Certainly! Here is the fully expanded version of:
The system was quieter now. Not gone, not dormant—just… watchful. Like a predator that didn't need to strike immediately because it already knew where its prey would run.
It was always there.
Behind my eyes.
Below the surface of every thought.
Buzzing faintly in the back of my mind like a bad radio signal.
I sat on the cold concrete floor of the backup hideout, hunched over a cracked datapad Reed had salvaged from a decommissioned TVA field archive. The thing was half-fried and probably older than this entire timeline's version of the internet, but it held data. Old data.
And I needed information more than I needed comfort.
The logs inside were scrambled—a blur of corrupted black-and-white footage, mission tags, and wiped identities. But as I decrypted one document after another, a pattern emerged.
The TVA had seen me before. Not "me" as in Evelyn Reyes.
But me, as in the anomaly.
They didn't know my name.
Didn't need it.
All they needed was the signature.
Anchor-Entity 617-B
Designation: Multiversal Interference Host
Status: Uncontained / Watch-Listed
Behavioral Tags: Recursive Loop Potential, Unauthorized System Access, Temporal Instability
I stared at the glowing words for a long time.
My hand tightened around the datapad.
They'd classified me. Tagged me. Watched me without ever knowing who I was.
Just another broken number in an endless list of anomalies.
A fragment. A flaw.
And worse? I hadn't even known they were doing it.
But they knew.
They always knew.
Reed sat on a crate nearby, his eyes flicking occasionally to the flickering feed from a motion sensor Claire had rigged at the stairwell. Claire herself was across the room, checking the makeshift signal dampeners that kept the hideout off-grid.
They looked calm. But I'd learned to read the small things.
Reed's jaw tightened every time the feed blinked.
Claire's fingers tapped out a silent rhythm on the console—measured, constant, but forced.
They weren't calm.
They were waiting.
For me to say something.
For another fight.
For the system to screw us all over again.
I swallowed and set the datapad aside.
They deserved better than silence.
"Hey," I said quietly.
Claire looked up. "Yeah?"
I hesitated. Then nodded toward the cot beside me. "You still remember what I told you. About where I came from."
She gave a half-smile. "Kinda hard to forget the whole 'I was reincarnated by a cosmic troll' thing."
Reed grunted. "Still not sure how you didn't lead with that the moment we met."
I smirked faintly. "Would you have believed me?"
Claire leaned against the desk. "Honestly? After Knox and the sword and the chat group you keep muttering about? Yeah."
That drew a genuine laugh from me. Brief. Bitter. But real.
"I didn't tell you everything," I admitted.
They both quieted again.
I took a slow breath and summoned the system interface. Just a flicker—soft and translucent in the dim light.
"This thing wasn't just given to me," I said. "It was built. Programmed. Designed to integrate into foreign timelines and observe how they react to its presence. I'm not the user—it treats me more like a host."
Reed's brow furrowed. "So you're saying this is… what, some kind of living experiment?"
"Yes," I said. "And I think the people who made it—if they're even people—have been watching since day one. Every time I use it, I leave traces. Multiversal radiation. Temporal anomalies. Echoes that aren't native to this version of reality."
Claire's eyes narrowed. "And they're using those to hunt you."
"They're using them to measure me."
I paused, scrolling through my recent logs.
"After the last fight, when I tapped deeper into the system… I triggered something. Some kind of override response. I think that Executioner was deployed not just to eliminate me—but to observe how far I could push the system. How much power it could release before I lost control."
Reed leaned forward. "You didn't."
"No," I said. "But it wasn't because of the system. It was because I had you two pulling me out of it."
That earned me a subtle nod from him. Not pride. Not relief.
Just… acknowledgment.
Like a soldier recognizing another one trying to survive the impossible.
Claire folded her arms. "So, what do we do now? Just keep running and hope we stay ahead of whatever sick lab technician is pressing buttons from the sky?"
I looked her in the eyes. "We stop playing the game."
An hour passed before Reed found the envelope.
No ID. No markings. Just dropped in front of the sealed fire escape two floors above us, placed so precisely that it had to be deliberate.
He brought it to me without a word.
Inside was a single photo.
A still frame of me standing outside the old Roxxon tunnel entrance three nights ago.
It had been taken from above. The image was crisp. High-angle. No motion blur.
The kind of image you take when you're not just watching someone—
You're tracking them.
On the back of the photo, scrawled in elegant, black ink:
Ready?
I stared at it for a long time. My hands trembled.
Not from fear.
From rage.
Claire stepped up behind me. "That was recent."
Reed took it, turned it in his fingers. "Someone's not just watching. They're letting you know they're watching."
I forced a breath into my lungs. "They're baiting me."
Claire's voice was flat. "It's working."
"No." I looked up at them. "It's not. Because I'm not walking into their trap."
Reed gave me a long look. "So what's the plan?"
I stood slowly, clutching the photo.
"We take the fight to them."
Claire raised an eyebrow. "You mean the people behind the system?"
"I mean the ones pulling the strings—whoever's logging me as 'Anchor 617-B.' The ones who made this thing and thought I wouldn't fight back."
Reed crossed his arms. "And how exactly do we find them?"
I smirked.
"We don't."
Claire blinked. "Then—?"
"We make them come to us."
I tapped the interface again. The system's home screen blinked to life.
And I toggled something I swore I'd never touch:
[Broadcast Protocol – Multiversal Beacon]
Warning: Beacon will reveal location to high-tier observers. Use with extreme caution.
Reed's eyes narrowed. "You're really doing this?"
"I'm tired of being hunted," I said. "Let them come. And this time, we'll be ready."