them.
Sahira pushed Ashem down as a second shot barely missed her head. She raised a hand to deflect the third — too late.
It struck her shoulder.
She fell hard.
Ashem dropped beside her, panic flooding his chest. The air smelled of burning cloth and copper.
"I — I can't keep going," she muttered.
He looked around. No exits. No allies. Just a mess of alleyways and glowing signs.
Then he remembered something — earlier, when they passed through the food vendors; the big maws of a maintenance chute.
Trash drops into the alley… right where we entered.
He looked around. Yes — there, between two food stands: a chute door.
Ashem slung Sahira's arm over his shoulder and pulled her toward the back of the alley. The drone fired again — missed.
Come on. Come on!
He reached the chute and yanked it open. A wave of synthetic garbage spilled out, but he didn't care. He shoved her in first, climbed in after, and let the weight of them drop them down into the lower corridor.
They landed hard. Sahira grunted.
Outside, footsteps — metal against metal. Too close.
"We're close," he said aloud. "Just a few more — "
He half-carried her down the alley's spine. The air around them rippled. And then, the Gate.
He pulled Sahira through just as another drone rounded the corner, rifle raised.
They crossed the threshold —
— and the portal snapped shut.
Silence. Cool forest air. Still morning.
Ashem collapsed beside her.
Sahira lay on her back, one hand clutching the case with the shard, the other pressed to her shoulder. She looked over at him — weak, but smiling.
"Well," she said through grit teeth. "Didn't think you'd actually pull that off."