Six days.
That's all the file said.
> "Pulsefracture Alpha: ACTIVATION LOCKED — 6 DAYS REMAINING."
Not a warning.
Not a threat.
A promise.
---
Inside the Anchor Circle, the mood shifted.
Tension pulled the air tighter.
Zina noticed it first. She kept glancing at the sky, as if she could feel the countdown in her skin. Layla stayed quiet, more distant than usual. The others followed her lead — not out of trust, but uncertainty.
And Anthony?
He didn't sleep that night.
---
In the war room, the squad gathered before dawn.
Confidence flicked through the latest seismic charts. "The next artificial Beacon is under Cairo. Civilian dense. Geo-shielded."
Ken exhaled sharply. "So no explosions this time."
Chi-Chi crossed her arms. "We go in quiet. Disable the core. Ghost out."
Anthony nodded. "You'll take Ken and Emmy. Keep eyes on everything. If it activates—"
"We break it," Chi-Chi said.
Anthony looked at her. "No unnecessary damage. Cairo's a city. Not a battlefield."
Ken grunted. "Then let's keep it that way."
---
As the squad packed up, Layla lingered near the stairwell — half-listening.
She touched her comm piece.
It pulsed.
Not with light.
With voice.
> "Five more days. Then you choose."
---
Later that day, Anthony met with the remaining students inside the southern corridor.
Zina sat between two new arrivals — a soft-spoken girl named Mira who could freeze light for a few seconds, and a boy named Ibra who couldn't control his gravity shift yet.
Anthony kept his tone gentle.
"You're not weapons. You're not burdens. You're people. And I'm not here to shape you. I'm here to help you learn how to shape yourselves."
One of the kids asked, "What if we mess up?"
Anthony smiled.
"Then we rebuild. Together."
---
But even as he spoke, another student watched silently from the doorway.
The boy with the flickering shadow — his name was Sol.
He was quiet. Polite.
Too polite.
He barely reacted when the Pulse readings shifted.
Never flinched during scans.
His readings were low.
Too low.
But his shadow…
It twitched when he wasn't moving.
And that night — when no one was awake — it moved without him.
---
Meanwhile, across the sea of sand and stone, Chi-Chi's team approached Cairo on foot.
Confidence's drone swept ahead.
"No resistance. No surveillance. Which means…"
Ken said it before she could.
"Trap."
They entered through a half-collapsed metro station that had once served tourists.
Now, it served something else.
---
Emmy stopped at the first Beacon pulse line.
"It's humming with artificial sync," she said. "But the energy isn't settling. It's angry."
Chi-Chi led them deeper.
They reached the core in twenty minutes.
It was massive — six times larger than the last.
And it was still growing.
---
Back at the Anchor Circle, Anthony entered the Beacon room — the old dome where he first stood as Anchor Prime.
The lines glowed faintly.
And the voice came again.
Not Kairo this time.
The other one.
The one from the vision.
The figure of light and void.
> "You are running out of time."
"He isn't building a grid."
"He's building a replacement world."
"One that listens only to him."
---
Layla stood outside the dome.
She heard nothing.
But somehow, she knew.
---
In Cairo, Emmy planted Beacon dampeners around the artificial core.
Chi-Chi ran a pulse scan.
"It's two days from full activation."
Ken set down his gear. "We're breaking it now?"
Confidence nodded. "Minimal blast. Maximum disruption. We'll be ghosts."
They armed the charge.
But then—
The core pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
> "SYSTEM AWARE."
"ANCHOR PRESENCE DETECTED."
"KAIRO ONLINE."
---
A voice echoed through the tunnel.
> "I expected you sooner, Chi-Chi."
"Disappointing."
Chi-Chi snapped, "Step into the light and say that."
> "No need."
"I'm already inside the Circle."
---
Back at the Anchor base, every light went out.
Not broken.
Hijacked.
Anthony ran to the control panel.
The Beacon lines began shifting — bending toward one of the dorms.
Inside it: Sol.
Standing still.
Eyes closed.
Shadow stretching toward the ceiling.
---
Emmy screamed through the comm: "Anthony! He's not just broadcasting! He's puppeteering!"
Anthony sprinted.
Zina met him halfway. "Sol—he's glowing!"
The two burst into the room.
Sol's body convulsed — levitating above the floor.
The Beacon shard on his neck glowed red.
A voice came from his mouth.
> "You built an Anchor."
"I became the fault line."
"You saved the world."
"Now watch it split."
---
Anthony reached him just as the pulse exploded.
But not outward.
Inward.
Sol collapsed.
Alive — but burned from the inside.
His shadow hissed once… then vanished.
---
Anthony stared at the boy's body.
This wasn't a fracture.
It was a warning.
---
Chi-Chi's voice came through the comm.
"Core's neutralized. But we've got four more grid points."
Ken added, "And Kairo just taunted us through a kid."
Anthony clenched his fists.
"He's inside the system now."
Confidence patched in. "We don't have six days. We barely have three."
---
That night, Anthony stood outside the Beacon circle.
Layla joined him.
"Did you know he could do that?" he asked.
"No," she said.
"But it was the next step."
Anthony stared up at the sky.
"At the end of this... I don't think we both get to walk away."
Layla said nothing.
Because she agreed.