The hum came back before Kael Draven even opened his eyes.
Low. Deep. Alive.
It crawled up through the cracked pavement beneath his boots, through his ribs, and into his skull — a vibration so heavy it felt like his blood was syncing to its rhythm. The sound wasn't just around him; it was inside him, threading through bone and memory alike.
Kael opened his eyes to chaos.
Orion District 9 had never been quiet, but tonight it looked like the entire grid was breaking apart.
Neon billboards above him stuttered violently, flickering between fashion ads, static, and alien glyphs he couldn't parse fast enough. Cargo drones hung suspended midair, their rotors twitching uselessly. Acid rain hissed as it hit fractured glass, pooling into shimmering violet puddles that glowed under the broken city lights.
His HUD finally booted back up, sluggish and fragmented:
PRIMARY NETWORK: OFFLINE
TRACE ID // GHOST-Σ-72
ANCHOR STATUS: UNSTABLE
LATTICE SIGNAL: UNKNOWN
Kael muttered under his breath. "Perfect."
Then the second hum hit.
It wasn't sound anymore. It was pressure — alive, coiling, breathing. Every cracked billboard on the block shattered inward, spraying shards across the street. People screamed as drones tumbled into the asphalt, trailing sparks.
ORION DISTRICT 9
The undercity had always been brutal, but tonight it felt haunted.
Kael stepped into the crowded main street, his boots splashing through puddles as hundreds of civilians pressed against each other in confusion and panic. A fruit vendor screamed at two Syndicate enforcers shoving his cart aside. A stray drone buzzed aimlessly in circles, spewing sparks until it collided with a tram station pillar and crumpled to the ground.
Above the chaos, the floating upper city loomed like a false heaven — its pristine glass spires shining faintly beneath a violent storm, untouched by the chaos below.
Kael ducked under a dripping awning as his visor scanned the street, parsing out fractured data feeds and broken telemetry:
BEACON SURGE DETECTED
SOURCE: VAULT SIGMA
SECURITY LOCKDOWN: FAILING
ETA: 00:02:37
Kael's chest tightened at the name. Vault Sigma.
Everybody in Orion knew the stories. A Syndicate blacksite buried deep beneath the floating city — locked down before the Shatter. Nobody went in. Nobody came out.
And now something inside it was waking up.
NOVA RAINES
Six levels below, Nova Raines sprinted through the abandoned tram tunnels, boots slapping wet steel grating. Her hood was low, jacket stripped of any reflective tags, designed to ghost into the shadows.
Behind her, Syndicate enforcers thundered after her, rifles snapping arcs of blue light down the corridor. One bolt scorched the concrete inches from her head, sending shards into her cheek.
Nova didn't slow. Her fingers tightened around the Sigma Key, its crystalline surface pulsing faintly in time with her heartbeat. Fractals bloomed and collapsed inside it like an alien lung, each breath of light pulling energy from somewhere she couldn't understand.
Her visor screamed warnings:
TRACE LINKED
VISOR ID: KX-77
OPERATOR: KAEL DRAVEN
Nova cursed under her breath. "Who the hell is Kael Draven?"
Then a sharp hiss of static cut into her comms, followed by a distorted voice:
"Kael Draven, right?"
Kael froze aboveground, visor scanning rogue channels. "Who are you?"
"Someone holding a piece of your Beacon," Nova snapped, breathless but sharp. "And I think it's waking up."
THE LATTICE WAKES
The hum surged, louder and faster now, until every billboard on the block shattered inward. Civilians screamed, scattering as drones crashed into the pavement in showers of sparks.
Kael staggered against a shattered tram girder as his visor overloaded with cascading glyphs. Entire sections of his HUD failed, rebooted, then flooded with red warnings:
ARCHIVE UNLOCKED
TWELVE ANCHORS: 11/12 ACTIVE
ANCHOR 7 = NULL TRACE
PROTOCOL: OVERRIDE
"Nova," Kael rasped, "whatever you're holding—shut it down."
"I can't!" she yelled, ducking another rifle bolt. "It's not listening anymore!"
Then the voice came.
It wasn't coming from the comms this time. It was inside his head. Layered. Deep. Like a hundred voices speaking in unison:
"Operator Draven."
Kael froze. "…Who are you?"
"Protocol override confirmed."
Lightning tore the clouds apart, flooding the streets in violet light. Kael's visor painted the threat in crimson:
INBOUND OBJECT DETECTED
CLASS: UNKNOWN
IMPACT VECTOR: DISTRICT 9
ETA: 00:00:47
Kael's breath caught in his throat.
Through the widening tear in the clouds, something colossal descended — curved hull, spiraling energy rings, alien glyphs carved across its surface like veins of living fire.
Nova's voice sharpened in his comms. "Kael… that's not human."
"Correct," the voice whispered inside his skull.
"Anchor chain compromised."
THE SKY GOES SILENT
And then… everything stopped.
The rain froze midair.
Billboards locked on a single frame.
Drones hung weightless above the pavement.
Even the crowd went silent, their screams suspended on their lips.
Kael's visor dimmed until only one message remained:
WELCOME TO THE LATTICE.
The hum vanished.
Then, without warning, Orion's skyline exploded into white light.