The sirens were not a warning. In Sector 4, sirens were a eulogy.
Lara Myles didn't wait for the SKYLINE broadcast to finish. She was already running.
The streets of the lower district were a slurry of panicked civilians and opportunistic looters, all bathed in the rotating crimson light of the emergency beacons. Above them, the holographic face of Caelen Rhez smiled down, freezing in a loop of victorious footage, but Lara didn't look up.
Her lungs burned. Her boots slammed against the wet pavement, splashing through puddles of oil and rainwater.
"Structural failure reported at Tower 07. Cleaning crews dispatched."
The automated announcement echoed from the speaker poles, calm and terrifyingly vague.
"Move!" Lara screamed, shoving past a group of commuters who were staring at their datapads, paralyzed by the news.
She didn't care about the Cycle. She didn't care about the Dome. She only cared about the message she had received from the logistics terminal three minutes ago: [ INCIDENT REPORT: WESTERN HINGE. TWO CASUALTIES. ONE CRITICAL. ]
Kade was on the Hinge.
She ran until her chest felt like it was filled with glass. She ran past the Noodle-Vault where they ate on Fridays, past the pawn shops where Kade bought spare parts for his projects, and toward the sterile, white fortress that loomed over the slums like a tombstone.
The ORB Medical Authority.
The gates were sealed. A line of Peacekeepers in riot gear stood behind the energy barrier, their faces hidden behind reflective visors. A crowd of families was already pressing against the light-wall, begging for news.
Lara didn't stop. She hit the barrier with her palms, ignoring the static shock that stung her skin.
"My name is Lara Myles!" she shouted at the nearest guard. "My partner is in there! Kade Mercer. He's a technician!"
The Peacekeeper didn't flinch. "Facility is under lockdown. Contamination protocols are active. Step back, citizen."
"He was on the Hinge!" Lara's voice cracked, tears finally spilling over. "He's not Contaminated! He's... just tell me if he's alive!"
The guard turned his head slightly. "If he was on the Hinge during the breach, citizen, he's not just Contaminated. He's gone. Go home. Wait for the notification."
Lara staggered back, the breath knocked out of her.
Gone.
She looked at the white walls of the ORB. It was the only place on Domini that could treat Aether-rot, but for people like Kade—people without a high Kill Index, without AXIOM in their accounts—it was usually just a place where they certified the death certificates.
She slid down the wall, pulling her knees to her chest. The rain began to fall, cold and grey.
"He's not gone," she whispered, shivering. "He promised he'd fix the heater tonight."
Inside the ORB, Pain was the first thing that returned.
It wasn't the sharp, clean sting of a cut. It was a heavy, suffocating pressure, as if his blood had been replaced with molten lead.
Kade Mercer gasped, his eyes snapping open.
White light flooded his vision. He tried to sit up, but a wave of agony slammed him back down against the bio-bed. He was wrapped tight—layer upon layer of sterile, synthesis-fiber bandages covered his chest, his left shoulder, and his arm. They were stained with a faint, violet seepage that smelled of ozone and sickness.
"He's awake," a voice whispered. It sounded terrified.
"Impossible. Check the monitors again."
Kade blinked, his vision clearing. He was in a high-security isolation ward of the ORB Medical Authority. Standing behind the observation glass were three senior specialists, men and women in pristine white coats who usually only attended to the Elites.
They weren't looking at him like a patient. They were looking at him like a ghost.
"The residue concentration in his bloodstream is lethal," one doctor muttered, reading a holographic slate. "He shouldn't just be dead. He should be dissolving. But... look at the heart rate. It's steady."
"It's a miracle," the other replied, her voice trembling. "There's no other word for it. The toxins are settling. His body isn't fighting them; it's... housing them."
Kade groaned, the sound scraping against his raw throat. He tried to move his left arm, but it felt numb, heavy, and alien.
A nursing aide, a young man in a hazmat suit, stepped cautiously to the side of the bed. He held a hydration tube, his hands shaking slightly.
"Easy, Mr. Mercer," the aide stammered. "Don't try to move. You... you took a direct hit from a crystalline shard. You've been unconscious for twelve hours."
Kade ignored the pain. His mind raced to the one thing that mattered.
"Lara," Kade rasped.
The aide leaned closer. "Sir?"
"My partner," Kade wheezed, forcing the words out through the heaviness in his chest. "Lara Myles. Sector 4. She... she watches the news. She thinks I'm dead."
He grabbed the aide's wrist. His grip was weak, but his eyes were desperate.
"You have to tell her," Kade pleaded. "Please. Tell her I'm alive. Tell her... it's going to take a while. I'm going to be stuck in here recovering. But tell her I didn't die."
The aide looked at the doctors behind the glass, then back at Kade. He nodded slowly. "I'll send the message, sir. I'll make sure she knows."
Kade let his head fall back against the pillow. The message was sent. That was enough.
He closed his eyes, listening to the beep of the machines. The doctors were still whispering about miracles and divine intervention. They didn't understand.
Kade could feel the "miracle" inside him. It wasn't divine. It was cold. It was hungry. And it was waiting.
[ SEVEN DAYS LATER ]
The recovery was slow, agonizing, and baffling to the medical staff.
For a week, Kade lay in the isolation ward. Every time they changed his bandages, the nurses held their breath, expecting to see gangrene or rot. Instead, they found scars—jagged, grey, metallic-looking lines where the skin had knit together with impossible density.
The "Miracle Patient," they called him.
When the discharge papers were finally signed, the Chief Medical Officer shook Kade's hand with a look of genuine bewilderment.
"We have no data to explain this, Mr. Mercer," the doctor said. "By every medical law on Domini, a commoner exposed to that amount of Aether should be dead in minutes. You are... very lucky. Go home. Rest."
Kade didn't feel lucky. He felt heavy.
He walked out of the ORB's massive front gates, carrying his ruined vest in a plastic bag. The bandages were gone, hidden beneath a fresh grey shirt, but the weight on his shoulder remained.
The sun was setting over Sector 4, casting long, rusted shadows across the plaza. The air smelled of rain and exhaust.
Kade took a deep breath. For the first time in his life, the air didn't just smell like smog. He could smell the metal in the air. He could feel the vibration of the mag-lev trains three blocks away, humming in his teeth.
He adjusted his collar, hiding the grey scar on his neck, and stepped into the crowd, just another face in the sea of workers.
[ ROOFTOP SECTOR 4 - OVERLOOKING ORB PLAZA ]
High above the street, perched on the gargoyle of a Gothic-style ventilation tower, two figures watched him.
They were wrapped in matte-black cloaks that seemed to drink the light, making them invisible to the naked eye and thermal scanners alike. The rain slicked off their armor, but they didn't move.
"There he is," a woman whispered. Her voice was carried over a localized, encrypted frequency. "The Miracle Patient."
She adjusted the magnification on her visor. The reticle locked onto Kade Mercer's back as he merged into the pedestrian traffic.
"Miracle," the man beside her scoffed. His voice was deep, rumbling like a subterranean engine. "That's what the ORB calls it when their textbooks fail. They think God saved him."
"We know better, Fritz," the woman said. She tapped the side of her helmet, capturing a biometric scan of Kade.
The data streamed across her HUD. It didn't show the normal vitals of a human recovering from injury. It showed a chaotic, swirling energy signature—a void where a life force should be.
"Look at his gait," she observed. "He's favoring the left side, but not because of pain. Because it's denser. He absorbed the Residue, Fritz. He didn't survive it. He ate it."
Fritz stood up, his massive, prosthetic arms clicking softly as he engaged the magnetic locks on his gear.
"A Late Bloomer," Fritz rumbled. "Born from a lethal dose. I haven't seen one of those in twenty years."
"He doesn't know what he is yet," the woman said, her silver hair catching the last light of the sun as she lowered her hood. "He thinks he just got lucky. He thinks he's going back to fixing pipes and eating nutrient paste."
She pulled a heavy, hooked poleaxe from her back.
"Keep a track on him, Lexi," Fritz ordered. "If AXIS figures out what he really is, they'll dissect him before breakfast. We need to get to him first."
Lexi smiled, a sharp, dangerous expression. "He's heading toward the slums. Let's see if his new instincts notice us."
Below them, Kade Mercer stopped walking. He tilted his head slightly, as if listening to a sound no one else could hear—the sound of eyes watching him from the dark.
The Iron Vow had found their target. And the miracle was about to become a weapon.