Chapter 2: Bloodlines and Bounties
The city blurred as Anderson weaved through crowded alleys and neon-lit streets. Digital signs flared warnings in every language. Surveillance bots tracked heat signatures, facial patterns, DNA. Anderson had only one thought—disappear.
He reached the underground metro station at Bank Junction and jumped onto a late-night cargo tram. It wasn't safe, but nothing was. As the train roared into the dark, he pulled the hood of his thermal jacket tight and stared into the reflection of the window. Who were those people? How did they know?
Across the city, news anchors speculated on a tech leak. A stolen formula, whispers of bio-alchemy. Word spread fast. By the next morning, Anderson's image was circulating across black-market networks. A billion-cred bounty was placed on him—alive, preferably.
The world's elite took notice.
In a high-rise tower above Dubai, a corporate magnate named Elias Rendell studied the formula's files from a stolen satellite link. "Immortality," he whispered. "Or something close. Find the boy. Bring me his blood."
Meanwhile, in Geneva, an underground council of biotech leaders convened in secret. Their verdict: eliminate the formula's inheritor before he chose to share it with the public. They dispatched their finest—Agent Vora, trained in psychic manipulation and cybernetic warfare.
Anderson fled London using a fake ID and scrambled his DNA signature with a black-market skin patch. His destination: Edinburgh. He remembered something from the files—an encrypted image of an ancient oak tree marked on a satellite map.
There, under the branches of the oldest tree in the kingdom, might lie the first true answer to the riddle of Z.
But unknown to him, a silent figure had boarded the same train. A woman in grey, watching, waiting.
The hunt had only begun.
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