The air in the studio was thick enough to choke on. Rostova—Anya—stood rigid, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of the console. The professional mask had shattered, revealing raw, volcanic grief.
"Jax," she whispered. "They did this to him. They turned him into a... a weapon."
"He's fighting it, Anya," Kaelen said softly. "His mind is still in there. He's trying to help us. The 'alpha frequency'... he said it's 'in the static.' What did he mean?"
Anya took a shuddering breath, forcing herself back from the brink. "I don't know. But if the Pacification Grid is the trigger, we need to find its control hub. It has to be centralized."
Kaelen's mind was racing, connecting sonic dots. "The Static. My club. It's built in a dead zone, right on top of a major data conduit. The owner, Mama Zero, she's always complaining about the 'weird harmonics' from the city grid. What if the club is a null point? A place the control signal can't reach?"
It made a terrifying sense. A place called "Static" was the one spot a control frequency couldn't penetrate. It was the perfect refuge.
"We need to talk to Mama Zero," Anya said, her voice regaining its steel. "And we need to move. If OmniCorp knows we have this," she gestured to the polymer, "they'll be coming."
As if on cue, the ambient hum of the city outside shifted. A new, pervasive drone filtered through the walls, a sub-sonic vibration that made Kaelen's fillings ache. His console flickered, diagnostics screaming. The Pacification Grid was activating, hours ahead of its scheduled test.
"It's them," Kaelen said, his blood running cold. "They know."
The drone intensified, pressing in on them. For Kaelen, it was a physical assault, a pressure wave of wrongness. But for Anya, it was something else. She clutched her head, a low groan escaping her lips.
"Anya?"
"It's... it's in my head," she gasped. "A buzzing... like... like..."
Like a trigger.
Her eyes flickered, the pupils dilating then contracting rapidly. A low, guttural sound rumbled in her chest, a sound no human should make. The dog tag around her neck felt suddenly like an omen. Jax was her brother's fiancé, but what was he to her? Had she been exposed?
"Anya, fight it!" Kaelen shouted over the rising drone. "It's the frequency! You have to block it out!"
He slammed his hands on his console, pushing his own abilities to their limit. He generated a counter-frequency, a wave of white noise designed to cancel out the grid's signal. It was a desperate, shrieking wall of sound that made the speakers distort.
For a moment, it worked. The pressure receded. Anya staggered, breathing heavily, her eyes clearing. The beast within had been quieted.
But their respite was brief. From the street below came a sound that froze the blood in their veins. Not a police siren. Not a drone. It was a roar. Long, drawn-out, and filled with a predatory intelligence. It was answered by another, closer this time.
They weren't just being hunted by a corporation. They were being hunted by the pack. And the pack was here.