That faint, keening note—not quite a whistle, not quite a whisper—slides along the rust-rimmed teeth of the giant gear I chose as my bed. It reaches my ears before the morning light does, tugging me awake just in time to roll aside as a Pulse-charged war-pick slams down where my skull had been.
Steel sparks scatter. They hiss against the hollow gear's rim, tracing tiny arcs of electric blue before fading into charcoal smoke. I blink up through the gloom and find Brack Morrow filling the mouth of the cog. His fresh war-pick hums with orange veins; the replacement must have cost him half a month's prize money, and his swollen nose tells me how badly he wants repayment.
I don't wait for conversation. Rolling onto hands and knees, I scramble through the gear's empty center and drop to the gravel beneath. The debris field of the Clockwork Graveyard is a maze of toppled gears, cracked brass statues, and shattered lightning jars. Perfect cover—if I can stay ahead of Brack's reach.
Behind me iron groans; Brack pushes the gear aside as if shoving a loose door. The strength of a mid-tier Pulse fighter is no joke. He spots me, snarls, and jumps down.
I sprint, boots crunching shards of antique glass. The graveyard's ruin rises around me like broken cathedral arches. Somewhere nearby, old tram batteries still hum with leftover charge. If I'm clever, I can—
A cold prickling sensation crawls up my spine. The Spectral Interface renders a translucent panel across my field of vision, its letters floating an arm's length ahead, readable yet somehow layered over the world itself.
⟢ Spectral Authority—User: Cipher
Status: Null Overtone (Stable)
Flux Reservoir: 00 · 11 %
Paradox Risk: 20 %
Daily Recommendation: "Define Secondary Riddle."
Nearby Threat Identified: Brack Morrow, Pulse 5 / Nova 1.
The Interface feels like a disembodied librarian: polite, tidy, a bit impatient that I haven't done my homework. Some people call it a System—a built-in rules engine left by whoever first codified the Spectra. Scholars debate whether it's living code or divine bookkeeping. I only know it talks when it wants and stops when you most need advice.
Today it wants me to stop running and compromise with logic. Not happening.
I vault a heap of twisted axles and land beside a cracked lightning jar. A net of copper wires still hugs the glass shell, faint sparks crawling like lazy caterpillars. I swipe a fingertip through one spark; it stings, but the pain is data. Enough charge to light a lantern—maybe more if amplified.
Brack crashes after me, boots punching dents in rusted plating.
"Stay still!" he roars. "I only need your hands. The rest can live—for now."
Comforting.
The Interface pings again, size of the text shrinking until only one line remains, pulsing amber:
Δ T = 12 s: Impact Imminent.
I drag a handful of dust from my pocket—quietstone grit Tamsin gave me. Normally it calms the Null hum; I've a different use in mind. I toss the dust into the lightning jar's throat and slam both palms against the copper mesh.
Quietstone absorbs Null resonance the way bone absorbs marrow. When Null meets stray Pulse charge, they don't cancel; they multiply in weird ways. The jar flares white, then cracks with a soft pop like cork leaving a bottle.
The Interface flickers.
Ad-hoc Catalyst Detected.
Borrowed Mass = 0.24 Strata (Transient).
Constraint Check … Passed
Transient means I have maybe two heartbeats before the energy evaporates back to nothing. I yank the power into my core, exhale, and twist sideways as Brack's war-pick slices through air. The stolen Strata becomes a lance of inertial shove, jerking me upward and sideways. I clear a stack of dented boiler drums and skid down the far side, landing hard but upright.
Brack, caught by surprise, over-swings and buries his pick in the jar. The jar detonates, a thunderclap wrapped in blue fire. Shards of glass whiz through the tar-colored dawn. Brack staggers, gauntlet smoking.
My stolen Strata gone, I fight dizziness. The Overtone tries to scatter my molecules into every nearby gap. I grit my teeth, focus on my Anchor: Cipher, the code yet to be solved. The ground firms beneath my boots.
Flux Reservoir: 00 · 04 %
Stabilization Successful.
Still alive.
I duck into a gulley formed by collapsed girders. Grease-stained dawn filters through fractured skylights high above. If I can keep Brack chasing instead of thinking, I can maneuver him toward the largest battery mound—some of those jars still hold enough Pulse to fry a grown man.
Footfalls pound behind. He's fast despite the blast.
Ahead, the gulley forks. Left climbs toward open yard; right narrows beneath a curtain wall of scrap.
"Null-rat!" Brack's voice rolls like barrel thunder. "You're worth five thousand louds now! Concord doubled the bounty after they scanned the bridge. Do you know how many fists I'll break with that coin?"
I choose the narrow right path—low ceiling, twisted pipework. Brack will have to squeeze his bulk.
Sure enough, he wedges in the gap. Sparks bloom where his armor grinds on steel edges. He shoves, metal screams, debris topples—but the choke point slows him.
I spot a fallen lightning jar half-buried in grit. Its wire cage is intact, but the glass glows faint orange—still warm. I kneel, splay a palm against its surface, and whisper a test.
"Interface, calculate potential yield if jar ruptures."
Words bloom:
Charge Estimate: 1.6 Strata (Dormant).
Container Fragility: 87 %
Recommended Outcome: Controlled Release.
Risk: High—Pulse Feedback Likely.
High risk for Brack, fatal for me if misjudged. But controlled release sounds like something I could aim for—if I had a secondary Riddle as the Interface keeps nagging. A Riddle shapes power; without one I keep abusing loopholes and courting Paradox.
My first Riddle—Undefined—lets me bend zero into anything, but it's slippery. I need a smaller rule, a stable sub-routine.
Pressure echoes; Brack—inches away.
I breathe deep. Secondary Riddle, simple, clear:
I will return borrowed power as silence.
Power is noise, Null is quiet; pay the loan back, keep the books balanced.
I speak the vow aloud: "My second rule: whatever I take, I give back as hush."
Interface shift:
Secondary Riddle "Echo-for-Silence" Registered.
Constraint Matrix Updated.
Flux Cycle Stabilized.
Clarity falls through me like cold water. I feel the jar's Pulse charge thrumming, the stray currents of Brack's armor, the tiny thumps of my own heart—noise, all noise waiting to be muted.
Brack hunches, forces himself two steps forward, pick first. "Enough games!" He swings. The pick's tip catches the jar edge—exactly what I needed.
Glass spider-webs. Charge leaps into the air, a crackling halo. I snag it—a reflexive mental reach—and channel it into my hands. Heat flares but doesn't burn; the Riddle translates raw thunder into a braided cord of force. My fingers weave invisible strands, gather them into a narrow cone, then aim at Brack's faceplate.
I release.
The Pulse becomes quiet—a concussive hush that sucks away all sound for half a heartbeat. Brack staggers as if punched by silence itself. His pick goes slack; his ears bleed from pressure drop.
Interface flashes:
Borrowed Mass Returned.
Noise Debt Cleared.
Paradox Risk –5 %.
The overhead pipes, robbed of ambient hum, vibrate wildly and buckle. A wedge of jagged metal drops between us with a clang that shatters the silence. The path behind me is clear; his way forward buried.
Brack roars, but the steel wall holds. For now.
I turn and run.
The graveyard opens ahead, rising into terraces of old gear stacks. Near the top, broken clock hands jut like crooked fingers pointing skyward. Beyond them the city's eastern skyline blushes pink, promising daylight and with it patrolling wardens. I need sanctuary before the morning shift rolls out.
The Interface, ever helpfully unhelpful, materializes a new pane:
Next Objective: Secure Mentor.
Suggested Nodes:
• Ironmonger Hall (Flux-Engine Repairs) ↳ Distance 1.3 km
• Quill & Candle (Librarian Access) ↳ Distance 0.9 km
• Deep Null (Meditation Zone) ↳ Not Recommended
Funny.
Quill & Candle is the nearer, but Concord patrols will surely double-back there soon. The ironmonger's shop lies farther, through districts where law thins. Risk either way.
A clang reverbs behind—Brack ripping metal aside. The man is persistent. I angle toward the ironmonger path.
Graveyard debris thins, giving way to alleys lined with defunct smokestacks. The air smells of old coal dust and dawn fog. I slow, pressing a hand to my ribs. Adrenalin fades; pain blooms. My borrowed clothes—thank you, Tamsin—now hang in tatters. A slash on my forearm weeps blood; I sprinkle a grain of quietstone over it, wincing as the wound knits shut with eerie hush.
Ahead, a bridge of riveted plates spans a drainage canal. The ironmonger's district begins on the far side—workshops coughing sparks, night-shift laborers shuffling home. As I step onto the bridge, the Interface appears again, but different: the normal tidy typeface dissolves into symbols—circles, lines, a shimmering sigil that resembles overlapping zeros.
The text crawls into meaning:
⟢ LOW-LEVEL ADMINISTRATIVE QUERY DETECTED
Origin: Concord Phalanx Node 07B
Subject: "Unregistered Null-Overtone Entity (Alias: Cipher)"
Status: Tracking (Signal Strength 12 %).
Countermeasures Suggested: Cloak, Mask, Name-Shift.
They're pinging for me—using the very Interface to locate its new anomaly. Part of me marvels; part of me panics.
How do you cloak a signal you barely understand? My Riddle promises to return noise as silence—so silence might be the cloak.
I sit cross-legged on the bridge, ignoring startled glances from a passing machinist. Eyes closed, I focus on the hum of reality: tram rails in the distance, gulls squabbling overhead, blood thumping behind my ears. I imagine each sound as a candle flame. One by one, I snuff them, offering their whispers to the Riddle like coins to a wishing well.
The Interface dims. The Concord query line blurs, then fades.
Tracking Jammed (Signal <1 %).
Achievement Unlocked: "Quiet Footprint."
Flux Reservoir +02 %.
I open my eyes into a thinner world, edges soft, noises muted. But I'm not dissolved—Anchor holds.
Bootsteps approach from the far end of the bridge. Not Brack—lighter, deliberate. A tall woman in a smith's oil-skin apron, coal smudges on her jaw, strides my way holding a rivet-gun big as a carbine. She stops three paces off, studying me with flint-gray eyes.
"Heard the Graveyard rattling," she says. Her accent is furnace-room husky. "Figured something rare crawled out." She points the rivet-gun groundward, non-threatening but ready. "You Null?"
"Mostly," I answer. My voice sounds faraway even to me. "Looking for the ironmonger."
"You found her. Name's Master Aderyn Forge." She tilts her head. "And yours?"
"Cipher."
"Fitting. You broke something, Cipher, and I like broken things—means a chance to rebuild better. But the Concord's sniffing. So answer quick: are you problem or possibility?"
The Interface blinks, waiting with her. I glance back. In the distance, Brack crests the graveyard ridge, silhouetted against the rising sun, unmistakable even at range.
I face Master Forge, straighten my shoulders, and offer the brass key Tamsin lent me. "I'm possibility. Just need—"
A deafening crack splits the dawn: Brack, hurling a shockwave punch across half a field, metal debris exploding skyward. Master Forge doesn't flinch; she racks a rivet cartridge into her gun.
"Lesson one," she says. "Possibilities survive by making allies fast." She hitches her chin toward a workshop doorway glowing furnace-red. "Inside. We'll weld your Zero into something useful."
As we sprint, the Interface scrolls a final, intent line:
Mentor Secured—Apprenticeship Initiated
New Skill Branch Unlocked: "Quiet Smithing"
Tutorial Commencing …
The door slams. Heat and hammer-song swallow us, while outside Brack roars, Concord wardens fan out, and the city of Iron begins another day, entirely unaware that a nameless rat has acquired both a title and a teacher—and that the impossible fraction is one step closer to balance.