Chapter 3: Conduction
Chapter 3: Conduction
The world slowed as Kai fell.
Wind curled around his body like fluid. His muscles relaxed into the drop, his mind calculating the shifting trajectories of the rusted fire escape, the wind resistance off the side of the tower, the way the pressure was distorting below. His cybernetic eye pulsed with vector lines—green for stable, red for critical. Dozens of numbers flashed past his vision. Angles. Acceleration. Mass. Impact force.
He landed in a crouch, knees bent, boots striking the pavement with barely a sound. The impact shock was absorbed by a micro-twitch of his calves, his own ability redirecting the kinetic force sideways—into a ripple that cracked the concrete beside him instead of breaking his bones.
He stood, slowly.
The overpass loomed ahead, a rotting skeleton of metal and brick, covered in graffiti and soot. Light flickered overhead from a busted streetlamp, shards of it still floating in midair as if time had paused. The ambient pressure was rising—not visible to the human eye, but he could see it.
The girl was about to lose control.
He stepped forward, calmly.
—Under the Overpass—
Lana was on her knees now.
Her breath came fast, uneven. The world around her moved—not in space, but in sound. The vibrations weren't just echoes anymore; they were shapes. Spheres of pressure expanding outward with every breath she exhaled. The street under her boots had begun to ripple subtly, like the surface of disturbed water.
Every sound fed her.
The hiss of steam from a nearby pipe. The distant hum of a broken drone. The crackle of a frayed power line.
It all entered her bones, then amplified.
She clenched her teeth, dug her fingers into the pavement.
She didn't know what was happening to her. Only that it had started a week ago—after a fever, after the nosebleeds, after the dreams where everything screamed and shattered.
She wanted to stop it, but she didn't know how.
"Hey," a voice called.
She flinched, eyes darting toward the sound.
A man was approaching—tall, lean, black coat moving like oil in the wind. He walked like a ghost. Controlled. Dangerous. His right eye glowed dimly with a swirling ring of cyan light.
"Don't move," he said, voice low, measured.
"W-who are you?" she stammered.
"Someone who doesn't want you to blow out your own brain."
Her hand flexed. The sound swirled.
"I don't know what's happening—"
"You're resonating," he interrupted, stepping closer. "Auditory-laced kinetic bleed. Your body's taking in ambient pressure and amplifying it. That sound in your head? That's your nervous system trying to regulate itself. But it's not. It's feeding back into the environment."
She stared at him, barely understanding the words—but her fear twisted into something worse.
Recognition.
"You're one of them," she whispered. "A Null."
His expression darkened.
"No," he said. "I kill Nulls."
He stopped about five feet away. His hand hovered slightly near his coat, but he didn't reach for a weapon. Instead, he tilted his head, watching her like a scientist studying a volatile chemical reaction.
"Listen to me," he said. "You're going to spike in the next sixty seconds. If you don't level out, the vibration will fracture your ribcage from the inside. You'll die before you even realize it's happening."
She shook her head. "I—I can't stop it."
"Yes, you can."
"I'm not like him—"
The bracelet on her wrist shimmered. Kai's eye caught it immediately. Letters. NOAH.
Another Residual. Probably dead. That explained it.
"I don't want to hurt anyone," she said, eyes glossy. "I just—just wanted to understand."
Kai took a slow breath, then exhaled.
"Then listen very carefully."
Kai's PoV– Vector Vision Active
The girl's pressure field was unstable—raw resonance bleeding into the air in expanding waves, each more intense than the last. If it went unchecked, she'd create a low-frequency burst capable of liquefying every eardrum within twenty meters.
He didn't have the tools to dampen her frequencies—no echo stabilizers, no dampers, no meds.
But he had math.
He activated a micro-override in his neural port. His vision bloomed with new lines—arcs, patterns of compression in air density, wave distortion, heat signatures. He could see the sonic pulse forming in her chest, like a growing sun ready to rupture.
He had to cancel the vector.
But if he miscalculated by a decimal, she'd drop dead. Her lungs would collapse under the sudden force null.
He stepped forward and reached out a hand.
"You trust me?"
Her eyes widened. "No."
"Good," he said. "Means you're smart. But do it anyway."
She hesitated—then nodded once.
He moved.
His fingers brushed her forehead—less than a second. Just long enough.
The feedback hit him like a hammer.
His own body jerked backward, bones screaming with redirected pressure. He stumbled but didn't fall. His hand smoked from internal friction burns. His vision blurred.
But the wave—stopped.
The air went silent.
Lana collapsed forward, gasping.
Kai leaned against the wall, panting, skin cold, heart racing. He stared at her for a moment longer. She was alive. Unconscious, maybe, but stable.
He crouched beside her and muttered quietly to no one in particular.
"Welcome to the club."