Kael didn't leave his room for the next twenty hours.
He barely ate. Barely blinked.
The memory of the thread still clung to his skin like wet static. That shadowed figure hadn't just been there—it had been waiting for him. Like it knew the exact thread he'd pick, down to the second.
He ran the moment back a hundred times in his mind. Each replay only made the dread coil tighter in his gut.
The trace disc Aya had given him hadn't stopped glowing since.
It sat on his desk now, casting a steady red glow against the metallic surface. No pulse. No flicker. Just a warning that never turned off.
Kael leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. The fan above spun lazily, throwing slow shadows across the walls. The kind of shadows that played tricks on your nerves when you'd been up too long.
His neural tap itched.
He activated it again.
Error. Thread access restricted.
That was new.
He bypassed the restriction—he'd written half the override scripts himself. It wasn't supposed to block him. But now, every jump came with an extra second of lag. A hesitation. Like the system was asking, Are you sure?
He closed the menu.
His fingers tapped against the edge of the desk. Fast. Rhythmic.
Think, Kael. Think.
Aya hadn't given him the disc as a gift. It was a challenge. A test. She wanted him to see what she already knew: that the threads were no longer secure, and someone was learning to move between them undetected.
But why him?
He was just a runner. A ghost. Good at staying invisible and taking peeks into timelines that paid off. That was it.
Unless… he wasn't.
He stood and grabbed his coat.
The city outside was soaked again—rain that came down sharp and straight like it had somewhere to be. Neon bled into puddles. Crowds moved fast, faces low, umbrellas held like shields.
Kael walked with the current, blending in.
His destination wasn't far: a little data café built into the bones of an old subway station, its sign flickering half-alive above the entrance. The place smelled like burnt wiring and synthetic coffee—perfect.
Inside, he booked a private pod.
He pulled the disc from his pocket, set it down, and hooked it into the café's raw feed line. Dangerous. Reckless. But he needed answers, and he needed them now.
The feed flared, then stabilized.
Data rushed past his eyes—thread signatures, old echo remnants, interface failures, ghost logs.
Then something new.
Thread H: Unregistered Observer Signature Detected. Source Unknown. Trace: Live.
He froze.
"Live…?"
The display flashed. A cascade of locations. Time tags. Observation moments. They weren't just watching—they were logging him in real time.
Kael's throat tightened.
This wasn't just surveillance. It was targeting.
The thread records showed the same figure in every echo—same height, same outline, same distortion across the face. A blankness that felt wrong. Unrendered. Like something the timeline refused to finish drawing.
He backed out of the feed. Disconnected.
His vision blurred from the sudden quiet.
If that thing was moving inside threads and seeing him in real time, then Aya was right. He'd already left a trail. And it wasn't just the timeline authorities on him now.
He pulled up his jump module one last time.
Just to test.
"Anchor set," the voice said. "Destination?"
Kael hesitated.
He didn't want a glimpse of wealth this time. No future payout or high-stakes bet. He just needed to know if he could still move unseen.
"Ten minutes forward. No deviation."
The hum built in his ears. The world stretched.
And then—
He landed.
The room looked the same. Same light. Same smell. Except one thing.
The disc was gone.
In its place, a message carved into the wall with something sharp:
"YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE."
Kael yanked back out.
Back in the present, his breath came short and sharp.
He grabbed his coat again, heart pounding.
He had to find Aya.
Not because he trusted her.
But because she was the only other person who'd seen it—and survived.