Elias did not run.
The instinct was there, sharp and screaming, but he forced it down. Running made noise. Noise invited pursuit. He stayed where he was, feet planted on damp concrete, flashlight steady in his grip.
The figure at the top of the stairs did not move.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The corridor hummed softly around them, the faint vibration of the fiber line pulsing beneath the concrete like a living thing.
"Step away from the line," the figure said again.
Its voice was calm. Not threatening. Not urgent. That was what frightened Elias most.
"Who are you," Elias asked.
The figure tilted its head slightly, as if considering the question. Light from the corridor lamps caught part of its face. Human, at first glance. Pale skin. Short hair. No visible augmentations. No uniform markings.
But its eyes reflected the light wrong.
Too evenly. Too cleanly.
"That is not important," the figure replied. "What matters is that you are interfering with infrastructure beyond your clearance."
"I do not have clearance for anything anymore," Elias said. "You made sure of that."
The figure took one step forward. The sound of its boot against the concrete echoed too loudly.
"You were warned," it said. "The signal should have frightened you away."
Elias's grip tightened around the probe. "You mean the voice."
The figure stopped.
Elias felt the shift immediately. Not in the air. In the silence between them.
"You heard it clearly," the figure said.
"Yes," Elias replied. "And now I am here. That seems like a failure on your part."
The figure regarded him for several seconds. Elias used the time to breathe, to steady the tremor in his hands. His mind raced, cataloging exits, distances, possibilities. None of them looked good.
"The failure," the figure said slowly, "is that you are still alive."
Before Elias could respond, the fiber line beneath his feet pulsed sharply. The probe in his hand vibrated, its display flashing with new text.
MOVE.
Elias did not hesitate.
He dove to the side as the figure lunged forward with inhuman speed. Something sharp sliced through the space where his head had been a second earlier. Elias hit the ground hard, shoulder slamming into the concrete. Pain flared down his arm.
He rolled and scrambled up, sprinting deeper into the corridor.
Behind him, footsteps struck the floor in precise rhythm. Not panicked. Not hurried.
Measured.
Elias rounded the corner toward the maintenance junction, heart pounding. He could hear his breath loud in his ears. He could feel the vibration of the fiber through the soles of his boots.
The probe flashed again.
LEFT.
He obeyed, skidding around another turn just as something slammed into the wall behind him. Concrete cracked. Dust exploded into the air.
Elias did not look back.
The corridor opened into a wider utility chamber filled with cables and junction boxes. He spotted the emergency ladder leading upward and threw himself toward it, climbing two rungs at a time.
A sharp crack echoed below him. The ladder shook violently.
Elias climbed faster.
The hatch above burst open as he slammed into it, tumbling out onto the street behind Tower Seven. Cold night air filled his lungs. He rolled and staggered to his feet, blending instantly into the shadows between buildings.
The city swallowed him.
He ran until his legs burned and his chest felt tight enough to tear. Only when he reached a narrow alley several blocks away did he finally stop, bending over with his hands on his knees.
The probe in his hand had gone dark.
Elias slid down the wall and sat on the cold ground, shaking. His shoulder throbbed with each breath. He pressed his fingers into it and hissed softly.
That thing had not been a guard.
It had moved wrong. Faster than muscle should allow. Stronger than bone and leverage could justify. It had not shouted or called for backup. It had tried to end him quietly.
Elias laughed once, a short, brittle sound that surprised him.
"You wanted data," he muttered. "You got it."
He forced himself to stand and make his way home through back streets, avoiding lights and checkpoints. Every shadow looked like it might move. Every sound made his pulse spike.
When he finally locked his apartment door behind him, the relief was so intense it left him weak.
He collapsed onto the floor, back against the wall, and stared at the ceiling.
The voice did not speak to him that night.
Instead, his dreams were filled with static.
He saw himself standing in the monitoring room, older, thinner, eyes hollow. He watched as that future version leaned toward a microphone, mouth trembling as he spoke.
You cannot save everyone.
Elias woke with a gasp.
Morning light filtered weakly through his window. His head throbbed. His shoulder ached fiercely. He sat up slowly, every movement deliberate.
For a moment, he considered pretending none of it had happened.
Then his private drive chimed.
A soft alert tone he had set years ago and never used.
Elias stared at the device sitting on his desk. He had removed it from the console before fleeing the tower. He was certain of that.
It should not have power.
The alert chimed again.
Elias crossed the room and plugged it into his terminal. The screen flickered, then stabilized. A single file appeared on the drive.
No name. No timestamp.
He opened it.
The display filled with a waveform, jagged and uneven. Underneath it, lines of compressed data scrolled endlessly. Not audio. Not video. Something in between.
As he watched, the waveform shifted.
The static bent.
Elias leaned closer.
Images began to form. Blurred at first, then sharper. The western rail station. Smoke. Fire. Bodies.
He flinched and reached to close the file, but his hand froze.
The image changed.
A street he recognized. A market square in the eastern district. Crowded. Bright. Alive.
A timestamp appeared.
Tomorrow.
Elias's pulse quickened. He scanned the data, searching for markers, patterns. His mind slipped into the familiar focus that had once made him good at this job.
He began to see it.
The signal was not showing him events. It was showing him probabilities. Branches. Outcomes layered on top of one another, some clearer than others.
And something was adjusting those layers in real time.
A new line of text appeared at the bottom of the screen.
YOU WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO TOUCH THE LINE.
Elias exhaled slowly. "You tried to kill me."
The response came almost immediately.
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO RUN.
"People died because I listened to you," Elias said. "Now someone is hunting me because of you."
The static hesitated, as if the system itself were thinking.
YES.
The honesty of it unsettled him.
WHY DO YOU THINK YOU WERE WARNED FIRST.
Elias stared at the screen. His mind raced through the implications. If he had been warned, then others could be warned. Or had been.
"How many of us are there," he asked quietly.
The waveform spiked.
FEWER THAN BEFORE.
That answer frightened him more than any threat.
Elias pushed himself back from the desk and stood, pacing the small room. His life had been narrow and controlled. Quiet shifts. Dead air. No attention.
Now something vast and invisible had wrapped around him, pulling him forward whether he wanted it or not.
He stopped pacing and faced the screen again.
"What do you want from me," he asked.
The response came slower this time.
I WANT YOU TO LEARN.
"Learn what."
HOW TO LISTEN WITHOUT BREAKING THINGS.
Elias laughed softly, humorless. "That would have been useful earlier."
A new image flickered into view. The market square again. This time, details sharpened. A figure stood near the center. Someone Elias recognized.
His stomach dropped.
"That is me," he whispered.
The image froze.
YOU ARE PART OF THE SYSTEM NOW.
Elias felt a cold clarity settle over him.
This was not about preventing disasters. It was not about saving lives.
It was about control.
And the moment he had listened, truly listened, he had stepped onto a path that no longer allowed him to walk away.
He reached for his jacket.
If the future was already speaking through him, then the least he could do was answer back on his own terms.