Elias fell, not far, but hard, landing on a makeshift mattress of salvaged fabric and foam. The woman who had pulled him down didn't offer a hand. "You're lucky," she said, her voice a low murmur. "Most of them don't survive the drop."
He scrambled to his feet, disoriented. The air was warmer here, the light softer, filtered through makeshift lamps and strung-up holiday lights. The low hum of the city above was a distant, forgotten echo. This was the nest. He looked around, his mind, so accustomed to the flawless geometry of the city, struggling to process the beautiful chaos of this place. Rusted metal scaffolding supported a ceiling draped with tattered tapestries and old billboards. Walls were covered with graffiti and murals—chaotic bursts of color that would be wiped from existence the moment they appeared on the surface. He saw faces, hundreds of them, all watching him, their expressions a mix of curiosity, suspicion, and a weary, knowing acceptance.
"Who are you?" he stammered, his eyes on the woman.
She pulled back her hood, revealing a face as sharp and intelligent as her voice. She was young, no older than thirty, but her eyes held a cynical wisdom that seemed to stretch back decades. "My name," she said, her lips curling into a dry smile, "is irrelevant. But they call me The Glitch."
The name hit him with the force of a physical blow. The glitch. The very word he had heard on the speaker just hours ago, the thing he now knew himself to be. He looked at her, at the raw, un-coded humanity in her face. This was the voice in the static, the whisper that had led him into a new world.
"You're the one who sent me the message," he said, the words feeling foreign and strange on his tongue.
She nodded. "I saw your query, little auditor. A data-point running an unauthorized search. It was a beautiful thing. A single, perfect flaw in a flawless system. So I gave you a choice. Stay and be erased, or follow the song."
He looked at her, then at the community around them. "Why?" he asked. "Why did you help me?"
The Glitch's eyes hardened, a flash of cold fury passing through them. "Because the Axiom doesn't just erase data," she said, her voice dropping to a low growl. "It erases people. And your sister... she was a friend of mine."