The next morning, Lowwater felt heavier.Not in danger.Not in chaos.
Just aware.
Like the city itself was waiting for something to happen—and it expected Evan to be the one who answered.
He stood inside an empty Lattice maintenance hub on the east side of the city. Long metal corridors stretched in every direction beneath the streets, glowing in soft pulses. The rails hummed under his feet, syncing to his breathing, matching his heartbeat.
Aelira's voice came through the comm. "You haven't talked since last night. You okay?"
Evan rolled his shoulders, steam rising from his armor as the Runbreaker energy simmered under his skin. "Not exactly."
"What part?" Aelira asked. "The alien? The warning? The idea of… beings that erase motion?"
"All of it," he said.
Truth was the encounter with Veylos hadn't scared Evan. It challenged him.
Someone—something—from another world knew his name.They knew about Cross.They recognized his evolution.
And they said others were coming.
That was enough to make every runner instinct in Evan's body go sharp.
Cairn chimed in. "You brought us down here for a reason. What's the plan?"
Evan looked at the glowing rails stretching endlessly beneath the city.
"I'm not waiting for the next thing to find me," he said. "I'm using this time to get faster."
"Faster than you already are?" Aelira scoffed. "You're skipping space. You're breaking tracking systems. You're bending friction. What's left?"
Evan placed his hand on the rail.Violet light flared instantly, racing down the conduits like lightning.
"The Lattice has more speed in it," he said. "I can feel it. And more importantly, it has something buried under it. Something Veylos said remembered me."
Cairn groaned. "Great. So now the city is haunted by something ancient. Just what we needed."
Evan didn't smile.
He activated Ablation Drive.
The world snapped—space blinked—and he appeared at the far end of the corridor.
This time, he didn't vanish completely. He felt the Lattice's resistance brush against him, as if the rail system was trying to hold him inside reality instead of letting him slip out of it.
"Interesting," he muttered.
He dashed again. Faster. Harder.
[Ablation Drive — PARTIAL DELETION] [LATTICE FEEDBACK — PRESENT]
He appeared a hundred meters away, sliding to a stop. The Lattice vibrated under his boots like it was complaining.
Aelira reviewed the telemetry. "You're pushing against the city. It's not just letting you disappear anymore."
"It's adapting," Evan said.
"To what?"
He took a breath.
"To me."
Cairn pinched the bridge of his nose audibly over comm. "Evan, do NOT merge with the entire city. I'm begging you."
"That's not what I'm doing."
"It's exactly what you're doing."
Evan ignored him and sprinted again. This time he didn't use Ablation Drive—he simply ran. Pure speed, raw acceleration, nothing fancy.
The Lattice lit up beneath him, brighter and brighter with each step, until the entire corridor became a tunnel of violet fire.
[RUNBREAKER FIELD — 92%] [AUTO-ACCELERATION — RISING] [PHYSIOLOGY — ADAPTING]
Evan felt everything sharpening—vision, hearing, reflexes, control. His thoughts split into dozens of parallel lines, each analyzing a different part of the rail network.
Then—He sensed it.
A deep pulse beneath the Lattice.Like a heartbeat under the city's heartbeat.
Something old.Something powerful.Something watching him.
He slid to a stop.
"…there it is again."
Aelira stiffened. "The… thing under the city?"
"Yeah."
Cairn's voice flattened. "Describe 'thing.' Preferably in a way that doesn't make me want to quit my job."
Evan closed his eyes and listened.
It wasn't a voice.It wasn't words.It was rhythm.
A pattern.A beat that matched his steps—but older, slower, deeper.Like something enormous was sleeping under the city, and his speed was nudging it awake.
"It's not hostile," Evan said. "Not yet. But it reacts every time I use the Lattice."
"So stop using the Lattice," Cairn snapped.
"I can't," Evan replied. "If aliens notice my power, if something is coming, I need everything the city can give me. And I need whatever this thing is."
Aelira whispered, "You want to wake it up…"
"No," Evan said. "I want to understand it."
He crouched and pressed his hand to the rail again.
The pulse under the city grew louder.Stronger.Closer.
And suddenly—
A system box flashed across his visor.
[ANCIENT NETWORK SIGNAL DETECTED] [SOURCE: DEEP UNDERGROUND] [NAME: REDACTED] [STATUS: DORMANT / PARTIALLY AWARE] [NOTE: ENTITY RESPONDING TO USER'S SPEED]
Evan's pulse quickened.
Aelira breathed, "What the hell is that thing's name? Why is it redacted?"
Cairn muttered, "Oh fantastic. We've found the city's final boss."
Evan ignored both of them.
Instead, he whispered to himself, "If this thing remembers me… then I'll be ready when it wakes."
The Lattice pulse steadied, almost like a heartbeat syncing with his.
Evan stood, sparks dancing around his boots.
"Time to train," he said.
And he vanished into a blur of violet light—running through every rail, every corridor, every abandoned tunnel under Lowwater, pushing himself harder and harder as the ancient rhythm beneath the city slowly, inevitably, began to stir.